Abdullah: World must confront root of terror
The Star – 10/5/2006
KUALA LUMPUR: The fight against international terrorism will not succeed unless the world confronts the factors that draw people to take up arms, says Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.   The Prime Minister said difficult decisions were necessary and this would require political courage.  
“As long as we continue to deny or confuse the issues in order to avert attention from the real ones, insurgency and terrorism will persist. They may even grow,” he said when launching the book The Malayan Emergency Revisited 1948-1960: A pictorial history.  
Abdullah said one of the lessons Malaysia learnt from the emergency was that terrorism could not be defeated by military force alone.  
“During the emergency period, we also learnt the importance of preventive and coercive measures, such as denying logistic support to the enemy and engaging in combat,” he said.   But above all, we learnt that we could never defeat the enemy without addressing and neutralising the factors that drove people to take up arms.”   Abdullah said another lesson from the emergency and the experience with terrorism elsewhere was that terrorists do not belong to any particular ethnic group, religion or nation.   
“The communist terrorists were mainly Chinese and although there were also Malays among them, they were not labelled as Chinese terrorists.”   He said it was important to note that the ideology the communists propagated was neither secular nor religious.  These days terrorism was seen as a religious phenomenon and often associated with Islam, he said.  He said Malaysians must treasure the peace and stability in the country, and added: “It is easy to take for granted what we have now. Young Malaysians who have never witnessed armed conflict may not realise the full worth of the peace they have.”  
Abdullah said the book was particularly relevant given the world's preoccupation with terrorism.  At a separate function, the prime minister said he wanted the Monsoon Cup to be an annual major sailing event in Terengganu.   “If it was a real success last year, then make it a real fantastic success this year,” he said.   
Source: http://thestar.com.my