Asia News Digest
Abu Sayyaf Terrorists Arrested in Manila
Four leading Abu Sayyaf terrorists were arrested with explosives in Manila, Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced, in a high-profile national TV broadcast March 30. The arrests are certain to have an impact on the Presidential campaign, now in full swing (the election is scheduled for May 10). Those arrested are identified as leading participants in the kidnapping and beheading of an American and several Filipinos; a bombing which killed an American soldier; and other terror attacks in Mindanao in 2000-02. One of the four suspects claims to have planted a bomb on a ferry in Manila Bay in February, which killed over 100 people.
Police also found 80 pounds of TNT, and Arroyo claimed they had "prevented a Madrid-level attack in the metropolis." President Arroyo has been broadcasting since the 3/11 Madrid bombing that Manila could be next, due to Arroyo's support for the Iraq war.
Some aspects of the situation remain obscure. The dates of the arrests were not announced, but the implication is that some or all took place some time earlier. Arroyo was reportedly advised by police not to announce the arrests prematurely, as the investigations are continuing, but she decided to go ahead, with the obvious political implications for the campaign.
Arroyo had appointed an Anti-Terrorism Task Force in the wake of the Madrid bombing, headed by former President Fidel Ramos, who played the leading role in the two infamous military-run coups in the Philippines, in 1986 and 2001. There are indications that there are contingency plans for postponing the elections, or even declaring an emergency government, perhaps using terrorism as the justification.
The U.S., which has been deeply involved in the military operations against Abu Sayyaf in Mindanao, was also reported to have played a role in the arrests in Manila.
Myanmar 'Road Map' Moves Forward
The Myanmar ruling council announced March 31 that the "temporarily suspended national convention" (suspended since 1995!) will reconvene on May 17 in Yangon, to write a new Constitution for the country. The Constitutional Convention was suspended in 1995 when the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) of Aung San Suu Kyi refused to accept a framework for government which included the military, and because there were continuing problems with ethnic separatist movements. In the past years, UN representative Razali Ismail (from Malaysia) and others have slowly convinced Suu Kyi to accept the reality (and the actual necessity) of a military role, and she appears now to be willing to proceed with serious negotiations on that basis. Suu Kyi is still under house arrest, but that will, of necessity, be lifted if the convention is to proceed.
Also, the military regime has succeeded over the past few years in pacifying essentially all of the ethnic separatist movements, allowing full participation by all ethnic minorities in the Constitutional Convention. Former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, who has also contributed to bringing the two sides together in Myanmar, told a Washington conference in March that Myanmar had been saddled with a British-authored Constitution when given its independence, which granted every ethnic group in the country the right to declare independencea strategy for continual chaos (which, not accidentally, allowed for the continued British-controlled drug production in the largely ungoverned areas). Barring sabotage from the neo-cons in the U.S. Congress, there is now a chance for both peace, and a final end to the colonial legacy in Myanmar.
Thailand, which has helped forge the current progress in Myanmar, is holding a new round of international talks on Myanmar in Bangkok on April 29-30, with 17 nations participatingwithout the USA.
GOP Threatens U.S. Military Intervention in Thailand, Philippines
The U.S. Republican Party issued a limp excuse March 30 for the incredible assertion, contained in a mass-distribution questionnaire from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), that asked: "Should America broaden the war on terrorism into other countries that harbor and aid terrorists, such as Thailand, Syria, Somalia, and the Philippines?" While it is bad enough to threaten Syria and Somalia, Thailand and the Philippines have been declared "non-NATO allies" of the U.S. by this Republican Administration! When both the Thai and Filipino governments issued strong protests, Carl Forti, the spokesman for the NRCC, weakly responded: "The questions on the survey should probably have been vetted better"; he did not apologize, or offer to issue a correction.
Australian Opposition Leader Would Pull Troops Out of Iraq
Australian Labor leader Mark Latham recently announced that, as Prime Minister, he would take his country's troops out of Iraq. Then, on March 31 he reported that he had been briefed by defense officials (as head of the opposition), who admitted that the justification for Australia's entry into the war had been proven false.
On April 1, Prime Minister John Howard moved to censure Latham for misleading the Parliament, claiming that the defense briefing never happened. Latham then named the official, who admitted that he had held a "brief discussion" with Latham on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but denied giving him a full briefing. Latham replied by accusing Howard of manipulating the intelligence services, and misleading the Parliament himself. The Australian Broadcasting System described the confrontation as having "escalated from a skirmish into warfare."
Australia Loots Poorest Nation in Southeast Asia
The Nation, the leading English-language paper in Thailand, published a scathing exposure April 1 of Australia's looting of oil from East Timorthe country it "saved" from Indonesia in 1999. The editorial reports on a leaked transcript of a meeting between Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatari last year, in which Downer is reported to have said: "We are very tough. We don't care if you give information to the media. Let me give you a tutorial in politicsthere's not a chance" that the international border between Australia and East Timor (in the Timor Sea) will be submitted to an international court, as East Timor had requested. Such a court would surely rule that the border runs equally between the two nations, rather than along a jury-rigged course that gives Australia nearly all the oila deal struck with Indonesia's Suharto as a payoff for allowing the Indonesian occupation of East Timor in 1975.
Australia told East Timor to accept the unfair border, and thus also Australia's control of 82% of the revenues for the field that should belong entirely to East Timoror Australia would cancel their investment in the joint development of a smaller field, depriving the impoverished mini-state of its only hope for some revenue.
Writes The Nation: "Downer's bullying tone was not unusualit has typified Australia's negotiations on the gas fields.... Canberra is essentially robbing East Timorthe poorest country in Southeast Asiaof billions of dollars, and perhaps even more distastefully, dressing it up as an act of generosity.... Sadly, it also raises questions about Australia's involvement in East Timor in 1999, one of Canberra's biggest foreign-affairs successes in decades. Was it really just about gas and oil?"
Chinese Defense Minister Visits India
In the first visit by a Chinese Defense Minister to India since 1994, Minister Cao Gangchuan was received by Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on March 30 in New Delhi.
Vajpayee called for strengthening the exchanges and cooperation between the two nations' militaries. He praised progress made in defense cooperation during the past few years, and said the two militaries should continue to safeguard peace and stability along the borders, in the region, and in the rest of the world as well.
"I wish that China and India will become eternal good neighbors, good partners and good friends and that the two peoples will live in peace with each other from generation to generation," Cao said. He is in India at the invitation of Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes, who made a highly successful visit to China in April 2003. Cao, who came from Pakistan and will visit Thailand after leaving India, also met Fernandes, with whom he discussed better cooperation and "confidence-building measures."
Southern Thailand Terror Threat Escalates
Ten men stole a large quantity of explosives from a quarry in Yala in southern Thailand on March 30. Over a ton of ammonium nitrate (about the amount of the fertilizer that was used in the October 2002 Bali bombing), 56 sticks of dynamite, and 175 detonators were taken, even as the number of bombings and arson attacks escalated in the past weeks. Thai President Thaksin Shinawatra expressed concern that the Songkran "Water Festival" in mid-April might be targetted by terror attacks.
The source of the terror wave is shrouded in mystery. Islamic separatists are suspected, as there have been recurrent outbreaks of violence in the past by such groups. However, a leading regional political figure who had joined the ruling Thai Rak Thai Party, was arrested last week on suspicion of complicity. Also, according to the guards who were overpowered at the quarry, the thieves who stole the explosives had central Thai accents. The thieves apparently had inside information that the quarry had just obtained the explosives from a military depot, as required by law. Deputy Prime Minister Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said he does not believe the culprits are Muslim separatists, as he does not believe they would kill innocents, but that the terror is politically motivated, to destabilize the government.
South Korea Launches High-Speed Rail
South Korea launched the 300-km KTX express, its first high-speed rail system, on March 31. The train will cut 90 minutes on the trip from Busan to Seoul. South Korea is the fifth nation with high-speed rail (France, Japan, Germany, and Spain are the others). Acting President Goh Kun said this was the "starting point for a 21st century Iron Silk Road" to Europe, and will "lead South Korea to become the prosperous hub of Northeast Asia, connecting to the North Korean railway, the Russian Trans-Siberian railway and the Trans-China railway."
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