The Issue:
During October, 2005, three years after the launching of the “War on Terrorism,” and despite the astronomical costs – financially and in human suffering – caused by international military and intelligence operations, terrorism attacks and increased threat of violence in Islamic communities have increased across South and Southeast Asia.

Ongoing Western military and covert action campaigns and massive amounts of foreign assistance to corrupt or dysfunctional governments has not stopped the persistent assassinations and ambushes that plague Afghanistan and Pakistan.  In Iraq, a secret poll commissioned by the British Defense Ministry and released in mid-October shows that nearly half the Iraqi population support attacks against American and British troops, and fewer than one (1) percent of all Iraqis interviewed think Coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security. The October 29 “Festival of Lights” serial suicide-bombings killed and wounded close to 200 shoppers in Delhi. This follows suicide bombings in three popular restaurants in Bali, Indonesia on October 1.  And in Thailand, daily religious-based violence is blamed on government corruption and brutality that has created popular resentment and subsequent recruitment by extremist and separatist organizations.  International security experts say that terrorist organizations linked to al Qaeda in Indonesia and the Philippines are now using more sophisticated and less traceable bombing devices.

Among the few areas in the region where some progress has been made in inching toward peace is in the Mindanao region of the Philippines. Traditional anti-government separatist [though non-extremist] organizations such as the Moro National Liberation Front and Moro Islamic Liberation Front remain active.  Much smaller extremist terrorist gangs, such as the Abu Sayyaf Group and some of their colleagues from Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiya are present and attempt to train and recruit.  However, progress in conflict resolution has been the result of a nuanced approach that combines restrained local police and military activities with social and economic development programs.  The areas that demonstrate the best success in peace building are conspicuously where presence of foreign troops and “security experts” is limited or non-existent.  This has little to do with the courage and dedication of anti-terrorism soldiers. However, community empowerment through non-military means builds hope that negates hate messages of violent extremism.  Empowering impoverished and isolated communities through consistent small-budget partnerships with national and international developmental organizations is proving to be invaluable to deterring corruption and building peace. 

Indonesia:
Widespread corruption and subsequent rampant poverty exacerbated by natural disasters and a 126% rise in fuel costs [despite being a large oil producing nation], are significant factors in the nation’s violence and religious extremism.  Indonesia, with an 88% Muslim population among its 241 million residents, is the world most populous Muslim nation. The country’s Presidents have been known for their religious moderation.  However, terror by factional groups is always a threat in tourist areas such as Bali and in the capital, Jakarta.  Some regional governments and parties,  at times backed the nation’s military, are imposing harsh laws and decrees that have led to persecution and the deaths of thousands of non-Muslims.

According to the July 25, 2005 London Times, between 1998 and 2003, 10,000 Christians were murdered in Indonesia, mostly in the central area of Sulawesi and the eastern Maluku islands, where the Muslim and Christian populations are near equal.  In addition, 70,000 Christians were forced to flee villages and 1,000 churches were burned by Muslim mobs.  Education and the right of females to be educated has been a significant issue.  In a recent tragedy in Sulawesi on October 29, three Christian teenage girls dressed in brown school uniforms were beheaded as they walked to school.  Some witnesses said the attackers were dressed in black and carried machetes.  A local policeman, on the other hand, said the attackers rode motorcycles, wore helmets and carried two-way radios. 

On October 27, the New York Times reports that authorities in Indonesia have not been able to identify the Bali suicide bombers because their relatives and neighbors refuse to speak, as they identify with the bombers’ cause.  Anti-western sentiment has significantly grown across Indonesia since the Iraq occupation. In late-October, when US State Department Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, Karen Hughes visited Indonesia, she was chastised by a public audience of university students in Jakarta. Besides challenging her [later proven] inaccurate facts about Iraq, they expressed strong emotional opposition toward the American military. 

Thailand:
Since violence began in January 2004 in Thailand’s majority Muslim southern provinces that border Malaysia, some 1,000 Buddhists and Muslims have died in violent incidents.  Hundreds of Muslim men and boys have been arrested and disappeared under sweeping powers given to Thailand’s policeman-turned-business moghul President Thaksin Shinawatra.  According to sources in Thailand and Malaysia, daily killings have become routine despite Thaksin continuously increasing violent military and policeman operations. Noted observers claim that organized crime and corruption within the Thaksin regime are as much to blame for the violence as the radical extremist organizers trained in camps in Pakistan and Bangladesh.  A significant factor that Thaksin and his state-controlled media have chosen to ignore is the 20 years of peace in the region that was previously created through highly successful education and livelihood programs under the sponsorship of the highly-respected Thai King and Queen.  These programs collapsed following the election of Thaksin in 2001, when he replaced almost all of the local authorities who implemented the Royal development projects in the South with his own corrupt cronies and supporters in the bureaucracy, military and police.  Unfortunately, he has used his charisma, control of the media and military support from the US and elsewhere, to ignore the concerns expressed by the Royal Palace regarding his policy of force.

The Philippine Solution, Development for Peace:
In the Philippines, the United Nations Development Program issued a recent report stating economic losses due to religious violence and the fight over land rights between native-Muslims and Christian settlers in Mindanao has cost the Philippine government over $3 billion dollars. Mindanao, the country’s richest provinces in natural resources, is also the most impoverished.  Local police and military campaigns have targeted the terrorist Abu Sayyaf Gang and their violent allies from Indonesia’s Jemaah Islamiya.  However, constructive steps for peace with the largest separatist organizations, the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, have been made through the Philippine Government’s emphasis on social, educational and economic partnerships between community leaders and local and international developmental organizations.  Both MNLF and MILF leaders have stated that developmental assistance for their communities  will make it possible for their having a role in helping the government combat and deter terrorism – which also the destroys the futures of their own families.  According to the October 26, 2005 Manila Times, in publicly presenting the UNDP report in Manila, the Human Development Network’s Executive Committee Chairperson, Solita Monsod, stated that armed conflicts, “...should be expected to occur and persist in areas that are most deprived, broadly measured by income poverty and inequality...investment in human development, particularly in education, would help reduce armed conflict.”

 See Link:  Development for Peace in Sulu