Tsunami disaster might ease terrorism
By Henry Schuster, CNN Senior Investigative Producer
Tuesday, January 4, 2005 Posted: 5:44 PM EST (2244 GMT)
(Henry Schuster is senior producer in CNN's Investigative Unit and
has been covering terrorism for more than a decade.)
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- -- While most of the world's attention
was focused on the tsunami last week, Osama bin Laden issued
another audiotape. Somehow listening to al Qaeda's leader offer his
endorsement of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and his murderous ways in Iraq
seemed trivial next to the devastation in places like Indonesia,
Sri Lanka and Thailand.
But bin Laden's message was anything but trivial. And its very
presence is a reminder that the tsunami and terrorism are
related.
How?
Just ask Rohan Gunaratna, senior research fellow at the Institute
of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore. You might have seen
him on CNN's air from time to time as an expert on al Qaeda and
terrorism. Gunaratna lives in Singapore, but he was born and raised
in Sri Lanka.
Right now, he's mourning the loss of friends back home. Like most
expatriates, he is stunned by what happened not only to his country
but to the entire region.
Terrorism has been no stranger to the region. Gunaratna became an
expert on suicide bombings many years ago because the Tamil Tigers
in his homeland began using such attacks as early as 1987.
Several hundred people were killed this past year in southern
Thailand in the festering insurgency between Islamic separatists
and the Thai military. And Aceh, the hardest hit area in Indonesia,
is the home of GAM, a separatist group that has been waging a
sporadic conflict with the Jakarta government.
It was precisely in these areas that the devastation was worst.
Some of it, says Gunaratna, took a toll on the terrorist and
insurgent movements, who lost both fighters and infrastructure when
the waves crashed on shore.
"This is a golden opportunity for the United States," says
Gunaratna. The refrain that the United States and the West are
losing the war of ideas, especially in the Muslim world, was the
main topic at a recent conference about al Qaeda
But counter that with images of U.S. helicopters bringing aid to
places like Aceh, delivering something that insurgents can't, and
Gunaratna thinks that devastation can unwittingly bring some good.
That it might overwhelm the message from bin Laden, at least in
Indonesia, which is after all the most populous Islamic country in
the world.
He also thinks that the magnitude of the destruction has brought on
war fatigue.
"We haven't even started to think about this issue. But natural
disasters shape leaders," says Gunaratna.
He talked recently with one former Tamil Tiger terrorist after the
tsunami. Gunaratna says this man had been upset at the lack of
progress in peace talks between the Tamils and the Sri Lankan
government. But he changed his mind after he saw the immense
suffering that took place on December 26.
Now, says Gunaratna, the man thought discussing politics was less
important than relieving the suffering.
Still, Gunaratna isn't getting too optimistic. Already the Sri
Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers are squabbling about who
should deliver relief aid.
Another expert on terrorism, Zach Abuza, a professor in Southeast
Asian studies at Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts, says the
opportunity is there not just for the United States, but for the
governments of these countries as well to win a propaganda victory
by providing aid not just now, but in the years to come.
One reason military forces in Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka
have a chance to show their positive side, says Abuza, is they've
had such an appalling human rights record in the past.
With all the aid money coming into the region, Abuza says it will
be important to keep an eye on funding from Islamic charities,
especially in Saudi Arabia. In the past, he says, these charities
have provided funding for al Qaeda-related groups like Abu Sayyaf
in the Philippines.
Still, like Rohan Gunaratna, Abuza thinks the tsunami's aftermath
can help turn the tide against terrorism in the region, if the U.S.
and local governments deliver on their promises.