Steve Quayle News Alerts

March 5, 2002
By Marianne Bray

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (CNN) -- Asian nations attending a regional meet on people smuggling in Indonesia have voiced concern at the link between human trafficking and terrorism.

Nations are already struggling to cope with the criminal 'human cargo' business but the problem has gained greater urgency in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, delegates at the meeting say.

The illegal movement of people across borders strikes at the core of a country's integrity, leaving governments in the dark about who is in their country and what kind of threat any "potential terrorists" may pose.

Interpol officials at the conference say the trafficking of what they call "human product" across borders is growing so much that over the past three years it has become their number two crime priority behind narcotics.

The people smuggling conference, which concludes on Thursday, is expected to come up with a roadmap on how countries in Asia can crack down on the deadly and lucrative trade of people smuggling.

Hotbed

Asia has become a hotbed for the human cargo trade.

From the source countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq, asylum seekers make their way down to the South East Asian nations with the help of smugglers.

Over recent years this dirty business, which the International Office for Migration estimates at $10 billion per year globally, has used Malaysia and Indonesia as staging points for illegal migrants on their way to Australia.

Now officials are going one step further, saying that because international terrorism is operating in a border-less world and beyond the reach of many law enforcement agencies, it's time to crack down on smuggling and trafficking people between borders.

Terrorists often operate as sleepers in a community, entering countries with the help of a network, many times with fake passports.

Safe haven

Owing to its porous borders and lax immigration laws, Indonesia could become a safe haven for terrorists, experts say, although to date there is no evidence that terrorist networks have sought sanctuary in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Malaysia too, has become a transit hub as Muslims do not require a visa to enter the country, and the Southeast Asian nation has cracked down recently on alleged terrorists arresting and detaining dozens of suspects.

Meanwhile, the Philippines has not escaped the terrorism spotlight.

The Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, notorious for kidnappings and killings in the southern Philippines, have been linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network, which has been blamed for the September 11 attacks.

The country has become the staging point for America's second front against terror, with around 600 U.S. troops joining in training exercises with their Filipino counterparts in a bid to eliminate the group.

Breeding ground

The Central Asian nation of Afghanistan shows what can happen when governments don't crack down on terrorism.

Afghanistan's interim government has blamed al Qaeda for turning their country into a "breeding ground of terror and violence" and in turn, raising the stakes in the smuggling trade.

In a paper submitted to the conference, the Afghan delegation said that if the global community had heeded their warnings about the state of terror in their country "perhaps people smuggling wouldn't have reached the highest level of its professionalism, as it is today."

Afghanistan carries the largest caseload of refugees, and has been wracked not only by the U.S. campaign against terror, directed against the Taliban for harboring bin Laden, but also decades of civil years and years of drought.

The Afghan delegation pointed the finger at the brutal Taliban regime for turning the Central Asian country "into a site of persecution of our own people and a launching ground for challenging all norms of decency, legality and international conduct."

http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/02/28/indon.smugglers.0411/