Lilian Budianto, Jakarta – Civil society needs to play a bigger role in the fight against terrorism, an ASEAN forum heard here Thursday.
"The government can't do the task by itself. They should cooperate with civil society, including NGOs, to counter terrorist movements," said Sidney Jones, the Southeast Asia project director of the International Crisis Group (ICG).
She was speaking at the sixth ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) being co-hosted by Indonesia and India. Delegations from 27 countries are attending the event to share information on terrorism.
The two-day forum, titled "Participation on Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime", is expected to produce recommendations on how to fight transnational crimes before its close Friday. The recommendations will be submitted to ARF's 2008 ministerial meeting in Singapore for adoption.
Jones said governmental institutions commonly encountered bureaucratic problems and reluctance from community groups in their efforts to approach the grass-roots for counter-terrorism purposes.
"NGOs usually have easier access to the society," she said. "And such a flexible approach will allow them to better address people's social and economic grievances, which have become the underlying issues in terrorist movements."
She said non-governmental organizations could work together with the local community to provide alternatives to extremist groups that became radicalized due to the absence of freedom of expression.
"Potential or actual terrorists are usually further radicalized by the treatment they received at the hands of government authorities. "We should prevent people from being drawn into the circle by advocating for a humane condition, allowing groups desiring for a more Islamic country to express their ideas," Jones said.
She said the government should also recover the people's trust in its institutions and strengthen community policies to involve the active participation of society in reporting crimes or any suspicious activities.
"One critical element in fighting terrorism is getting people to report suspicious activities in their neighborhood. But people won't report anything if they don't trust the police," she said.
According to Jones, the regional terror network Jamaah Islamiyah continued its consolidation at the grass-roots level by refraining from carrying out large-scale operations that would jeopardize its support base.
She said the JI was changing its tactics from carrying out large-scale operations to focusing on expanding its organization by recruitment through dakwah (Islamic preaching) to strengthen its base.
The move is also connected to JI's current financial condition, which has forced its operatives to shift from expensive large-scale operations to more subtle operations, such as dakwah.
Speaking at the same forum, John Stephen Cook, chief of mission for the International Organization for Migration, said terrorism should be addressed together with transnational crimes such as human and drug trafficking.
Comprehensive measures should be taken to prevent cross-border crimes from being translated into devastating terrorist attacks by outsiders to interrupt the peace of local people, he said.
Primo Alui Joelianto, director general for Asia Pacific and African affairs at the Foreign Ministry, said in his opening speech that terrorism and transnational crimes were two sides of the same coin.
"People smuggling, human and drug trafficking, piracy and armed robbery at sea are some of the examples of serious crimes that constitute elements of transnational crimes," he said.
Vivek Katju, assistant secretary to India's foreign minister, said the fact that the masterminds of terrorist attacks were mostly outsiders has added to the urgency of combating terrorism within the context of transnational crimes.