After three months of deliberation and study, the government has finally agreed to the setting up and siting of a regional anti-terrorism centre in Malaysia, to be made operational next year, and manned by Malaysian and American personnel.

Defence Minister Najib Abdul Razak was quoted by the media as saying that "no foreign troops will be stationed in the country" when the centre is established "in conjunction with the United States".

An Oct 28 New Straits Times report also quoted Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as saying that the operation of the centre "would not involve any military training".

Najib also said that the majority of the personnel involved would be "civilian experts" whose function is "only to train our country and other countries in this region on how to act besides determining more effective action against terrorism".

The minister also reportedly said the centre would focus on training to increase capacity-building in the effort to fight terrorism.

However, Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar also added that "details of the centre have not been worked out yet".

The proposal to set a regional counter-terrorism centre in Malaysia was first made by US Secretary of State Colin Powell during his official visit to Malaysia in July this year.

Joint declaration

On Aug1, Asean and the United States signed a 'Joint Declaration for Cooperation to Combat International Terrorism'.

Asean now consists of 10 members, namely Malaysia, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Earlier in May, Malaysia and the United States also signed a bilateral joint declaration of essentially similar nature and contents.

According to the Asean-US Joint Declaration, the objectives of cooperation are that:

  • The participants reaffirm the importance of having a framework for cooperation to prevent, disrupt and combat international terrorism through the exchange and flow of information, intelligence and capacity building;

  • The participants emphasise that the purpose of this cooperation is to enhance the efficacy of those efforts to combat terrorism;
    • and

  • The participants stress their commitment to seek to implement the principles laid out in the declaration, in accordance with their respective domestic laws and their specific circumstances, in any or all of the following counter-terrorism regimes:

    1. Continue and improve intelligence and terrorist financing information sharing on counter-terrorism measures, including the development of more effective counter-terrorism policies and legal, regulatory and administrative counter-terrorism regimes;

    2. Enhance liaison relationships amongst their law enforcement agencies to engender practical counter-terrorism regimes;

    3. Strengthen capacity-building efforts through training and education; consultation between officials, analysts and field operators; and seminars, conferences and joint operations as appropriate;

    4. Provide assistance on transportation, border and immigration control challenges, including document and identity fraud to stem effectively the flow of terrorist-related material, money and people;

    5. Comply with United Nations, Security Council Resolution 1373, 1267, 1390 and other United Nations resolutions or declarations on international terrorism;

    6. Explore on a mutual basis additional of cooperation.

    In the language of the Asean-US Joint Declaration, these five items define the "scope and areas of cooperation".

    Credible assurances

    If the proposed centre in Malaysia is regional on the basis of the Asean-US Joint Declaration, it is most likely that its operations and activities will be premised on the above-cited "scope and areas of cooperation" which can only involve police personnel and other law-enforcement officers such as immigration and national registration, as well as intelligence collectors and security analysts.

    It also means that, although the centre is reportedly to be manned by only Malaysian and American personnel, its support and participation would be multilateral as Asean is made up of 10 countries.

    Also, seen from the perspective of this premise, the assurances by Abdullah and Najib that it would not entail foreign troops being stationed in the country or foreign military training seems to be credible.

    Moreover, military personnel and troops, national or foreign, are usually not mobilised for the prevention and disruption of terrorism, unless specific instances of terrorism are conducted in war-like manner or/and with highly lethal and massively destructive weaponry.

    As a matter of fact, for the purpose of conventional defence, Malaysia enjoys close and stable cooperation with the United States, as well as Australia, Britain, New Zealand and Singapore within the framework of the 1971 Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) which involves regular military training, education and joint exercises. This is not secret or confidential, although still not popularly known.

    For example, as Najib pointed out on May 3 this year when he delivered a lecture to the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, "Malaysian (armed) forces regularly conducts joint training with their United States counterpart, and the United States enjoys access to Malaysian airfields and ports".

    He added:"Malaysia (also) provides one of the few bases outside the United States for US military jungle-warfare training."

    Also according to Najib, as of May this year, 1,500 Malaysian defence personnel had benefitted from the US-sponsored International Military Education and Training (IMET) programme.

    The point is that there is no need for the regional counter-terrorism centre to involve any "military training", or the presence of "foreign troops" for permanent stationing as in those years (1957-1971) of the Anglo-Malayan/Malaysian Defence Agreement (AMDA) because there have already been other forms of defence cooperation between Malaysia on one hand, and the United States, Australia, Britain, New Zealand and Singapore on the other.

    JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia. Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew, he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.