Unrelated networks could jointly destabilize South Asia

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

A suicide bombing opposite the U.S. embassy in the Sri LankaÕs capital Colombo dramatizes increasing violence in South and Southeast Asian.

The Sri Lnkan episodes could mark the end of a truce between the Tamil Tigers [ITTE] minority Tamil guerrillas, who have waged war for almost 20 years. Bitter divisions in the Sri Lankan government and the breakaway of a charismatic Tiger warlord have brought negotiations to a standstill.

The conflict not only inhibits progress in potentially rich Sri Lanka but has serious implications for India. The Sri Lankan Tamils have close ties øthe insurgency depends on them ø to the south Indian Tamilnad state. The ITTE ultimately aims at creating a ÒGreater TamilnadÓ to include their 65 million South Indian fellow ethnics. Volatile Tamilnad politics with a pivotal role in New DelhiÕs shifting federal alliances, make such a scenario realistic enough to create an explosive issue.

Of even greater urgency for New DelhiÕs shaky new coalition is rapidly escalating violence in Nepal, wedged between India and Chinese Tibet. Again, for almost two decades an excruciatingly brutal insurgency has aimed at overthrowing the monarchy and establishing a self-proclaimed Maoist regime. The Maoists, who denounce the ÒrevisionismÓ of current Chinese leadership, have followed the classic pattern of targeting police and school teachers, setting up guerrilla administered areas where they reward collaborating peasantry. They have been able to call strikes in Katmandu, the capital, lining up support among unemployed students and other dissidents.

Indian support along with U.S. aid to Nepali armed forces is not impeding Maoist growth. New Delhi not only has to worry about the spread of the dissidents in the border lowlands where no geographic barrier divides the two countries, but about Maoist connections in India. The Nepali Maoitss are closely allied with Naxallite guerrilla bands which operate in north central India and have been spreading south, again taking their inspiration from Mao and traditional Indian dacoitry [banditry]. Longer term political implications are even more worrying: although there have been no proved connections between the Maoists and the Chinese who still have unresolved border issues with New Delhi, the Katmandu government has recently appealed to Beijing for support with the prospect Beijing could be mediator. The Maoists through the Naxallites also have close relations with the Communist Party of India [Marxist-Leninist] ruling in IndiaÕs important West Bengal [Calcutta, now Kolkata] state for two decades. [The Bengali Communist CMP took a pro-Beijing position when Moscow-Beijing alliance exploded and the Indian party split.] Further complication: the current Congress Party-led government needs the CMP for its parliament majority.

In southern Thailand, the outbreak of an old separatist movement among the majority Moslem Malays, continues to grow despite draconian military and police suppression and economic aid promises to a region which has benefited little from the countryÕs post-World War II development. Ties between the local teenage fighters and the international Islamicist terrorist movement are unclear. But with a Southeast Asian network operating in neighboring Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines allied to Osama Ben Ladin, the Thailand Islamicists using the same slogans and [if less sophisticated] tactics will inevitably build those ties if they are not snuffed out.

The threat to Bangkok may be less than the implications for Malaysia just over the border. During the Communist ÒEmergencyÓ in the 1950s and 60s in Malaya and Singapore, defeated by the then British colonial government, the Communists used southern Thailand sanctuaries. There has always been Malaysian.popular sympathy with the Thai Malays.WhileKuala Lumpur, after winning a recent election against Islamicist opposition, maintains a correct attitude and promises cooperation with the Thai authorities, a local border state government is in the hands of radical Islamacists.

In the southern Philippines, again in a Moslem majority area, training camps are operating for the terrorist organization which perpetrated the deadly Bali October 2002bombing, according to U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone . As Ricciardone points out, annoying the recently reelected President Gloria Arroyo's government, the operation is a threat to the whole neighborhood. Next door Indonesia, in the midst of its first direct election for president, finds candidates angling for the Islamicist vote in what is nominally the worldÕs largest Moslem nation. The U.S,. and its anti-terrorist allies, have been critical of IndonesiaÕs less than enthusiastic pursuit of the Jemaah Islamiyah network, linked to Al Qaeda, which calls for a regional unitary radical Islamic state.

Asia does not face the sophisticated centrally directed Cold War campaign of combat and infiltration directed by Moscow [and later aided and abetted by the Chinese Communists]. But as elsewhere armed dissident movements with different goals have often collaborated. [The Tamil Tigers were a product of tacit cooperation between Indira GandhiÕs Indian government, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and Moscow but had working relations with IndiaÕs Sikh insurgency]. The danger is if these pockets of violence grow they could work together to destabilize the whole region.