Australia tries to calm storm over pre-emptive strike

SYDNEY (AFP) – The Australian government tried yesterday to calm the storm raging in Asia over Prime Minister John Howard’s threat to launch overseas pre-emptive strikes with an explanation that stopped well short of retraction.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Howard had never threatened to send Australian troops to Asia and would always try to enlist the support of its Southeast Asian neighbors to prevent a terrorist attack.

"The prime minister did not suggest, as some of the media in Southeast Asia are saying he suggested, that Australia was going off on bombing raids or sending troops into Southeast Asia," Downer told ABC radio.

"He made no such comment at all," he said.

However, the opposition stepped up its attack on Howard, echoing a chorus of Asian criticism and accusing him of jeopardizing Australia’s security in the region by damaging its bilateral political relationships.

In what appeared to be an effort to coax Southeast Asian countries into accepting Australia’s position, Downer said they had to understand the world had changed since Sept. 11 last year and especially since the Bali bombing on Oct. 12.

"We lost over 80 people, most of them young people, on Oct. 12," he said.

"We have to accept, and our friends and neighbors do accept, that we have a significant problem with terrorism in the region, and obviously Bali is the most dramatic illustration of that.

"We can’t turn our backs on it. We can’t hope that it will go away.

"We are absolutely determined to try to stop terrorism and destroy terrorist operations," he said.

Downer’s effort to ease the growing disquiet in the region followed Howard’s declaration that he would be prepared, if there was no alternative, to launch pre-emptive strikes against foreign-based terrorists plotting to attack Australia.

Howard has since provoked further outrage by repeating his remarks and saying he did not "resile in any way from them."

Downer told ABC radio that if Australia knew there was to be an attack by Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) on Australia and Australians were to be killed, then obviously it would endeavor to stop the attack, but not by bombing its neighbors.

"Obviously, first and foremost we’d work with them in order to intercept and stop it," he said.

JI is the outlawed Islamic extremist group blamed for the Oct. 12 Bali bombings which claimed more than 190 lives, almost half of them Australian.

Downer laughed off a scathing attack by Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who said he would consider any intrusion by Australia to fight terrorism as an act of war.

A persistent and long-term critic, Mahathir said Australia "stood out like a sore thumb in Asia" for trying to impose European values "as if they were the good old days where people can shoot at aborigines without caring for the human rights."

Using a cricket analogy, Downer said Australia had always in the past let Mahathir’s criticisms "fly through to the keeper," a strategy which had always worked best.

However, the criticism of Australia is not unanimous.

President Arroyo refused to be drawn into openly criticizing Canberra.

"The pre-emptive attack is hypothetical and I don’t think it is time now to give reaction one way or another to a hypothetical declaration. What is important is to realize that terrorism is not the responsibility of one country or one region alone," she told the National Press Club of Japan in Tokyo on the last day of her three-day state visit.

But Mrs. Arroyo did criticize last week’s temporary closure of the Australian, Canadian and European Union embassies in Manila due to "credible" terrorist threats, which took Manila by surprise.

"We must share intelligence with one another. Thus in the war against terrorism as compared to conventional warfare, that is what makes it different, the importance of intelligence," Mrs. Arroyo said.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was quoted by ABC radio here as saying the relationship between Thailand and Australia was very good. "We don’t have any problems," he said.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said in diplomacy, "words are bullets" and Howard’s words had damaged the bilateral political relationships on which Australia depends for its security.

"I would suggest to Mr. Downer and Mr. Howard in terms of Australia’s long term national security interests to choose their language more wisely," he said. – With Marichu Villanueva, Ely Saludar