19th Asian Security Conference amid
India's security inconsistencies
Updated: Mar 15, 2017 18:39 IST
By: Col Anil Bhat, VSM (Retd.)
New Delhi [India], Mar. 15 (ANI): The 19th Asian Security
Conference of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) held
from March 6-8, on the subject Combating Terrorism: Evolving an Asian Response,
featured an impressive and wide array of speakers from India and fourteen
foreign countries.
The aim of this conference was to focus
on the following themes over multiple interactive sessions:
I. Evaluating the norm building efforts
in countering global terrorism, understanding the geo-political realities and
defining the Asian and global response to terrorism.
II - Identifying ideologies and drivers
fuelling this transnational resurgence of extremist violence, with an eye on
the role of terror finance in exacerbating conflict in the region
III - Examining how technology is
changing the nature of conflict and the rising challenges there-in to Asian
security.
IV - Assessing the threat of terrorism
in Asia: From South West Asia, to the extended outposts in South Asia and South
East Asia.
V - Forecasting challenges that lie
ahead, debating the absence of effective counter-narratives, and building upon
a reservoir of best practices of counter-terrorism efforts by countries in the
region.
The conference explored these subjects
through the course of the following interactive sessions:
• Norms: The Global War on Terror :
Challenges for Asia
• New Wave of Global Terror: Ideas,
Resources and Trends
• The Age of 'Instant Terror':
Technology, the Game Changer
• Regional Perspectives - The West Asia
Conundrum : Unraveling geopolitics; global response
• Regional Perspectives - South and
South East Asia : The Growing Spectre of Terror
• Constructing effective
counter-narratives: The need for a global response
• The Asian Response to Combatting
Terror : The Way Forward.
The speakers were former defence
minister Manohar Parrikar, DG, IDSA, Jayant Prasad, DDG, IDSA, Maj Gen Alok
Deb, SM, VSM (Retd), Mohammad Hanif Atmar, National Security Advisor (NSA),
Afghanistan, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, President, Centre for Policy Research, New
Delhi, Maj. Gen. Mahmud Ali Durrani, former national security advisor,
Pakistan, Mr. Abdel Bari Atwan, Editor-in- chief, Raial-Youm, Praveen Swami,
The Indian Express, Mr. Ehsan Monawar, Counter-Terrorism Expert, Afghanistan,
G.K. Pillai, Former Home Secretary, Government of India, Baker Atyani, Veteran
journalist from Jordan, Waiel Awwad, New Delhi-based Syrian journalist, Lamya
Haji Bashar Taha, Public advocate of the Yazidi community, Iraq, Karnal Singh,
Director Enforcement Directorate,Government of India, Dr. Christine Fair,
Associate Professor, Peace and Security Studies Program Georgetown University,
USA, Gulshan Rai, Chief of Cyber security, Government of India, Arvind Gupta,
Deputy NSA, Government of India, Dr. Anne Speckhard, Director, International
Center for Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE), USA, Madan Oberoi (IPS), former
Director, Cyber-Crime, Interpol, Singapore, Saikat Datta, Director, Centre for
Internet ; Society, India, Sanjeev Singh, Addl. DG (anti-Naxal Operations),
Madhya Pradesh Police, Manjula Sridhar, Founder ArgByte - a cybercrime
analytics software, Sanjay Singh, former Secretary (East), Ministry of External
Affairs, Vladimir I. Sotnikov,
Senior Research Fellow, Institute of
Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Mustafa El Sagezli , General
Manager, Libyan Program for Reintegration; Development, Abul Cader Mashoor
Maulana , Former OSD, Foreign Minister, Saudi Arabia, Frank Ledwidge (UK),
Former Military Intelligence Officer who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya,
Mohammad Hossein Shojaei, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Iran, India,
Eitan Shamir, Senior Research Fellow, Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies,
Israel, Sanjaya Baru, Director, Geo-Economics and Strategy, International
Institute of Strategic Studies, Lt. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Sarwardy, Commandant,
National Defence College, Mirpur, Bangladesh, Ayesha Siddiqa, former bureaucrat
and political commentator, Pakistan, Ma Xiangwu, Functionary, Communist Party
of China, Lt. Gen. Daya Ratnayake, former Commander of Army, Sri Lanka, Kumar
Ramakrishna, Head of Policy Studies and Coordinator of National Security
Studies Programme in the Office of the executive deputy chairman, RSIS,
Singapore, Syed Asif Ibrahim, Indian Prime Minister's Special Envoy on
"Countering Terrorism and Extremism, Lt. Gen. Ata Hasnain, former GOC 15
Corps, J-K, Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, Grand Mufti, Syria, Adil Rasheed, Research
Fellow, IDSA, A.R. Anjaria, President, Islamic Defence Cyber Cell of India and
Member, Advisory Council, Jama Masjid, Delhi, Saad al-Qarni, Associate
Professor, University of Imam Mohamed Ibn Saud, Kalbe Sadiq, Founder, Tauheedul
Muslimeen Trust and Commodore C. Uday Bhaskar, Director, Society for Policy
Studies.
Commenting on Asia's pivotal role in
combating terrorism, Parrikar said that a strong regional push from Asia will
exert more pressure on the rest of the world to adopt a cohesive framework to
fight terrorism, a 'transnational threat''.
He explained that the response to this
threat is generally local and uncoordinated, largely due to conflicting
definitions of terrorism and geopolitical constraints, which have stymied a
global response, whereas successful combat against terrorism requires a
holistic approach, of which important steps are tackling of terror finance and
countering the misuse of the internet through social media by terrorist
entities.
Atmar, National Security Advisor,
Afghanistan described security and counter terrorism as the 'most defining challenge
of our times and called for a strong counter-terrorism strategy, with proposed
actions at four levels - global, the Islamic world, regional and national.
Cautioning that such strategy would be a 'generational challenge' requiring
long-term planning, the Afghan NSA insisted that its objective should be to end
State sponsorship of terrorism by initiating coordinated political, strategic
and military responses to destroy the flourishing sanctuaries for terrorist
groups. Terming international accountability as a prerequisite to counter
terror, the NSA laid equal emphasis on the need for appropriate action at the
national level through good governance, education, and infrastructure building.
Dispelling the perception of terrorism being associated with Islam as unethical
and unhelpful, the NSA insisted that the Muslim nations have lost more lives to
extremism and terrorism than other nations.
Adding that Muslim nations are natural
allies in the war against terrorism, he insisted that the narrative of distinguishing
between good and bad terrorists should be stopped, as such distinction helps a
perpetrator organisation disguise itself as a victim and morphing itself into a
Frankenstein monster.
He further noted that Afghanistan is
not confronted with a civil war, but a terrorist war, and an undeclared state
to state war.
Advocating strongly for the need for
security and economic prosperity for all in West Asia, Ambassador Hossein
Sheikholeslam, Advisor to Foreign Minister, Islamic Republic of Iran, blamed socio-economic
imbalances for political uncertainty in the region. Stressing that West Asia
has been a victim of Western arrogance and colonial intervention along with
continued meddling for years, is the root cause of political conflicts in the
region and added that cohesive socio-economic development of the entire region
is the only way to establish peace.
Commenting on Syria, the Ambassador
said Iran and Syria share a common political and strategic outlook and it is
the people of Syria who must decide their own future.
On Afghanistan, he said Iran's
relations with Afghanistan are founded on very close cultural and historic
ties.
Speaking on West Asia and Caucuses,
other speakers at the conference highlighted the clash of interests of powers
involved in the New Great Game for influence in Central Asia, and large-scale
drug trafficking along the northern transportation route from Afghanistan to
Russia, as chief causes of instability in the region.
The international community was
unanimously urged to agree on common denominators for formulation of a single
counterstrategy for violent extremism.
The speakers agreed that political
communities should try to reach out to the nations and ethnic sections that are
potentially prone to radicalisation.
Citing external interventions as one of
the major causes for increasing radicalisation of youth and terrorism in the
region, the experts called for greater regional and international cooperation
for the systematic eradication of religious extremism.
Speaking on the rise of Da'esh as an
unprecedented event in the geopolitics of the West Asian region, the experts
noted that the terrorist outfit has challenged the existing regional political
order by trying to redraw boundaries in the volatile region.
Even if defeated, its surviving
fighters could go underground, return to their countries of origin and mutate
into another radical organisation.
Some of the common denominators for a
counterterrorism strategy identified by the experts were discouraging religious
extremism, having proper legislation in place to protect minorities, denying of
terrorist sanctuaries and use of non-state actors, and national action plans
against terrorism.
There was wide agreement on the need
for de-linking religion from terrorism and that the counter-narratives should
go beyond religions, to the connected political, historical and psychological
issues. Lack of socio-economic development, inadequate education, heightened
poverty, corruption, and misguided nationalism were cited as some of the key
drivers of extremist ideologies.
Exclusion of minorities from mainstream
politics, rising religious chauvinism, and lack of an ideological response to
the extremist school of thought, were some other factors.
There was also wide agreement on the
need for developing multi-disciplinary approaches, capacity-building of law
enforcement agencies, and strengthening of public-private partnership to
counter terrorism.
While the conference dwelt on all
aspects and issues and proved to be an effective platform for brainstorming on
the problems and responses to terror, there is an irony that must not be
overlooked. Considering that the host country, India has been a long-term
target of terror emanating from Pakistan, with Jammu and Kashmir as a fulcrum,
India's own policy and responses have been flip-flop and inconsistent.
While the BJP government-expected to be
assertive- showed its assertiveness post the terrorist attack on the Army at
Uri by approving a cross-Line of Control surprise strike, subsequent two
Pakistani attacks with beheadings/mutilation of two Indian soldiers, were
responded to by pounding of over twenty Pakistani border posts. No matter how
many such attacks Indian Army launches, induction of Pakistani terrorists into
the Kashmir valley and attacks by them as well as radicalization of valley
public/youth will not stop until the separatists- read traitors- and their wide
network are not neutralized.
It beats reason as to why the Central
and state governments instead of neutralizing the separatists, provide them
with many benefits, including security personnel and bullet-proof vehicles-when
policemen do not have enough bullet proof gear- and further, even providing a
government job for the leading separatist's grandson.
It is these very separatists who are
consistently and continuously sustaining/funding/inciting anti-Indian
sentiments and activities. (ANI)
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