- 1. Country: Bangladesh Committee: United Nations Security
Council (UNSC) Topic B: Security Concerns in the Middle East and
the Southeast Asia Since September 2001, the United States has
increased focus on radical Islamist and terrorist groups in
Southeast Asia, particularly those in the Philippines, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. Southeast Asia has been a base
for terrorist operations. Al Qaeda penetrated the region by
establishing local cells, training Southeast Asians in its camps in
Afghanistan, and by financing and cooperating with indigenous
radical Islamist groups. Indonesia and the southern Philippines
have been particularly vulnerable to penetration by Islamic
terrorist groups. While there has been significant anti-Western
terrorist activity in Southeast Asia, counter-terror measures in
recent years appear to have significantly degraded anti-Western
terrorist groups ability to launch attacks against Western targets
in the region. U.S. attention in the region has been focused on
radical Islamist groups, particularly the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI)
terrorist network that are known or alleged to have ties to the Al
Qaeda network. Combating anti-American terrorism in Southeast Asia
presents the Obama Administration and Congress with a delicate
foreign policy problem, though not of the highest priority given
U.S. engagement in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Southeast
Asian governments have to balance these despite mutual interests in
combating terrorism with the help of security concerns with
domestic political considerations. Although proponents of violent,
radical Islam remain a very small minority in Southeast Asia, many
governments view increased American pressure and military presence
in their region with concern because of the political sensitivity
of the issue with both mainstream Islamic and secular nationalist
groups. Bangladeshs engagement as a part of its planned Look East
policy is, however, more recent. She has evidently different
interests and priorities which seem to depend on a multiplicity of
factors such as geography (proximity to or common boundary with
Southeast Asia), level (also perceived potential) of trade and
investment, diaspora, needs of maritime or energy security etc.
Bangladesh has generally admired the success of ASEAN, especially
in comparison to SAARC, and should follow, in some way or the
other, the steps taken by ASEAN countries towards building
infrastructure, poverty alleviation, tourism and overall
regionalism, though SAARC has been in existence for a much shorter
period. Bangladesh, which is seen as a land bridge between SAARC
and ASEAN, has enormous geographic advantages for its proximity to
Myanmar and to other South East Asian nations to promote inter
regional economic, political, and security cooperation. Once
connected via the Asian Highway and Trans-Asian Railway, South and
South East Asian nations will be using Bangladesh as the main
transit point to increase economic interactions amongst themselves.
Bangladesh, with appropriate policies and infrastructures in place,
will be playing pivotal role in defining the direction of economic
relations between the two emerging regional groups. Bangladesh can
use the platform of ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) as a vital
instrument for the realisation of its aims and objectives to find
common ground for achieving mutual economic benefit. Bangladesh's
presence in the ASEAN Regional Forum
2. has provided it with an international focus as a voice for
managing security issues in the volatile region. As an explicit
goal of Bangladeshi foreign policy has been to seek close relations
with the states of Asia-Pacific, the government should pursue the
expansion of cooperation among the nations of Asia pacific bringing
the process of betterment of 160 million inhabitants of the
country.