Addressing Poverty and Embracing Rule of Law Are Key for ASEAN to Counter Terrorism

(Photo courtesy of ABS-CBN) 

While addressing the World Economic Forum in Cambodia in May, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte as the ASEAN chair said that ASEAN countries needed to work together to ensure a drug-free and a terror-free region. It seems that the Philippines keeps human security as the key priority for this regional grouping as it turns 50 this year.

The recent clashes between Philippine government forces and Islamic State-inspired militant group “Maute” in Marawi City, followed by Jakarta’s suicide bombing that killed five people, drew more attention that indicates the region is in urgent need for a more effective joint mechanisms to cope with new security challenges especially the rise of terrorism and extremism, that currently posed a major threat to ASEAN community and its unity. Among the militants that were killed in Marawi city were Malaysian and Indonesian citizens, an indication that extremists operations was actually engaged and coordinated between domestic and foreign fighters. This week, Indonesian defence minister Ryamizard Ryacudu told the annual security forum Shangril-La Dialogue in Singapore that 1200 Islamic State militants including 40 Indonesians operating in the Philippines. This manifests that the issue of regional security becomes worse and more complex to address. 

Duterte declared martial law on the entire Mindanao in response to the clashes and warned to extend the imposition of the law into other parts of the country if needed. Philippine government considered maximizing use of military force as an option to end this extremist violence and suppress lawlessness in Marawi City.

There should be some specific actions to be taken by ASEAN countries to prevent and address security challenges in the future as non-traditional security threats continue to rise. That should include enhancing intelligent sharing among ASEAN, accelerating poverty eradication and strengthening international cooperation.

Internally, ASEAN members will need to seriously further enhance collaborations and cooperation in intelligence sharing. Intelligence sharing is not new to ASEAN countries as it has established frameworks for the cooperation for years, but it still has a limit—due to the capacities and resources of national anti-terrorism mechanisms varying from country to country in the region.

ASEAN needs also to accelerate strengthening border security to manage to mitigate cross-border terrorist activities. Of course, a more robust and comprehensive cooperation among the countries to control the borders is really important to address terrorism in the region. It is very crucial for authorities to know if citizens of any country members are fleeing to join jihadist war in the Mideast or conducting any terrorism related activities within and outside the region.  Some countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore have had several experiences in handling problem of ‘exporting’ terrorism, on trying to prevent people from traveling to join terrorists’ activities. Therefore, they will need to take lead and share experiences with other ASEAN members for the sake of regional security and stability. 

ASEAN has to understand that terrorism is a product of poverty

ASEAN should focus on addressing poverty related issues in the region to combat terrorism. ASEAN countries have to empower their people, provide them with basic education, increase their access to social welfare services, and help them get out of poverty. Despite becoming the sixth largest economy and one of the fastest growing in the region, ASEAN has been—and still struggling to address the increasing poverty Incidence, and there are bumpy roads ahead in achieving this goal.

There has been a longstanding debate that one of the factors contributing to the rise of extremism and terrorism is poverty. Of course, in many countries around the world, poverty is seen as the main driving force of new armed groups or in recruitment, and ASEAN countries themselves have been experiencing it. 

For instance, in the Southern Philippines’ Mindanao, poverty and the lack of economic opportunity are exactly the root cause of the insurgency compounded by the historical injustices against the Muslim minorities and the armed struggle for the right to self-determination. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority’s  2015 report,  The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was ranked 11th out of 20 poorest regions in the country. Local communities have been affected by the lack of infrastructures for mobility and economic development, poor public services, limited access to basic education and unemployment. When community are marginalized, they become the most vulnerable group to terrorism for recruitment. 

As mentioned earlier, these pressing challenges do not only exist in the Philippines but also in other places across the region as well. People from many parts of ASEAN still struggle with the extreme poverty and it requires drastic interventions to help them out of the poverty trap. ASEAN must play a role in identifying policy priority and formulating inclusive policies that will assist each member state to ensure the fair distribution of economic opportunities to those marginalized communities and help restoring public services.

But poverty is just one of the many areas to address. The impact of climate change now becomes another major concern, indirectly facilitating the armed and terrorism recruitment activity in many parts of the world, particularly in the Middle East and African continent, according to a recent report commissioned by the German foreign office. The impacts of climate change will cause environmental degradation and natural disasters including prolonged draught and flooding which can lead to widespread food shortage, economic and social instability or even civil war. And this tremendously threatens people’s livelihood across the region, forcing them to fight in order to gain control of the resources.

ASEAN itself is also becoming vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, a challenge that is so huge to be addressed by an individual country member alone. As a regional grouping, ASEAN members, of course, have to work hand in hand to look for a more responsive and effective measure to cope with this new security challenges that has a direct relationship to climate change. If ASEAN fails to tackle this issue, it will not able to put an end to rebellions and insurgency, let alone preserving peace and stability in the entire region.

ASEAN needs to address governance and rights issues

If ASEAN is serious about fighting terrorism, it can no longer ignore governance and human right issues. As ASEAN turns 50, its leaders have shown commitment to go beyond economic cooperation when it comes to regional security and stability, particularly the rise of extremist groups. Surely, ASEAN has already been continuing building ASEAN Political Security Community (APSC) that is significant to help strengthen democracy, bolster good governance and reinforce the rule of law, bringing security and political cooperation between member states to another level and being able to be more responsive to more complicated security challenges. But human rights and poor governance still remain ASEAN’s major concern, particularly at the domestic level. 

Rights abuses are existing across the region from ASEAN new comers to the founders of ASEAN as the ‘principle of non-interference’ has been a roadblock to addressing the human rights issues. Many countries in the region still implement repressive laws to curb freedom of expression and other fundamental freedoms, shrinking the space for civil society groups and non-governmental organizations to freely address issues and champion their advocacy as one of the agents of democratic system. We can see the continued restrictions and violations on civil rights and liberties: socialist regimes in Vietnam and Lao, human rights abuses in Cambodia, repressive military regime in Thailand, the controversial bloody drug war in the Philippines, the restrictions of free speech in Malaysia and Singapore, religious discrimination in Indonesia, the practice of hash Sharia law in Brunei, and the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. 

Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing has been the major concern in the region. The brutal and inhuman treatment of Muslim minority Rohingyas can contribute to terrorist recruitment. The ethnic minority has been denied citizenship and other basic rights. The authority keeps turning blind eyes to the ominous abuses, and atrocities have been committed by state-led violence in which no perpetrator was brought to justice. Until now, despite international outcry, ASEAN countries have not done enough as a response to put an end to the humanitarian crisis in the country.

Of course, any of these people are vulnerable to armed recruitment. There is always the compulsion for someone who was deprived of access to basic services and human rights to join an armed groups or in terrorist activities because for their own economic, social and political demands.  If more people are disenfranchised and pushed over the edge, there is no reason that they will give in to rebellious activities against the governments. 

With the ongoing process of community building, ASEAN must remain cohesive, committed, and responsive to new challenges meanwhile embrace openness, strengthen democratic institutions, promote human rights, and strive to uphold rule of law because terrorist networks are only able to exploit any country with the absence of rule of law, weak governance and repressive regime. By raising good governance, ASEAN has to develop democratic institutions, improve government agencies’ capacity and ensure non-disruptive delivery of public services to people at the grass-root level.

ASEAN needs to strengthen regional cooperation in combating terrorism

ASEAN will also have to strengthen and deepen cooperation with global key players in tackling terrorism and any other transnational issues. Some global key players ASEAN shouldn’t ignore are Russia, China, and the US.

ASEAN undeniably needs to step up its counter-terrorism cooperation with Russia, which has been known as effectively combating terrorism for decades. Recently, many countries in ASEAN look at the possibility on establishing military cooperation with Russia and been aiming to buy weapons from Russia to boost their defense capability to cope with new security threats.

Philippines’ President Duterte sought to build close military cooperation with Russia and secure arms deals during his recent trip to Russia as he wants more war planes, munitions and other modern weapons that can boost defense capacity in a fight against insurgency in the southern Philippines. However, Russia can do more than just selling weapons to the Philippines and other ASEAN nations to combat terrorism; it can be a very important partner of ASEAN in intelligence sharing and other counter-terrorism efforts in many aspects.

Another key player is the US. The US has been known since it has championed the so called “War on Terror”. The major power has been committed to fighting terrorism, and of course it still remains vital for ASEAN to continue working with this power regardless of who controls the White House.

Another important partner of ASEAN is China. China is now becoming more assertive in counter-international terrorism. In addition to military strategy, China focuses more on promoting connectivity through infrastructure development projects. States participating in China’s initiative Belt and Road will ultimately realize that the project is going beyond economic ambition. If goes as planned, the project will be helping reduce terrorism threats as more bilateral and multilateral counter-terrorism efforts will be made under the framework of Belt and Road initiative. It will eventually create more commercial links between countries in the region and benefits every country involved.