The wake-up call, reminding that terrorism is a problem and in urgent need of attention in South-East Asia, was loud and clear. But it did not come from the southern Philippines.
It came from the clean, green and well-ordered city-state of Singapore, as the government moved swiftly to detain 13 Singapore citizens who had been planning to follow in Al Qaida's footsteps and plotting local terrorist activities.
The alarm bell for the Singapore government's security apparatus has come after the discovery in an Afghan cave or an abandoned Kabul house of a videocassette showing key Singapore sites. The video soundtrack was by a terrorist detailing how these spots could be used to attack U.S. servicemen or blow up the U.S. British, Israeli and Australian embassies. Possible attacks on visiting American aircraft carriers were also planned. Clearly, those shooting the video had also attended Al Qaida training camps in Afghanistan.
The alarm bell for the region, and for outside power concerned about the stability of South-East Asia, was that this was aft happening in Singapore. Singapore runs a tight administrative ship. The police and the special branch are well-trained and efficient. Yet, the would-be terrorists had still thought they could get away with it there.
The alarm bell resonates because the rest of South-East Asia has none of these advantages. South-East Asia's complex diversity conceals numerous discontented religious or ethnic groups. The police is seldom effective outside the main towns. The larger the nation, the weaker the administrative and security apparatus, especially in archipelago states consisting of thousands of islands.
Above all, there are numerous corners of South-East Asia where the government control is virtually non-existent, and therefore capable of giving would-be terrorists the kind of sanctuary they had been enjoying within Afghanistan. One such area is the southern Philippines where the U.S. military is starting to open a second anti-terrorism front on the island of Basilan against the hostage-holding Abu Sayyaf terrorist group.
Manila's administrative grip on the southern Philippines has been weak at the best of times. For most of the 20th Century the Muslim minority there was battling to secure autonomy or independence from the Catholic majority.
The various Muslim political groups have often fought each other with equal zest. A recent grant of autonomy to the Muslims appears to have been a failure.
Additionally, Basilan is but one medium-sized dot in a big sea. The southern Philippines consists of thousands of islands, many uninhabited, not all of them mapped, perfectly capable of providing Osama bin Laden and any other terrorist, a satisfactory refuge. The long sea border with the even larger Indonesian archipelago is poorly policed.
One academic study of the region, published in the year 2000, clearly indicated that Abu Sayyaf was only part of the problem. It was classified as one of several breakaway groups “which do not pose a major challenge...... terrorism has ceased to be a passion of (Manila) government, at least, until the next revival of the American campaign against 'Islamic terrorists'.”
Now with the U.S. revival, shoot-outs
and kidnappings have increased, casualties are increasing, and so the Manila
passion has been renewed. It remains to be seen if the Americans will do
any better than when they were actually running the Philippines themselves.