Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Wednesday, May 22, 2002 |
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By Amit Baruah
A two-day ASEAN ministerial meeting on counter-terrorism, which ended in Kuala Lumpur today, called for the development of multilateral or bilateral pacts to help arrest, investigate, prosecute, extradite and seize criminals and their assets. A joint communiqué contained the outline of a work programme to fight terrorism, which included exchange of information, compilation and dissemination of bilateral and multilateral agreements as well as information on relevant international treaties. "I believe that today terrorism is a serious problem and this plan of action should rank very high in the priority list of ASEAN co-operation," the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, told presspersons in Kuala Lumpur today. Mr. Abdullah also said that ASEAN nations had agreed to pay more attention to eradicate the root causes of terrorism. The Deputy Prime Minister, who also holds the Home portfolio, said in the past the grouping had concentrated more on exchange of intelligence and information. On the lack of consensus to define "terrorism", the Malaysian leader said this should not be an obstacle to ASEAN efforts to stamp out the problem. "The issue is that we should not be spending all our time trying to argue who is a terrorist and what is terrorism so much so that we have no time to talk about what we should be doing together (to tackle the issue)," the Deputy Prime Minister stated. Referring to the issue of extradition, Mr. Abdullah said extradition arrangements between countries had to be arrived at bilaterally. "It is up to a country to decide whether to have an extradition arrangement with any country it chooses. We can't have an extradition arrangement on a regional basis," he said. The Singapore Home Minister, Wong Kan Seng, said the definition of terrorism should be left to the United Nations. "Eminent organisations like the OIC which had made such an attempt (to define terrorism) had difficulties agreeing on the definition," he said. "While we did not discuss the definition of terrorism at the senior officials' and the Ministerial meetings, we each in our own laws have defined terrorists and acts of terrorism.... those of us who have encountered terrorists and experienced acts of terrorism can recognise a terrorist and know the effects of terrorism on our security and stability," Mr. Wong said. He added that ASEAN countries could consider designating a special unit within their country to serve as a principal contact point with other foreign counterparts on counter-terrorism matters. "This will facilitate the exchange of information among ASEAN member-countries in the fight against terrorism," he said. The links between Islamist militants in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines and their ties with the Al-Qaeda have perturbed South-East Asian nations.
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