Fear, fanaticism and an Asian tightrope
act By Anil Netto
PENANG,
Malaysia - This country's decision to reject US forces
in tackling "terrorism" in the Straits of Malacca - in
effect rejecting feelers from neighboring Singapore, a
US ally - reflects a delicate tightrope act.
On
the one hand, Malaysia wants to work together with
Singapore and Indonesia in curtailing regional piracy
along the busy Straits - without superpower involvement
in the region. Malaysia has also been a critic of the US
invasion and occupation of Iraq. On the other, the
United States sees Malaysia as a useful sounding board
in its "war on terror". What's more, Malaysia has
extensive trading links with the United States: it is
America's 10th-largest trading partner.
Singapore proposed the idea of enlisting US
troops to help patrol the Straits, the narrow shipping
lane between Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore that is
vital to world trade but notorious for pirate attacks.
Malaysia also has pledged to help wipe out piracy on the
Strait, but Defense Minister Najib Razak, stressed last
weekend that US counter-terrorism forces in the region
would fuel Islamic fanaticism.
On May 10, US
Trade Representative Robert B Zoellick and Malaysian
International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz
signed a trade and investment framework agreement
(TIFA). The agreement provides for "a bilateral forum to
address trade issues and to help enhance trade and
investment between the two countries". The TIFA creates
a joint council to expand and liberalize trade and
investment. It is also aimed at focusing attention on
trade barriers that the United States faces and at
helping to expand US access into Malaysia.
Just
four days earlier, the US and Singapore, the United
States' 11th-largest trading partner, reached a free
trade agreement (FTA) "that would sweep away trade
barriers".
Since the failure of the World Trade
Organization meeting in Cancun, Mexico, last September,
the United States has been working to overcome that
setback by resorting to bilateral trade agreements. By
its own admission, the United States has been
"aggressively working to open markets globally,
regionally and bilaterally and to expand American
opportunities in overseas markets".
The month
after the Cancun meeting, in October, the Enterprise for
ASEAN Initiative (EAI) was unveiled. Under this
initiative, the United States offered to enter bilateral
FTAs with member states of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) that were committed to the
economic "reforms" and "openness". The US and each ASEAN
partner would jointly decide when they were ready to
enter FTA negotiations.
It is against this
closer trade relationship with the United States that
Defense Minister Najib Razak's declaration not to allow
US "troops or assets" to set foot in the Straits of
Malacca must be viewed.
Last Friday, US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he hoped US forces would
be hunting terrorists in Southeast Asia "pretty soon".
Rumsfeld warned that Islamic extremists were targeting
moderate Muslim states around the world.
Yet
Malaysia does not appear to be faced with an immediate
terrorist threat that it cannot handle by itself or
within the context of ASEAN. It has locked away more
than 80 alleged militants indefinitely under the feared
Internal Security Act (ISA), sparking protests from
human-rights groups. The exact nature of the threat
posed by these individuals, some of them detained for
more than two years, has not been independently
verified, as none has been tried before an independent
tribunal. The ISA allows for detention without trial.
Although the threat of piracy against shipping
in the Straits of Malacca is serious, it should be
viewed from a historical context rather than seen as
"terrorism". Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fa Hsien said in
AD 413 after a voyage to India that the area was
"infested with pirates". According to historians Barbara
and Leonard Andaya, one of the most dangerous areas was
the southern approach to the Malacca Straits, where
numerous rocky outcrops provided a haven for raiding
fleets. They pointed out that a Chinese itinerary circa
AD 800 describes an island to the northeast of Srivijaya
where "many ... people are robbers and those who sail
ships fear them".
So while piracy in the Straits
is nothing new, it is also nothing that regional
governments cannot tackle through closer cooperation.
A key factor behind Malaysia's decision to
reject a US military presence would be political. Any
visible US presence in the region would ruffle feathers
among Malaysia's Malay-Muslim majority population in
particular. Many Muslims are strongly against the
Anglo-American occupation of Iraq and see the United
States as an ally of Israel, which has occupied
Palestinian territories.
Although Malaysia has
forged close trade links with the United States, from a
political standpoint it cannot afford to be seen as
working too closely with the US military. Prime Minister
Abdullah Badawi may have won a sweeping majority in
parliament in the March general election, but he cannot
be complacent enough to disregard the long-term
ambitions of the opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia
(PAS). In Malaysia's first past-the-post system, the
ruling coalition won 90% of parliamentary seats but won
just 63% of the popular vote. A swing of a few
percentage points could make a lot of difference in many
marginal seats.
In any case, any US military
presence in Southeast Asia would violate a key ASEAN
tenet of creating a Zone of Peace, Freedom and
Neutrality (ZOPFAN). Malaysia is already a member of the
Five Power Defense Arrangement (FPDA), which holds
periodic joint exercises. This post-colonial
arrangement, originally aimed at deterring the communist
threat, groups together Singapore, Australia, New
Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Syed Husin Ali,
deputy president of the Malaysian People's Justice
Party, has urged the Malaysian government to review the
FPDA as well as the US-Malaysian Defense Agreement,
signed in 1984 by then-US defense secretary Casper
Weinberger and former Malaysian premier Mahathir
Mohamad. "Despite several requests made from inside and
outside parliament, the government has refused to
disclose the content of the [US-Malaysian Defense]
Agreement," Syed observed. The agreement, he said, is
believed to provide, among other things, for regular
joint training for air and land forces of both
countries, and for the access to Malaysian ports by the
US Navy.
Moreover, Malaysia has already set up a
Southeast Asian Regional Center for Counter-Terrorism in
Kuala Lumpur. The center was mooted under a joint pact
between ASEAN and the United States and focuses on
capacity-building, human-resources development and
exchange of information to counter terrorism.
On
Thursday, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer of
another US ally, Australia, arrived in Malaysia to
discuss trade, defense and security arrangements. Downer
will also visit the Center for Counter-Terrorism "to
examine ways to further enhance capacity". This visit
suggests an Australian interest in the center as well.
According to the comments made by Najib, a US
military presence in Southeast Asia could prove to be a
magnet for the very groups Southeast Asian governments
are wary of. As evidence of this, analysts point to how
the US occupation of Iraq has not only generated an
active domestic resistance but has also led to suicide
bombings within Iraq and actively boosted the ranks of
terror groups in the Arab region.
"There is a
tendency for the Americans to generate rather than to
resolve conflicts, especially when Americans are seen as
representing an ideology which is diametrically opposed
to those of its opponents," said Johan Saravanamuttu, a
professor in international politics specializing in
peace studies and conflict resolution.
Johan
said the United States is the worst party to be involved
in any kind of conflict-prevention process because it is
not seen to be neutral by the groups involved. "America
is part of the problem and not part of the solution," he
added. Instead, he said, any regional measures should be
carried out under the umbrella of the United Nations.
Of course, there are also lingering suspicions
about US military motives in Southeast Asia and
elsewhere. Author Chalmers Johnson cites statistics
gleaned from the US Defense Department's annual "Base
Structure Report" for fiscal year 2003, which itemizes
foreign and domestic US military real estate. The
Pentagon, he notes, owned or rented 702 overseas bases
in about 130 countries and had another 6,000 bases in
the United States and its territories. Not surprisingly,
some critics are wary of US empire-building in the
strategic sense - to exert military and economic
dominance and create spheres of influence.
Others in the region still remember well the
legacy of past US military involvement in Southeast Asia
- the bloody atrocities in Vietnam; the secret US
collaboration in the Indonesian massacres that toppled
former president Sukarno, and the "big wink" the United
States gave to that country that served as the green
light for the dictator Suharto to launch Indonesia's
bloody occupation of East Timor, which left 200,000
dead; as well as US backing for another despot,
Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines.
Najib's
decision to reject a US presence in the region may not
have been influenced by these considerations; but it
will reassure many others in the region who would have
been more than a little disturbed by any fresh US
military deployment in Southeast Asia.
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