Home and Interior Ministers of ASEAN member states

The ASEAN Deputy Secretary-General

Excellencies

Distinguished guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

May I extend a warm welcome to all of you to Singapore for the Third ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime.

As Home and Interior Ministers, you meet today with a heavy agenda. Globalisation and technological advances may have changed the way business is done in every sector of the economy, altering the way people live, work, communicate, and entertain themselves, and opening new opportunities for enterprise and growth. But they have also provided criminals the means to extend their activities across national boundaries. This presents new challenges to law enforcement agencies around the world.

Cyber crime, for example, has been on the rise. Cyberspace is increasingly being used for criminal activities such as illegal drug transactions and money laundering. Huge amounts of funds are easily moved around the world at a click of the mouse. Cyber-attacks against corporations and businesses have also become more widespread. In one survey, nearly 70% of organisations surveyed reported that they had been victims of such attacks. Virus and worm attacks have also increased dramatically, causing widespread damage. Code Red, for example, cost nearly US$3 billion to clean up, while the more recent Nimda worm is estimated to have caused more than US$500 million of economic damage.

Besides cyber crime, ASEAN has also been grappling with the rise in piracy in the region. According to a TIME magazine article, out of 470 pirate attacks worldwide last year, over 190 occurred either in Indonesia or the Straits of Malacca. This is a disturbing trend. Not only does piracy endanger navigational safety and disrupt trade, but it also poses serious a threat to life at sea, and can cause serious damage to the marine environment if ships are left unmanned during attacks.

Under the best of circumstances, these are already serious challenges for our law enforcement agencies. But the 11 September terrorist attacks in the US, which shocked and outraged the world, have added a new dimension to transnational crime. This was not only an attack on America, but a barbarous crime against all civilised humanity. Of the more than 6,000 people reported missing or dead, more than 2,000 were not Americans, but were citizens of many other countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The chain of events spawned by the 11 September attacks has not fully played out. The US and its coalition partners have just commenced their attacks against terrorist organisations in Afghanistan, and the terrorists, in all probability, are preparing to strike back. But we are already feeling one certain consequence –the impact of a more severe US slowdown, with consumer confidence shaken by the attacks, and a general mood of caution all over, as people avoid air travel and countries take more precautions against terrorism.

This gathering of ASEAN ministers in charge of transnational crime is thus timely, for ASEAN member countries to discuss how we can work together to deal with various issues related to transnational crime, including drug trafficking, piracy, cyber crime, money laundering and terrorism.

We are not starting from scratch. ASEAN members have been working together for over 2 decades to combat transnational crime. The ASEAN Heads of Government first declared their resolve to fight transnational crime through the Declaration of ASEAN Concord of 24 February 1976. Since then, discussions on comprehensive and co-ordinated approaches to fight such crimes have regularly been on the agenda of ASEAN Summits and Ministerial Meetings.

Various sub-groups within ASEAN have also been formed, including the ASEAN Chiefs of National Police (or ASEANAPOL), the ASEAN Senior Officials on Drug Matters (ASOD), and, of course, the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime. At the ASEAN Regional Forum Expert Group Meetings, ASEAN member countries hold dialogues with other member countries in the Asia-Pacific region, to promote co-operation to deal with transnational crimes in the region.

ASEAN members should use these existing channels of co-operation, to work among ourselves and with the international community to tackle the issues of transnational crime.

In the fight against piracy, for example, Singapore’s law enforcement and security agencies are working closely with their Indonesian counter-parts to step up both preventive countermeasures and co-ordinated anti-piracy efforts in the Singapore Strait. ASEAN as a group should also see how we can work together in this area, including supporting the anti-piracy efforts of the International Maritime Organisation and other multilateral initiatives to promote co-operation to deal with this issue. Singapore has decided to accede to the 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, which provides a useful framework for co-operation among States in dealing piratical attacks. We urge other ASEAN members to consider acceding to the Convention as part of our collective effort and resolve to fight crime at sea.

ASEAN also needs to work with the international community to tackle issues like money laundering. We should see how we can support and ride on the work done by international bodies, such as the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), dedicated to developing and promoting policies, both at national and international levels, to combat money laundering. This would be timely as pressure for international co-operation to combat money laundering will increase as countries mobilise for the fight against terrorism. Several countries including the US, France, Germany and UK are already pressing FATF to integrate anti-terrorist measures as part of its basic guidelines. The UN Security Council, in its Resolution No. 1373, has, among other things, also decided that all member states must act to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorist acts, including freezing funds and assets with terrorist links.

Countering terrorism is an international endeavour. The problems are deep-rooted, and there are neither easy answers nor final solutions. As responsible members of the international community, ASEAN needs to work with the rest of the world to support these global anti-terrorism efforts. Terrorist networks extend across many countries, and we too are at risk.

Among ourselves, we should strive to co-operate more closely to fight terrorism, especially through increased exchange of information and intelligence using existing law enforcement and intelligence channels, and more dialogues between ASEAN members. We must signal clearly that we stand by what the ASEAN Economic Ministers and the EU Commissioner said in their statement issued in Hanoi on 12 September 2001, that we condemn the brutal acts of terrorism on humanity and the civilised world, that ASEAN agrees that there is a need for the international community to strengthen co-operation in combating terrorism around the world, and that ASEAN is committed to enhancing co-operation among its law enforcement agencies to combat terrorism.

Our efforts to tackle the various issues of transnational crime will demonstrate ASEAN's determination to work as a group and with the international community, to enhance stability and security in the region and elsewhere. By definition, transnational crimes straddle national borders. Each country can take measures to curb the proliferation of criminal activities within their borders, and keep that country safe and secure for its citizens. But it is equally important to strengthen co-operation between countries to combat transnational crime, and ensure an overall environment which is stable, where the rule of law prevails, and where basic preconditions exist for economic growth and foreign investments. This will strengthen international confidence in ASEAN, and help member countries to pick up the pieces from the Asian crisis and the current economic downturn, and work toward greater growth and prosperity.

The ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime therefore has a significant role to play. The issues on the agenda for this meeting are diverse, but critical for the peace and stability of the region. Co-operation will not always be straightforward, given the complexity of the issues involved and differing national positions. But I am confident that with deeper dialogue through the channels established over the years, including this Ministerial Meeting, ASEAN will be able to tackle the challenges ahead. I wish you all a fruitful discussion, and all the delegates a pleasant stay in Singapore.

It gives me great pleasure now to declare the Third ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime open.