Southeast Asia Bars Help by U.S. Troops in Fighting Terror
International Herald Tribune
December 14, 2001
Michael Richardson 

As the United States plans whether and where to use its military against terrorists after Afghanistan and brings Southeast Asia into its sights, countries in the region have made it clear that U.S. combat troops would be unwelcome.

Officials of the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia say that, while many of the American offers to assist in countering terrorism in the region are helpful, talk of sending in soldiers is not. The three Southeast Asian countries are among seven named recently by officials in Washington as the focus of an expanded crackdown on Osama bin Laden's international terrorist network.

The officials said that involving U.S. troops in the fight against local groups that Washington has branded as terrorists would be seen as an affront to national sovereignty and would quickly stir anti-American sentiment, particularly among the large Muslim population in Southeast Asia.

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wahid Supriyadi, said in Jakarta that sending U.S. troops to Indonesia was out of the question.

"That's quite impossible," he said. "That action will face sovereignty problems. Our position is clear: We are fighting against terrorism but we will use our own legal framework in doing that."

Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia told Parliament in Kuala Lumpur last week that the government would continue to monitor the activity of Muslim extremists to ensure that the country — a secular democracy like Indonesia and the Philippines — does not become "a second Afghanistan."

Since September, the Malaysian police have arrested 15 people who they say are members of the Malaysian Mujahidin Group. The police say that those who have been arrested received military training in Afghanistan with the aim of overthrowing the elected government of Malaysia and eventually establishing a pan-Islamic state linking Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

But a Malaysian defense official said that Kuala Lumpur would not bring U.S. troops into the fight against terrorism because it would be counterproductive.

"We have training with U.S. forces," the official said. "But having American troops on Malaysian soil on a much more permanent basis, I think, is quite out of the question. It would be inconsistent with our policy."

In the colonial era, the Philippines was ruled by Spain and then by the United States. Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands, and Malaysia of Britain. This legacy of colonial rule helps to account for regional sensitivity about any talk of American military intervention in the fight against terrorism.

Of all the countries in the region, the Philippines is probably the staunchest partner of the United States in the battle against global terrorism.

But when President George W. Bush offered, in a meeting in Washington last month with his Philippine counterpart, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, to send soldiers to help fight the Abu Sayyaf rebels in the southern Philippines, she immediately declined.

Instead, Washington promised to provide training, military equipment and maintenance support to the Philippine Army in a package worth more than $100 million.

Mrs. Arroyo "firmly believes that the U.S. advisers should not be armed, or their deployment would fall into a gray area that can be classified as foreign troops on Philippine soil," her spokesman, Rigoberto Tiglao, said in Manila. The constitution of the Philippines prohibits the stationing of foreign troops in the country.

U.S. and Philippine officials say there are links between Mr. bin Laden's Qaida network and the Abu Sayyaf. The group is the only one from Southeast Asia among the 28 listed on Oct. 5 by the U.S. State Department as foreign terrorist organizations.

But the department put three other Philippine groups on a newly created terrorist exclusion list on Dec. 6, calling them supporters of terrorism.

Thirty-nine groups, charities and companies are on this new list. Those from the Philippines are the Communist Party's armed wing, the New People's Army; its urban assassination unit, the Alex Boncayao Brigade, and the Pentagon Gang of kidnappers. Members are liable to be deported from the United States or to be denied entry visas.

"This round of Terrorist Exclusion List designations is by no means the last," said Philip Reeker, a U.S. State Department spokesman. "We will continue to expand the list as we identify and confirm additional entities that provide support to terrorists."

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