Thank you for inviting me to your conference.

To better meet the challenges posed by the deepening of its integration towards a single community, ASEAN is moving towards a more rules-based organisation with a legal personality. To this end, an ASEAN Charter is being drafted. The Charter will lay the legal foundation for the restructuring of ASEAN’s existing mechanisms and improve its decision-making process to ensure prompt implementation of its decisions. The first draft of the Charter will be submitted to the meeting of ASEAN Foreign Ministers next month. The Charter is expected to be signed by our Leaders at their Summit in Singapore in November this year.

Two key regional legal instruments relating to counter terrorism and combating transnational crime. The Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters was signed by all ASEAN countries in January 2006. It enters into force following its ratification all signatory countries. As of today, five countries have ratified the Treaty, while others are working toward it. Once it enters into force, the Treaty will be open for accession by non-ASEAN countries.

A milestone was achieved with the signing of the legally-binding ASEAN Convention on Counter Terrorism (ACCT) by ASEAN Leaders during their 12th Summit in Cebu City, Philippines, on 13 January 2007. The Convention provides for, among others, sharing of best practices on rehabilitative programmes of terrorist convicts, including their social reintegration, which is aimed to prevent perpetration of terror acts. This specific character of ASEAN cooperation on counter terrorism adds value to the existing regime of universal anti-terrorism instruments. I will discuss more on the ACCT later in my remarks.

In addition, ASEAN is working to establish a regional extradition treaty. A working group of ASEAN’s legal body met last month in Bali to develop modalities for the drafting of the treaty. Based on the modalities, a joint experts group representing ASEAN bodies involved in regional cooperation on political, legal, immigration and law enforcement matters, will draft the treaty.

These regional instruments are devised to ensure that differences in the legal systems and judicial procedures of ASEAN countries do not impede collective efforts to bring the perpetrators of terrorist acts to justice.

In addition, ASEAN has Joint Declarations and Plans of Action on Counter Terrorism with all each Dialogue Partners.

On a broader platform, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asia Pacific’s primary forum for security cooperation participated by 26 countries, has been expanding its activities to include preventive diplomacy and addressing current issues of common concerns such as counter terrorism and combating transnational crime.

That said, you might ask if those initiatives have resulted in the diminishing of terrorist threats in Southeast Asia. Is the region a safer place for, say, international investors wishing to reap the benefits of its robust economic recovery?

My response would be, yes!

There are reasons for my optimism. Since its inception in 2002, regional cooperation on counter terrorism has been moving steadily beyond confidence-building stage. Apart from the above-mentioned strengthening of regional institutional and legal frameworks on counter terrorism, efforts have been made to translate our political decisions and agreements, including those signed with all of our partner countries, into concrete joint activities focusing on capacity-building programmes for our law enforcement agencies.

These have helped to enhance our law enforcers’ ability to prevent, suppress and deal with the aftermath of terrorist attacks and improved their communication and coordination. They can now talk to each other and to their counterparts across the globe, and exchange information and intelligence on terrorist threats and how to deal with them almost in real time sense. There have been instances when some ASEAN authorities exchanged evidence and witnesses, and even handed over terrorist suspects through close police-to-police cooperation.

We have, indeed, witnessed some positive results: over the past two and a-half years, Southeast Asia had been relatively spared from major international terrorist attacks. There have indeed been a few security disturbances in some parts of the region. Yet they stemmed more from local conflicts, which I believe, would hardly spill over beyond the borders.

But you might argue that this apparent tranquillity is a mere calm before the storm. Terrorist cells may appear dormant, yet they are far from vanquished. They could regroup and pose more serious threats to our society.

To which I fully agree. Indeed, we have to maintain highest alert and vigilance and refrain from being complacent when dealing with terrorism. We have to continuously devise innovative ways and means to cope with the multifaceted and ever changing threats of terrorism.

Herein lies the challenge for ASEAN in advancing its intra and extra-regional cooperation on counter terrorism, and hence, in preserving regional security. I believe that terrorism is not simply a security problem, and as such it cannot be dealt with through coercive and punitive measures per se.

Coercive measures would hardly deter people who are so embittered that they are prepared to throw away their own lives. Terrorists require not only finances, training, etc., but also a supportive body of people, a justifying, albeit twisted, ideology and widely-perceived grievances around which to mobilise support. Thus, while law enforcement and security measures are crucial to bring perpetrators of terrorism to justice, they need to be complemented by efforts to address the deeper roots of terrorism that drive otherwise decent men and women to build up so much hatred and rage that blunts their moral sensibilities to the extent that they can see anything wrong in taking their own lives and the lives of innocent others.

You might again argue that the roots are too complex, even abstract, to decipher. They could encompass a wide variety of issues: from lack of equal opportunities that provide fertile ground for radicalism and extremism to alienation from globalisation; from local injustices to imbalances in global power. True, but I am particularly intrigued by the dark power that compels those men and women – many of them are in the prime of youth – to commit such a heinous crime. What nurtures such dark power?

A few fingers have been pointed out to certain religions, ethnicities and cultures, as the sources of such extremism. Some have even gone further to claim that it vindicates the theory of “clash of civilisations” and that we are now experiencing it.

However, there is no marked difference in today’s rhetoric of Al-Qaida-linked extremists who claim to fight for a universal ummah with the ultra leftists of the 1970s (the German Baader Meinhof Gang, the Italian Red Brigade, etc.) who cast their terrorist actions in the name of “the World Proletariat” and “Revolution”. Suicide terrorism, which is often wrongly associated with Islam, had actually been practiced against the Romans in the 1st century Judea by the Jewish Zealots. It has also been a popular modus operandi of terror by Srilanka’s Tamil Tiger, whose members were from a Hindu background, but was more known for its Marxist-Leninist inclination and is, therefore, often hostile to religion. Moreover, civilisations do not speak or clash; rather, people speak and fight from within and about their cultures.

In this sense, I am heartened to observe international efforts to debunk such clash of civilisations hype as evidenced, for instance, by the adoption of the UN Global Counter Terrorism Strategy in September 2006 and publication of a report by High Level Group of the Alliance of Civilizations two months later. I am particularly appreciative of efforts by the Alliance of Civilizations, in which Southeast Asia is represented by former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, which seek to, “address the widening rift between societies by reaffirming a paradigm of mutual respect among peoples of different cultural and religious traditions…” Moreover, they underscore the need to address and redress conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism.

ASEAN has been consistently upholding such stance, as reflected in all of its statements and instruments on counter terrorism. Article VI.1.f of the ACCT, for instance, obligates ASEAN countries to enhance intra-faith and inter-faith dialogues and dialogue amongst civilisations. Moreover, in line with our Leaders’ vision of a more people-centred ASEAN, an ARF statement on a people-centred approach on counter terrorism, which emphasised on the need to involve the widest segment of the society in efforts to counter terrorism, was issued last year. This has been followed-up by the convening of an inter-civilisational dialogue at the 5th ARF Intersessional Meeting on Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime in Singapore last May. ASEAN countries have also been hosting and participating in such dialogues.

Allow me to provide you with some food for thoughts on this subject. Having attended a few of those dialogues myself, I observed that while they were useful in sending strong messages to each community on the importance of mutual understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, their “monologue” format hardly allowed real dialogues to take place. As some analysts have pointed out, this was, partly, because most of the dialogues involved like-minded “moderates” who understood, and quite rightly so, that trying to find the roots of terrorism in reference to religion is crude reductionism. Yet those dialogues excluded the “radicals” who used their faiths to mobilise support for their self-justified terror acts, for fear that inviting them to the table would mean extending them some legitimacy.

Could Southeast Asia offer an alternative approach? Could a people-centred approach to counter terrorism be implemented in this regard?

I note with interest suggestions by some scholars that Asian plural societies with their tradition of managing, not eliminating, differences, and holding open dialogue with all sides of the conflict, could present an environment to engage those who feel misunderstood and therefore resort to violence to attain their objectives. They also suggest that for such dialogue to really work, it should not be reduced to a public relations exercise, or is too frightened to offend, or too obsessed with political correctness to be honest. And for it to permeate and shape public consciousness, it needs to occur at all levels and involves the widest segment of the society, not only the elites.

If such approach is to be taken, the ACCT might provide a useful framework. Article VI.1.f of the ACCT, which I mentioned above, recognises the importance of intra-faith dialogue. Such dialogue could provide a forum for both the “moderates” and the “radicals” to take a critical look at themselves and explore possible ways to bridge their differences. Only then they could move on to inter-faith, inter-cultural and inter-civilisations dialogues in conscious and concerted efforts to deepen mutual understanding amongst faiths and cultures.

Another provision of the ACCT that might be utilised for such approach is Article XI on rehabilitative programmes. This was crafted on the premise that since act of terrorism involves a state of mind and a justifying ideology, efforts to counter it requires a reform of the mindset.

What is more, this provision was drawn from Southeast Asia’s own experiences in dealing with local insurgencies through reconciliation with and social reintegration of those who had been on the other side of the conflicts. This approach has been implemented in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. In those countries, law enforcement authorities work closely with academics, religious leaders, the media and other elements of civil society, on programmes aimed to rehabilitate people who are detained for terrorism-related charges in efforts to curb the spread of extremist ideology, and to reintegrate them to society in the hope that this would prevent them from redoing their acts.

Such involvement of the widest segment of the society is indeed the essence of a people-centred approach on counter terrorism. Such efforts, however, should not stop at dialogue. Numerous recommendations usually produced out of those dialogues would be meaningful only if they are concretised into applicable action programmes. These could include systematic long-term strategy of improving educational and value transmission systems, encouraging greater understanding of different beliefs and faiths, and social and ideological integration of communities living side by side.

As a people-centred approach on counter terrorism has been adopted by the ARF, it could be included in ASEAN’s cooperation on counter terrorism with all of its partner countries, who are also participating states of ARF. It could even be expanded to a wider framework of cooperation with countries in other regions who have been implementing such measures such as Egypt and Yemen.

It would be naïve, of course, to suggest that the implementation of such measures would lead to elimination of terrorism from this region. But I believe that it would, at least, help to change the climate of interfaith and intercultural tension into better understanding and mutual respect amongst cultures and faiths.

One important complementary element in combating terrorism is harnessing of technology. New software and hardware have been developed to help track terrorists, contain and apprehend them, and assist them back into the mainstream of society. The more we can make use of technology, the better equipped we can be to tackle this threat.

Thank you and I wish this year’s Security Forum Asia a great success.

Keynote Speech by H.E. Ong Keng Yong Secretary-General of ASEAN
at the Security Forum Asia “Advancing Multilateral Efforts in Counter Terrorism and Security in Southeast Asia” Kuala Lumpur, 25-27 June 2007 Thank you for inviting me to your conference. To better meet the challenges posed by the deepening of its integration towards a single community, ASEAN is moving towards a more rules-based organisation with a legal personality. To this end, an ASEAN Charter is being drafted. The Charter will lay the legal foundation for the restructuring of ASEAN’s existing mechanisms and improve its decision-making process to ensure prompt implementation of its decisions. The first draft of the Charter will be submitted to the meeting of ASEAN Foreign Ministers next month. The Charter is expected to be signed by our Leaders at their Summit in Singapore in November this year. Two key regional legal instruments relating to counter terrorism and combating transnational crime. The Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters was signed by all ASEAN countries in January 2006. It enters into force following its ratification all signatory countries. As of today, five countries have ratified the Treaty, while others are working toward it. Once it enters into force, the Treaty will be open for accession by non-ASEAN countries. A milestone was achieved with the signing of the legally-binding ASEAN Convention on Counter Terrorism (ACCT) by ASEAN Leaders during their 12th Summit in Cebu City, Philippines, on 13 January 2007. The Convention provides for, among others, sharing of best practices on rehabilitative programmes of terrorist convicts, including their social reintegration, which is aimed to prevent perpetration of terror acts. This specific character of ASEAN cooperation on counter terrorism adds value to the existing regime of universal anti-terrorism instruments. I will discuss more on the ACCT later in my remarks. In addition, ASEAN is working to establish a regional extradition treaty. A working group of ASEAN’s legal body met last month in Bali to develop modalities for the drafting of the treaty. Based on the modalities, a joint experts group representing ASEAN bodies involved in regional cooperation on political, legal, immigration and law enforcement matters, will draft the treaty. These regional instruments are devised to ensure that differences in the legal systems and judicial procedures of ASEAN countries do not impede collective efforts to bring the perpetrators of terrorist acts to justice. In addition, ASEAN has Joint Declarations and Plans of Action on Counter Terrorism with all each Dialogue Partners. On a broader platform, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asia Pacific’s primary forum for security cooperation participated by 26 countries, has been expanding its activities to include preventive diplomacy and addressing current issues of common concerns such as counter terrorism and combating transnational crime. That said, you might ask if those initiatives have resulted in the diminishing of terrorist threats in Southeast Asia. Is the region a safer place for, say, international investors wishing to reap the benefits of its robust economic recovery? My response would be, yes! There are reasons for my optimism. Since its inception in 2002, regional cooperation on counter terrorism has been moving steadily beyond confidence-building stage. Apart from the above-mentioned strengthening of regional institutional and legal frameworks on counter terrorism, efforts have been made to translate our political decisions and agreements, including those signed with all of our partner countries, into concrete joint activities focusing on capacity-building programmes for our law enforcement agencies. These have helped to enhance our law enforcers’ ability to prevent, suppress and deal with the aftermath of terrorist attacks and improved their communication and coordination. They can now talk to each other and to their counterparts across the globe, and exchange information and intelligence on terrorist threats and how to deal with them almost in real time sense. There have been instances when some ASEAN authorities exchanged evidence and witnesses, and even handed over terrorist suspects through close police-to-police cooperation. We have, indeed, witnessed some positive results: over the past two and a-half years, Southeast Asia had been relatively spared from major international terrorist attacks. There have indeed been a few security disturbances in some parts of the region. Yet they stemmed more from local conflicts, which I believe, would hardly spill over beyond the borders. But you might argue that this apparent tranquillity is a mere calm before the storm. Terrorist cells may appear dormant, yet they are far from vanquished. They could regroup and pose more serious threats to our society. To which I fully agree. Indeed, we have to maintain highest alert and vigilance and refrain from being complacent when dealing with terrorism. We have to continuously devise innovative ways and means to cope with the multifaceted and ever changing threats of terrorism. Herein lies the challenge for ASEAN in advancing its intra and extra-regional cooperation on counter terrorism, and hence, in preserving regional security. I believe that terrorism is not simply a security problem, and as such it cannot be dealt with through coercive and punitive measures per se. Coercive measures would hardly deter people who are so embittered that they are prepared to throw away their own lives. Terrorists require not only finances, training, etc., but also a supportive body of people, a justifying, albeit twisted, ideology and widely-perceived grievances around which to mobilise support. Thus, while law enforcement and security measures are crucial to bring perpetrators of terrorism to justice, they need to be complemented by efforts to address the deeper roots of terrorism that drive otherwise decent men and women to build up so much hatred and rage that blunts their moral sensibilities to the extent that they can see anything wrong in taking their own lives and the lives of innocent others. You might again argue that the roots are too complex, even abstract, to decipher. They could encompass a wide variety of issues: from lack of equal opportunities that provide fertile ground for radicalism and extremism to alienation from globalisation; from local injustices to imbalances in global power. True, but I am particularly intrigued by the dark power that compels those men and women – many of them are in the prime of youth – to commit such a heinous crime. What nurtures such dark power? A few fingers have been pointed out to certain religions, ethnicities and cultures, as the sources of such extremism. Some have even gone further to claim that it vindicates the theory of “clash of civilisations” and that we are now experiencing it. However, there is no marked difference in today’s rhetoric of Al-Qaida-linked extremists who claim to fight for a universal ummah with the ultra leftists of the 1970s (the German Baader Meinhof Gang, the Italian Red Brigade, etc.) who cast their terrorist actions in the name of “the World Proletariat” and “Revolution”. Suicide terrorism, which is often wrongly associated with Islam, had actually been practiced against the Romans in the 1st century Judea by the Jewish Zealots. It has also been a popular modus operandi of terror by Srilanka’s Tamil Tiger, whose members were from a Hindu background, but was more known for its Marxist-Leninist inclination and is, therefore, often hostile to religion. Moreover, civilisations do not speak or clash; rather, people speak and fight from within and about their cultures. In this sense, I am heartened to observe international efforts to debunk such clash of civilisations hype as evidenced, for instance, by the adoption of the UN Global Counter Terrorism Strategy in September 2006 and publication of a report by High Level Group of the Alliance of Civilizations two months later. I am particularly appreciative of efforts by the Alliance of Civilizations, in which Southeast Asia is represented by former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, which seek to, “address the widening rift between societies by reaffirming a paradigm of mutual respect among peoples of different cultural and religious traditions…” Moreover, they underscore the need to address and redress conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism. ASEAN has been consistently upholding such stance, as reflected in all of its statements and instruments on counter terrorism. Article VI.1.f of the ACCT, for instance, obligates ASEAN countries to enhance intra-faith and inter-faith dialogues and dialogue amongst civilisations. Moreover, in line with our Leaders’ vision of a more people-centred ASEAN, an ARF statement on a people-centred approach on counter terrorism, which emphasised on the need to involve the widest segment of the society in efforts to counter terrorism, was issued last year. This has been followed-up by the convening of an inter-civilisational dialogue at the 5th ARF Intersessional Meeting on Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime in Singapore last May. ASEAN countries have also been hosting and participating in such dialogues. Allow me to provide you with some food for thoughts on this subject. Having attended a few of those dialogues myself, I observed that while they were useful in sending strong messages to each community on the importance of mutual understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, their “monologue” format hardly allowed real dialogues to take place. As some analysts have pointed out, this was, partly, because most of the dialogues involved like-minded “moderates” who understood, and quite rightly so, that trying to find the roots of terrorism in reference to religion is crude reductionism. Yet those dialogues excluded the “radicals” who used their faiths to mobilise support for their self-justified terror acts, for fear that inviting them to the table would mean extending them some legitimacy. Could Southeast Asia offer an alternative approach? Could a people-centred approach to counter terrorism be implemented in this regard? I note with interest suggestions by some scholars that Asian plural societies with their tradition of managing, not eliminating, differences, and holding open dialogue with all sides of the conflict, could present an environment to engage those who feel misunderstood and therefore resort to violence to attain their objectives. They also suggest that for such dialogue to really work, it should not be reduced to a public relations exercise, or is too frightened to offend, or too obsessed with political correctness to be honest. And for it to permeate and shape public consciousness, it needs to occur at all levels and involves the widest segment of the society, not only the elites. If such approach is to be taken, the ACCT might provide a useful framework. Article VI.1.f of the ACCT, which I mentioned above, recognises the importance of intra-faith dialogue. Such dialogue could provide a forum for both the “moderates” and the “radicals” to take a critical look at themselves and explore possible ways to bridge their differences. Only then they could move on to inter-faith, inter-cultural and inter-civilisations dialogues in conscious and concerted efforts to deepen mutual understanding amongst faiths and cultures. Another provision of the ACCT that might be utilised for such approach is Article XI on rehabilitative programmes. This was crafted on the premise that since act of terrorism involves a state of mind and a justifying ideology, efforts to counter it requires a reform of the mindset. What is more, this provision was drawn from Southeast Asia’s own experiences in dealing with local insurgencies through reconciliation with and social reintegration of those who had been on the other side of the conflicts. This approach has been implemented in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. In those countries, law enforcement authorities work closely with academics, religious leaders, the media and other elements of civil society, on programmes aimed to rehabilitate people who are detained for terrorism-related charges in efforts to curb the spread of extremist ideology, and to reintegrate them to society in the hope that this would prevent them from redoing their acts. Such involvement of the widest segment of the society is indeed the essence of a people-centred approach on counter terrorism. Such efforts, however, should not stop at dialogue. Numerous recommendations usually produced out of those dialogues would be meaningful only if they are concretised into applicable action programmes. These could include systematic long-term strategy of improving educational and value transmission systems, encouraging greater understanding of different beliefs and faiths, and social and ideological integration of communities living side by side. As a people-centred approach on counter terrorism has been adopted by the ARF, it could be included in ASEAN’s cooperation on counter terrorism with all of its partner countries, who are also participating states of ARF. It could even be expanded to a wider framework of cooperation with countries in other regions who have been implementing such measures such as Egypt and Yemen. It would be naïve, of course, to suggest that the implementation of such measures would lead to elimination of terrorism from this region. But I believe that it would, at least, help to change the climate of interfaith and intercultural tension into better understanding and mutual respect amongst cultures and faiths. One important complementary element in combating terrorism is harnessing of technology. New software and hardware have been developed to help track terrorists, contain and apprehend them, and assist them back into the mainstream of society. The more we can make use of technology, the better equipped we can be to tackle this threat. Thank you and I wish this year’s Security Forum Asia a great success.