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“I think ASEAN has got a raw deal from this talk about South-east Asia being a hotbed of terrorism,” said Severino
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By
Kazi Mahmood, IOL Southeast Asia Correspondent
KUALA
LUMPUR, December 9 (IslamOnline) – Outgoing ASEAN
Secretary-General Rodolfo Severino criticized the U.S. war against
terrorism, saying that the South East Asian region is a lesser terror
hotbed than America itself.
“I
think ASEAN has got a raw deal from this talk about South-east Asia
being a hotbed of terrorism,” Severino told The Singapore Straits
Times in its Monday, December 9 edition.
“I
don't think South-east Asia was or is a hotbed more than Spain was at
the time of the Basque separatist movement or Britain was at the height
of the IRA attacks,” he added.
“There
have been terrorist attacks inside the United States, but we do not call
America a hotbed of terrorism.”
Severino
is quitting as Secretary General of the powerful Association of South
East Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the end of the month after a five-year
term.
He,
however, said the regional grouping's image had been sullied following
the financial crisis of 1997.
“They
said ASEAN is finished, the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) is dead – but
none of that happened,” the 66-year-old diplomat from the Philippines
said.
Though
he lambasted those tarnishing the image of ASEAN in the fight against
terrorism, Severino was quick to add that ASEAN members do need to
participate more wholeheartedly in fighting terrorism.
“As
long as there is terrorism, nothing we do is enough,” he said.
In
another development related to terrorism in South East Asia, former
Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid said Singaporean Senior Minister
Lee Kuan Yew's remarks on the existence of 100 Islamic radical groups in
Indonesia which were said to set up an Islamic country, showed Lee's
ignorance of Islam in Indonesia, Antara reported.
“Lee's
point of view is incorrect as he is ignorant of Islam in Indonesia.
Don't mind his remarks,” said Abdurrahman, popularly known as Gus Dur,
on Sunday December 8th.
Gus
Dur commented on Lee's remarks in an interview with the Far Eastern
Economic Review (FEER) magazine issue of December 12.
Lee
said there were 100 Islamic radical groups in Indonesia which planned to
establish an Islamic country in Southeast Asia covering Malaysia,
Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore.
According
to Gus Dur, who leads Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) – the biggest Muslim
organization in the country – Lee did not know that the number of
Muslims in Indonesia reached 200 million while that of the radicals is
less than 50,000.
Meanwhile,
in Singapore, the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) reportedly plotted to destroy
diplomatic missions in Singapore using suicide truck bombs, Agence
France Press (AFP) said Monday.
The
report published in The Straits Times said the Australian High
Commission and the embassies of Israel and the United States were among
the targets of the plot citing a U.S. interrogation of a key JI suspect,
an Australian newspaper said.
According
to the Australian paper, the JI switched its target since there were not
enough Israelis working in Manila to make an attack there.
The
revelations were said to have been obtained through key summaries of the
U.S. interrogation of Kuwaiti-born Canadian Mohammed Mansour Jabarah.
