Terrorism in Southeast Asia - Essay Example

Background The changing face of the terrorism has been posing new challenges to the region of Southeast Asia in many ways. The countries as Indonesia, Philippines, USA and, Malaysia are among those countries which are facing the challenge to work on there policies against the terrorism that is being generated and pulled up by the terrorist organizations. The terrorist organizations are rooted throughout the world. These countries have a variety of pressures to face from not only the terrorist organizations but also the internal pressures that are developing in these countries from within. As a result of this situation, the countries have started increasing there relations with the other countries which are changing and amending their policies with regards to facing the challenges against the terrorist and their plans. In spite of that fact if US being the most powerful state on the planet up till now, as well as that US has its assertive role in the region, the regions and the countries that have been facing the terrorism have not exactly been backing the US in case of the terrorism. It is to be seen as to why that is he case. Now the case has changes to some extent as we shall see in the case of Indonesia (Capie 2004., pp 1-3). South East Asia has been having periodical episodes of terror campaign as well as the episodes of political violence. Both scenarios are related ad counted in the terrorism heading. The terrorist activities include the communists group that is based in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. The activities are linked against the socialist regimes in these countries. In many cases, the terrorist activities have been directed against some states. As it happened in case of Christian anti-separatist groups in the southern Philippines who were opposing Muslim secessionists and militia groups in East Timor, Papua and various other parts of Indonesia. There have been some developments taking place after the war in Afghanistan in the era of 1980s. In this war, US supported mujahhedin guerillas fought against the soviet occupation forces. Since the 1980s, there have been changes in the face of the terrorist groups and the terrorism in the region (Manyin 2003., pp 12-17). Analysis The role of Afghans has been central to the development of the terrorist networks in south East Asia since many years. There are approximately 230 million Muslims in south East Asia, which is just the 20% of the total percentage of the Muslims in the whole world. This 20% of the Muslim population has moderate views about other religious groups. However, the extreme forms arose from other parts of the world including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The terrorist groups in these areas were making an appeal to the people to join them. The appeal was strengthened and heightened when there was a recruitment process that went on to recruit the people to fight against the resistance forces of Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Many powerful leaders of the Islamic groups based in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia joined the terrorist groups and were trained, and they served in Afghanistan. After this recruitment stage, there was a boost in the Islamic resistance in Afghanistan on a large scale. This added a lot to the new changes in the face of the Southeast Asian Islamic separatism. The funding was also being gained from stronger movements that were based on an international level having strong financial backgrounds. The role of socio economic factors The socio economic status has further added to the activities of the fundamental Islamic groups in Southeast Asia. All the Islamic movements need to have autonomy. Nevertheless, their mission of gaining autonomy has been under resistance. The resistance has been shown by many central governments. Alternatively, in some cases, the autonomy has been gained but it has been used or implemented in an ineffective way as in the case of southern Philippines. The madrasaas The world saw Asia drown in the financial crisis in the year 1997. Since than there has bean a pressure on the regional governments to be spending the money on very important and the areas that are prioritized that is education. This was the reason of the hype in the religious school build up. In this case, the religious Islamic movements started supporting the students' families economically in case of any student died in the fight against the anti Islamic group. Thus, the poor families started sending their sons to the madrasaas (Frost., pp 1-4). Intervention of international governments to counter terrorism in Southeast Asia Since USA faced the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001; there has been an increase in the actions to harmonize the regional and international actions help against the terrorism acts in the region of Southeast Asia. One step was an announcement that was made by Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to increase the cooperation in this matter by calling up annual meeting of the ministers that was held between July to august in the year 2002. Since the attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001, efforts have increased to harmonize regional and international action against terrorism in Southeast Asia. USA, during these meetings, signed an Anti terrorist agreement with all the members of ASEAN on the 30th of July 2002. The role of Australia in counter terrorism in Southeast Asia Most of the countries on the international level are playing the best possible roles to make several steps to control the terrorist activities in the region of Southeast Asia. Australia has been on the front to support any anti terrorism efforts pulled against the terrorist activities in Southeast Asia. Thereby in this regard, Australia has signed memorandums of understanding with several of Southeast Asian countries. The role of Thailand The recent intervention made by Thailand was an agreement that helps in building strong ties between Australia and Thai law enforcement agencies including the defense and security agencies. Under this specific agreement, the Australian and Thai agencies will trade all of the information and intelligence related to the international terrorist activities. The trading information also includes the activities of the terrorist groups that encompass the transnational planned crimes. In this regard, the security and the defense agencies will also consider on fighting against the organizations that are financing the terrorism groups (Manyin 2003., pp 13-18)/ Indonesia: the Focus of Terrorist Organizations The attraction in Indonesia Indonesia is one Asian state having a weak central government control, has instability of social and political nature. This is the country having concentrated muslim population. Because of the financial crisis in 1997 and under President Suhartos reign in 1998, the central government control of Indonesia has been weakening with every passing second. Majority of the Muslims in Indonesia have a moderate view on Islam. The fundamentalists have been successful in raising the radical views taking advantage of the internal problems that Indonesia is facing. Internal problems that are being faced by the Indonesian people include the movement of the separatist groups in the Indonesian provinces, continuous struggle for strengthening the central government hold on the state, stabilizing the financial terms since the 1997 crisis. The radical Islamic groups as Lashkar e Jihad and the Islamic defender front has been known to be receiving the help from the Indonesian military. It has been helping the radical Islamic groups in securing and organizing the arms for the fighting purpose. Changes in Jakarta's anti-terrorism policies There was a change in the anti terrorism policies in Jakarta that were made after the bombings in Bali in October 2002. Before that, the policies that were present in the anti terrorist manual of Indonesia, the Malaysian, U.S., and Singaporean officials did not welcome the policies. The policies reflected the decreased level of cooperation by the Indonesian government towards the anti terrorist actions. After the Bali bombings, Indonesia gave the terrorism a serious note. Jeemah Islamia killed many Indonesian civilians and that made the Indonesian authorities to star cooperating with the US authorities. The Indonesian government in July 2003; by the J.W. Marriott bombing faced further terrorism activites. This lead to many arrests, and an Indonesian police raid uncovering a possible JI assassination plot of four members of the Peoples Representative Council (DPR). After that, Indonesia and US has been cooperating the anti terrorism activities in many ways where the help is going to the police, security officials, prosecutors, legislators, immigration officials, banking regulators and all others. The help that has been given to the officials is in the form of financial aid to fight against the terrorism in the country. Islamic parties take part in Indonesian elections There was an increase in the election appeals made by the Islamic groups from 16% in the year 1999 to 21.34% in the year 2004. The basic motto that was being publicized by these parties was the strict Islamic rule instead of promoting the anticorruption and building and working on better governance in the state (Frost., pp 5-8). Role of ASEAN in counter terrorism ASEAN has started many training programmers and projects in response to counter terrorism in the year of 2003, which include psychological operation and psychological warfare courses for law enforcement authorities and on intelligence procuring. There are some courses on bomb/explosive detection, post-blast investigation, airport security and passport/document security and inspection are also planned (Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Ali Alatas, ASEAN. Institutes of Strategic and International Studies 2001., pp 90-94). The Annual Conference of ASEAN Chiefs of Police (ASEANAPOL), which was held in May 2002, wanted a joint cooperation among the ASEANAPOL members in fighting against the terrorism. ASEAN Chief of Police are committed to developing capacity-building initiatives to make sure that each ASEANAPOL member has the ability to efficiently monitor, share information on and battle all forms of terrorist activities. The members have also agreed to enhance cooperation among law enforcement agencies through the sharing of experiences on counter-terrorism and the exchange of information on suspected terrorists, organizations and their modus operandi (Smith 2004., pp 34-45). Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines signed the Agreement on Information Exchange and Establishment of Communication Procedures to cooperate among them to fight international crime, including terrorism in May 2002. ASEAN iscooperating with China, Japan and the Republic of Korea under the ASEAN+3 process of East Asia collaboration to address the pressure of terrorism and global crimes. The counter-terrorism plan is a part of the blueprint plan for an ASEAN Political-Security Community to be adopted by South-East Asian leaders on Sunday in the Thai resort town of Hua Hin. The draft of the document shows that ASEAN will work towards the entry into force of the ASEAN Convention on Counter-Terrorism by 2009 (ASEAN 2006., 90-94). The convention, signed in January 2007, provides a framework for regional cooperation to counter, prevent ress terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. The draft plan requires for the exchange of intelligence and the prevention of one ASEAN member's authoroity and ability to plan, finance or facilitate attacks on another. The blueprint also contains ASEAN's commitment to fight corruption, fight against piracy and develop an early warning system to prevent the occurrence of fights (Watchawankhu 2006., pp 12-15). Conclusions The changing face of the terrorism has been posing new challenges to the region of Southeast Asia in many ways. The countries as Indonesia, Philippines, USA and, Malaysia are among those countries which are facing the challenge to work on there policies against the terrorism that is being generated and pulled up by the terrorist organizations. The terrorist organizations are rooted throughout the world. The role of Afghans has been central to the development of the terrorist networks in south East Asia since many years. The extreme forms arose from other parts of the world including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The terrorist groups in these areas were making an appeal to the people to join them. The appeal was strengthened and heightened when there was a recruitment process that went on to recruit the people to fight against the resistance forces of Soviet Union in Afghanistan. One step was an announcement that was made by Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to increase the cooperation in this matter by calling up annual meeting of the ministers that was held between July to august in the year 2002. ASEAN has started many training programmers and projects in response to counter terrorism in the year of 2003, which include psychological operation and psychological warfare courses for law enforcement authorities and on intelligence procuring. The Annual Conference of ASEAN Chiefs of Police (ASEANAPOL), which was held in May 2002, wanted a joint cooperation among the ASEANAPOL members in fighting against the terrorism. ASEAN Chief of Police are committed to developing capacity-building initiatives to make sure that each ASEANAPOL member has the ability to efficiently monitor, share information on and battle all forms of terrorist activities. The counter-terrorism plan is a part of the blueprint plan for an ASEAN Political-Security Community to be adopted by South-East Asian leaders on Sunday in the Thai resort town of Hua Hin. The blueprint also contains ASEAN's commitment to fight corruption, fight against piracy and develop an early warning system to prevent the occurrence of fights. Word count: 2200 References ASEAN. "ASEAN Responses to Trafficking in Persons: Ending Impunity for Traffickers and Securing Justice for Victims". ASEAN, 2006 Bhopal, M. & Hitchcock, M. "ASEAN Business in Crisis: Context and Culture". Routledge, 2002 Capie, D. "Between a hegemon and a hard place: the 'war on terror' and Southeast Asian-US relations". The Pacific Review. 17, 2004: 223-248 Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Ali Alatas, ASEAN. Institutes of Strategic and International Studies. "An ASEAN of the People, by the People, for the People: Report of the First ASEAN People's Assembly, Batam, Indonesia, 24-26 November 2000". ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies, 2001 Frost, F. "Terrorism in Southeast Asia. Analysis and Policy Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Group". USA Manyin, M. "Terrorism in Southeast Asia. Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division". USA. 2003 Smith, J. P. "Terrorism and violence in Southeast Asia: transnational challenges to states and regional stability". M.E. Sharpe, 2004 Watchawankhu, S. "Japan-ASEAN Beyond Economic Partnership: Toward an East Asian Community: Paper and Proceedings of the International Conference on Japan-ASEAN Beyond Economic Partnership : Toward an East Asian Community". Japan Watch Project, 2006 Read More