Rights and wrongs of Asia's 'war on
terror' By Michael Vatikiotis
SINGAPORE - If there is one lesson to be
learned from the "war against terror" as it has
been waged in Southeast Asia, it is that good
intelligence and careful police work rather than
brute military force are the best
counter-terrorism strategy. And some of the best
police work has been conducted in Indonesia, where
many so-called terror experts once believed the
government would be least effective in countering
the terrorist threat.
The salutary lesson
in all this should have been learned long ago.
Back in the 1950s, when the departing colonial
powers faced
growing communist
insurgencies, the British government adopted a
blend of military and police action in tackling
the Malayan Communist Party, which were mostly
conducted within a legal framework.
In
fact, in his memoirs published in 2003, former
Malayan Communist Party leader Chin Peng said that
the British strategy of fortifying villages and
enforcing strict curfews effectively cut off food
supplies and mass support from the guerrillas. By
contrast, the French and subsequently the US
government saw overwhelming military force as the
key to defeating the communist forces of North
Vietnam. The communists were defeated in Malaya
and won in Vietnam.
Even in Iraq, where
the US military is struggling to prove that a
surge of extra troops is helping to curb daily
death and destruction on the streets of Baghdad,
it has been a small and virtually anonymous
British Army unit known as the Joint Support Group
(JSG) that has proved to be one of the most
effective weapons in the fight against terror.
Drawing on lessons learned in Northern Ireland,
JSG members have turned terrorists into coalition
spies supplying intelligence that has saved lives.
It is therefore somewhat alarming to see
Indonesia's police-led effort played down at the
expense of an over-hyped US military-backed effort
in the southern Philippines. Indonesia has largely
contained Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and demonstrably
reduced its operational capacity, and yet the
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), despite
some recent successes, have been unable to
eliminate the Abu Sayyaf group, which according to
the United States has links to both JI and
al-Qaeda.
After more than eight months of
fighting involving 10,000 troops backed by US
combat advisers, the Philippine military claims to
have killed just 70 Abu Sayyaf militants and two
top leaders out of an estimated force of 400. Yet
in the process, a 10-year-old peace agreement with
the Moro National Liberation Front has come under
strain and dozens, if not hundreds, of civilians
have died in the crossfire while thousands have
been displaced.
Careful
intelligence In Indonesia, meanwhile,
careful intelligence has helped pinpoint
bomb-making centers in remote corners of Java and
uncovered explosives and equipment that could have
been used in terrorist attacks. Many of those
groomed by JI's alleged al-Qaeda-trained
operatives to carry out these attacks have been
flushed out and captured or killed. Importantly,
Indonesia has tried wherever possible to use legal
methods of interdiction, bringing suspects into
custody with the intention of putting them on
trial, and using lethal force only if unavoidable.
Given the palpable success of the civilian
approach to countering terror, it is perhaps not
surprising that AFP chief General Hermogenes
Esperon has announced a shift in strategy. He told
the media early this week that the army will start
using bulldozers and tractors rather than tanks to
help win the support of locals on Jolo Island -
stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf group.
"We'll
be doing fewer combat operations, but we're not
cutting back on the number of troops because we
would need them for engineering, medical and
humanitarian activities," Esperon said.
The United States, too, appears to have
learned some belated lessons in the southern
Philippines, where a century earlier US forces
struggled in the same jungle-covered islands to
eradicate stubborn resistance to US colonial rule.
Barred from taking part in combat operations under
an agreement with Manila, Washington has deployed
sophisticated surveillance gear to enhance
intelligence-gathering capacity and is spending
US$4 million a year on relief and development in
the area.
Even with this shift in tactics,
residents of Jolo Island, the main focus of
operations against Abu Sayyaf, remain deeply
suspicious of the US presence, which suggests that
the best strategy of all would be for foreign
troops to help train local forces in more
sophisticated counterinsurgency operations, and
then leave.
This is again where Indonesia
has quietly pulled ahead. Close cooperation with
Australian Federal Police and quiet training
conducted by US Special Forces have boosted
intelligence-gathering and detective work and
equipped Indonesia with a specialized police
paramilitary force known as Detachment 88, which
has scored significant successes in cornering JI
terrorists on the run.
Indonesia's
approach has won plaudits in the region and beyond
for reminding us that the forces of civilian law
and order can be effective weapons against
terrorists. The military strategy in the
Philippines has by contrast resulted in civilian
casualties and unsettled an area already prone to
insurrection and violence.
In neither
country has the terrorist threat been entirely
eradicated. But it would be a mistake for
Washington to assume that the publicity it is now
getting for its swashbuckling operations against
Abu Sayyaf in Jolo should pave the way for wider
US military operations against terror groups in
the region.
Michael Vatikiotis
is the regional representative of the Center for
Humanitarian Dialogue based in Singapore.
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