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Asean under the security spotlight

P.S. Suryanarayana

The New Year-eve bomb blasts in Bangkok have added to existing concerns.

— PHOTO: AFP

A security guard walks past a public telephone damaged from a bomb that exploded on Sunday outside a shopping centre in Bangkok.

THE CONTRAST between the clockwork precision of the New Year fireworks display in Singapore and the bombs-induced cancellation of the mega celebrations in Thailand's capital, Bangkok, cannot be missed. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has exuded confidence about the city-state's economic prospects and has spoken of the importance of both China and India to the future of East Asia. However, the Thai military rulers and their civilian associates on New Year's Day were busy searching for clues to the masterminds behind the serial bombings in Bangkok.

No one claimed responsibility immediately after the explosions that killed at least three persons. Several foreigners were listed among the 30 others injured.

Two theories are doing the rounds. One, that it could have been the "militant Islamists" of southern Thailand trying to strike terror in the heart of Bangkok. Two, that some opponents of the present military government might have sought to discredit it so as to engineer a popular uprising.

Thailand's junta leader, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, cut short his Haj pilgrimage. Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, himself a former general, indicated that the authorities would not hesitate to turn the investigative spotlight on opponents of the coup of September 19, 2006. Thaksin Shinawatra, a charismatic but controversial leader who was duly elected more than once, was toppled in that coup.

Gen. Sonthi, himself a Muslim, is eager to resolve the "southern insurgency," and diplomatic sources say it will be difficult for him to accept that these separatists could now try to cast a spell of fear over Bangkok itself. Regardless of such diplomatic speculation, pundits such as Thitinan Pongsudhirak feel Mr. Thaksin's supporters are certainly plotting a comeback.

Thailand's latest problem has brought the entire Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) under the security scanner. Singapore and Thailand are among the founder members of the 10-nation forum, which recently postponed a series of summit meetings in a climate of worries over possible terrorist threats.

The annual meetings, which Asean had planned to hold among the leaders of the forum itself and with those from major Asian dialogue partners, should have been held in Cebu, Philippines, last month. An impending storm and the relief operations that followed an earlier tornado were cited by the Philippines to put off the meetings. Now, with those meetings re-scheduled for later this month, Asean's security preparedness will be put to the test, especially in the context of the latest Thai blasts and the series of major terror strikes that rocked Bali and Jakarta in recent years.

For a number of years, the Philippines, which has a Christian majority, has been trying to tame "Muslim insurgents" and miscellaneous lawless groups in its southern territory. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who has had to weather impeachment moves against her and keep suspected "coup-plotters" at bay, is in no position to declare victory over the insurgents and sundry terrorists on the prowl in her country. The United States, engaged by the Philippines under a chequered military alliance not long ago, is helping Manila face its security challenges. Manila's current status is that of "a major non-NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organisation] ally" of the U.S. Their coordinated security exercises have not yet taken the Philippines out of the penumbra of "terror threats."

Bangkok, too, was designated by the U.S. as "a major non-NATO ally" when Thailand was under Mr. Thaksin. The relationship between the U.S. and the present military junta in Thailand has not yet stabilised.

Equally important, as a security index in the wider Asean domain, is the suspected terror plot that Thailand had nipped in the bud, under the overall command of the U.S., on the eve of a summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Bangkok in 2003.

That "plot" was linked to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the alleged southeast Asian affiliate of Al-Qaeda. But Gen. Sonthi has not traced, with certainty, the "external patrons" of his country's "Muslim insurgents." Analysts such as Sidney Jones and Kit Colliers do not regard the JI as a monolithic mirror-image of Al-Qaeda or "a coherent corporate entity" purveying terror. Moreover, the southern Thai puzzle does not lend itself to an easy anti-terror classification.

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