Combating terrorism together: South Asia towards new pragmatism

2 July 2010, 18:00 PM

Iftekharul Bashar

SAARC Ministers for Interior/Home have called for a comprehensive regional strategy to fight against terrorism. The third meeting of the SAARC Ministers for Interior/Home held in Islamabad adopted the SAARC Islamabad Statement on Cooperation against Terrorism, which reaffirms the commitment to further strengthen cooperation to fight and eradicate terrorism in all forms and manifestations. Adopting the Islamabad Statement is indeed a positive move, which has created a new momentum for South Asian states to contribute towards developing a peaceful, secure and prosperous region. In a statement issued at the end of the meeting, the SAARC home ministers pledged to step up cooperation in real time intelligence sharing and to consider Pakistan's proposal for the creation of a regional institution on the lines of INTERPOL. It is worth mentioning that INTERPOL sub-regional bodies in East, West and Southern Africa, for example, have proved effective in strengthening practical cooperation among police chiefs and in building support for the expansion of the organization's continued communication network beyond capitals. Pakistan, the host country of the meeting, has reportedly submitted a proposal also for setting up an institute of criminology in the country to keep the security personnel of the member countries abreast of the latest techniques of crime prevention and detection. This meeting of SAARC home ministers comes at a time when global and regional security landscape is going through a rapid change marked by non-traditional security threats. Terrorism in South Asia has already reached the post-Westphalian age where no borders really matter to the terrorists. The science of counter terrorism is also taking a new shape globally. There is a growing awareness in the global policy circles that the war on terrorism must be fought in two fronts, the global and the regional. The traditional complete-reliance on hard power is no longer a smart match in today's complex threat pattern. There are two battlefields now in front of us: one is the operational and the other one is strategic; in the words of Rohan Gunaratna, it is the "battlefield of mind." South Asia has reached a critical security juncture and needs to consider an effective multi-pronged approach to combat terrorism in the long run. Despite declarations regarding the need for greater collaboration among states on issues related to border security, mutual legal assistance, and law enforcement, this cooperation has been slow to materialize in South Asia. Before moving forward South Asia must look back and critically analyze why such declarations often ended up with no substantive outcome. Any inquisitive study will reveal that South Asia has a myopic perception of terrorism; most of the regional states look at terrorism through their very own "national" prism and consider transnational ideological threats almost as non-issue. It must be acknowledged that radical ideologies play a central role in terrorism. Many of the terror threat that South Asia is facing today emanate from a global movement underpinned by a violent politico-religious ideology. The global radical ideology has regional characteristics and dimensions, and South Asia is no exception. In my view, radical ideologies set the political goals, (try to) justify the means to attain them, define the 'enemy' to fight with, and mobilize support to survive and sustain. All these inputs cumulatively influence the acts of terror. Any in-depth analysis will reveal that the ideological, motivational and propaganda ability of South Asian threat groups are increasing. As we focus exclusively on the surface of terrorism, the roots remain undisturbed and are spreading at a dangerous pace. It has been found that most of the terrorists were enshrined into radical ideology at some point of time. South Asia's security is challenged by socio-economic and politico-religious ideologies. Regionally, the menace of radicalization and terrorism has caused strains in bilateral relationships in South Asia. These created war-like situations and often puts break on regional cooperation. Globally radicalization and terrorism in some South Asian countries have stigmatized them, negatively reflecting on their international image and clout, as well as aid and investment opportunities. True that, some of the terror groups in South Asia are clearly homegrown and indigenous but the contiguous geography, historical grievances, extraterritorial allegiance of some non-state actors, global rise of extremist ideology, technological innovations, transnational crime, malignant border and mismanagement of inter-state relations make it evident that the line between indigenous and transnational terrorism is thin. This makes a case where terrorism in South Asia needs to be studied both at indigenous and transnational dimensions. Therefore, counterterrorism strategy of all the regional states in South Asia needs to be refocused on the unfolding developments in the region. The latest trends in South Asia, specially the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, make it evident that the terror groups have attained capability to carry out complex, large scale and technologically sophisticated terror attacks. This means South Asian states will have to fight a threat in a complex strategic matrix. The relatively recent attacks clearly indicate that some South Asian terrorist groups have cross border linkages and mobility and they have developed an independent capacity to plan and prosecute transnational operations. Hostage taking in large numbers and dramatic engagement with the security forces is a comparatively new trend. The regional ideological and organizational links of extremists require countering through adoption of a regional perspective. This has been absent so far. Although the SAARC secretariat is currently under-resourced, its existing offices and desks could be more effectively utilized if there were increased political will among SAARC members. South Asia needs to create a new academic and policy space to converse and to develop such regional perspective through joint, collaborative and multilateral research, interaction, and networking. A common regional perspective will make it possible to innovate and devise a solution. Inseparable by geography, South Asian states need to move forward with a better understanding of each other's concerns. It has been noted with concern that even though South Asian countries share a common cultural heritage, inter-state relations in the region is characterized by mutual suspicion, mistrust and threat perception. In addition to the activities carried out by various terrorist organizations, there are also allegations of 'state-sponsored terrorism.' Being an economically underdeveloped region, there were enough economic and social compulsions in South Asia to create a stimulus for collective action. However, it was the deep-seated political conflicts between India and Pakistan, which delayed regional cooperation in South Asia for a considerable period of time. But SAARC has always been a good platform to shorten the gulf of perceptional difference and distance that India and Pakistan has. The fact that regional resources must be combined to address terrorism had been acknowledged long ago when SAARC Convention on Terrorism was adopted in 1987. With regard to the adoption of legal instruments, SAARC was ahead of many regional bodies. SAARC's 1987 Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism includes "terrorist acts" and calls for greater regional cooperation on legal issues including evidence sharing, extradition, and information and expertise exchange. This was updated in the 2002 Additional Protocol, which incorporates into the original convention on the obligations of the states under UN Security Council Resolution 1373, adopted in the aftermath of 9/11. The 16th SAARC Summit recognized the value of the proposed UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism and called for its early conclusion. Speaking to the press in Islamabad, Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram has urged all member states to work together to implement this directive of SAARC head of states. Partly as a result of Indo-Pak tensions, few of the counter terrorism instruments and commitments adopted by SAARC in its nearly 25 years of history have translated into action by members. Most significantly, the 1987 SAARC Suppression of Terrorism Convention and the 2002 Additional Protocol generally have not been implemented in the region. The SAARC instruments and the UN strategy which all countries in the region endorsed can become an effective mechanism to combat terrorism provided there is a strong political will among the SAARC members to implement them. Unless we start a new, stimulating, and frequent political conversation we might not be able to develop the required political will. The author is a Research Associate at Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs. E-mail: ibashar.freds@gmail.com