Macapagal, Marcos was totally beholden to the Americans and the
Philippine economy came under the control of American and Western
multinationals.
During the Vietnam War, the Philippines under Marcos came even
closer within the orbit of U.S. strategic and military interests. Marcos
did not allow Philippine troops to join in the Vietnam War, but did
allow Philcag Engineer units to go to Vietnam and help the American
war effort there. He also allowed the United States to use the Subic
Bay naval facility and Clarke Air Base as bases for U.S. naval and aerial
units. It was during this time that U.S.-Philippine military coopera-
tion was at its highest and it was also then that the Philippines became
the prostitution center of ASEAN, thanks to U.S. troops who were
allowed to go on “rest and recreation” leave while based there.
With extensive U.S. covert and overt support, the Marcos govern-
ment helped to corporatize the Philippine army, allowing army officers
to run businesses and siphon profits into their personal accounts. The
American government continued to bankroll the Marcos regime and
the Philippine army because of their commitment to contain the com-
munists and NPA, and during this period (1975–1980), abuses of
human rights in the Philippines reached a peak. During this time, the
Philippines came closer under American control and the Philippine
economy came under the indirect supervision of international
* * *
Uncle Sam to the Rescue?
225
agencies like the IMF. The IMF imposed structural adjustment policies
(SAPs) that effectively opened up the Philippine economy to extensive
foreign capital penetration, but at the expense of the local industry
and business community. As the economy faltered from one crisis to
another, the Marcos regime vented its wrath on its two main enemies:
the communist opposition and the Moro Muslims in the southern
regions of Mindanao and Sulu.
On February 25, 1986, the Marcos regime finally toppled and
the Marcos family was forced to seek refuge in the United States.
Corazon Aquino then became the next president of the Philippines,
with the country’s foreign debt estimated at around US$28 billion.
On September 28, 1989 Marcos died of a heart attack in Hawaii.
Imelda Marcos was later brought to trial in New York but was acquitted
of all charges.
The Marcos era ended with the bankruptcy of the Philippine econ-
omy. Most of the foreign aid into the country had been appropriated
and taken out of the country by the Marcoses themselves. By 1985,
the Philippines had the biggest external debt burden in ASEAN and
the Far East. What was more, the Philippine economy was almost totally
dependent on Western investors and banks, while the local economy
had been nearly wiped out, thanks to the structural adjustment policies
imposed by the IMF.
Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines were not the only coun-
tries in ASEAN to come under undue U.S. political, economic, and
military pressure: American diplomats, intelligence personnel, and
military advisors (as well as troops) had been stationed in practically
every other country of ASEAN as well.
In Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, and Brunei,
American presence and hegemony has been introduced and main-
tained both directly and indirectly with the help of local elites who
enlisted the help of the Americans to deal with internal dissent and
opposition coming from various pro-democracy, leftist, communist,
and Islamist opposition groups. In Thailand, the United States helped
to maintain the army’s tight grip on national politics through a
complex web of patronage and support given to the Thai army and
police forces who were instrumental in eliminating leftist intellectuals
and communist leaders, thereby ensuring that Thailand did not
fall into the hands of the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. In Singapore
and Malaysia,25 the Americans were the first to send in their intelli-
gence personnel to help the governments of the respective countries
monitor, police, and eliminate communist operatives and party
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226
F arish A. Noor
Bearing in mind the facts of contemporary post-war history, it is
easy to see just how and why America’s renewed presence in the
ASEAN region has been a cause for alarm for many local pro-democracy,
Islamist, and civil society movements, parties, and NGOs. As was the
case during the heyday of U.S. unilateralism and intervention in the
1960s–1980s, America’s presence in ASEAN today has led to the dis-
ruption and dislocation of local politics, distorting both internal and
international politics in the region as a whole.
Uncle’s Sam’s Heavy and Uneven
Imprint on the Political Terrain of
ASEAN: How American Intervention
Complicated the Regional
Politics of Southeast Asia
The Americans, as we have seen, were and are no strangers to Southeast
Asia. From the “quiet Americans” who surreptitiously monitored,
policed, and directed ASEAN’s political evolution in their hotel rooms
to the Marines who slaughtered Vietnamese villagers during the
Vietnam War, America’s presence has been felt by the ordinary people of
ASEAN for decades. Even up to the 1980s and 1990s, the American
presence was still a visible one, with thousands of U.S. troops cruising
the red-light districts of Bangkok and Manila while on rest and recre-
ation leave in the abovementioned countries. Needless to say, in time,
the image of the ugly American, complete with his martial swagger and
much-wanted dollars, became a popular image in the collective imagina-
tion of Thais, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and, to a lesser extent, Indonesians.
It is against this highly fluid, overlapping, and oft-times unstable
background that the United States was poised to stage a comeback
in the wake of 9/11. Needless to say, America’s previous record in
Southeast Asia was a major factor that informed local Southeast Asian
reactions to this development. Another important factor to bear in mind
is the different reaction that was bound to come from the Muslim-
majority states of ASEAN.
The Muslim Reaction: Malaysia and Indonesia
Osama bin Laden is just an excuse for the United States, which has time
and again shown its hostility towards Islam, to wage war against our
religion.26
Tuan Guru Nik Aziz Nik Mat, Murshid’ul Am
(spiritual leader) of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS)
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Uncle Sam to the Rescue?
227
The American government’s declaration of a “global crusade” against
“Islamic terrorism” had only succeeded in antagonizing vast sections
of the global Muslim community when it was the last thing the United
States needed to do. The inept handling of the complex and sensitive
matter of cooperation with Muslim governments also helped to ignite
local tensions th
at had been simmering under the surface in many of
the Muslim countries.
In the ASEAN context, American unilateralism and the projection
of American military power and intelligence capabilities led to grow-
ing anti-Americanism among ordinary Muslims, which cut across class,
social, and geographical frontiers. The governments of Malaysia and
Indonesia (the Sultanate of Brunei has been curiously silent through-
out the crisis) were faced with a particularly difficult situation where
they had to appease both the governments of the West and their own
Muslim-majority political constituencies. The Malaysian government,
in particular, was careful not to show too much support or enthusiasm
for either side in the conflict.
Following America’s invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001,
Malaysia’s prime minister, Dr. Mahathir openly stated his dissatisfac-
tion with the American-led attack. In a press conference held in
Parliament, the prime minister said that “war against these countries
will not be effective in fighting terrorism.”27 Although he was also
careful to state that the attack on Afghanistan should not be regarded
by anyone as an attack on Islam and the Muslim world, Dr. Mahathir
did question the wisdom behind the action and pointed out the neg-
ative consequences that were sure to follow.
Domestic political concerns were also not far from the mind of the
Prime Minister. In a thinly veiled warning to the Malaysian Islamist
parties and groups that might think of extending their support to
Osama bin Laden or the Taliban, he pointed out that “we will not
tolerate anyone who supports violence and will act against these irre-
sponsible people or anyone who backs terrorism.”28
The situation, however, was clearly out of hand by then. While the
Prime Minister was trying to calm the fears of foreign investors, Western
embassies, and tourists in the country, the local police and security
forces were put on alert and the American embassy (which was closed
as it was Columbus day in the United States) was placed under guard.
On the same day (October 8), the leaders of PAS came out with their
strongest statement against the Americans yet. For the Murshid’ul
Am (spiritual leader) of PAS, Tuan Guru Nik Aziz Nik Mat, the attack
on Afghanistan was clearly an attack on Islam and Muslims in general.
PAS’s (then) president Ustaz Fadzil Noor also stated that the attacks
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228
F arish A. Noor
were not only against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime but that they
constituted a direct assault on Muslims the world over.
Things finally came to a climax on October 10 when PAS declared
a Jihad against the United States and its coalition partners and gave
the go-ahead for its members to openly join and support the Taliban.
Soon after, PAS leaders like Fadzil Noor, Mohamad Sabu, and Mahfuz
Omar were calling for a total boycott of all American goods and services,
and even for the Malaysian government to send troops to Afghanistan
to help resist the American-led attacks.29
In neighboring Indonesia—the biggest Muslim country in the
world—the situation was made even more complex, thanks to the insti-
tutionalized divisions of racial, ethnic, and religious difference among
the country’s ruling elite. The Indonesian armed forces (TNI), whose
presence and involvement in politics was less visible but, nevertheless,
still apparent in the wake of the fall of President Soeharto in 1998, was
also dominated by secular or Christian officers, who had always main-
tained a cautious policy of keeping the Islamists at arm’s length and as
far outside the political arena as possible.
Since the days of General Benny Moerdani—Soeharto’s right-arm
man and the most anti-Muslim general in Indonesian history—the
elite component of the TNI have maintained that political Islam was a
threat to the secular ideology of the state and that the Islamists were
fundamentally terrorists who needed to be dealt with by force and
violence.
The Indonesian Islamists managed to reposition themselves into
the country’s political mainstream during the economic crisis of
1997–1998, when prominent Islamist intellectuals like Amein Rais
and Nurcholish Madjid were seen at the forefront of the pro-democracy
Reformasi (reform) movement. The quiet victory of the moderate
Islamists witnessed the ascendancy to power of the country’s biggest
Muslim party, the Nahdatul Ulama (NU), under the leadership of the
Ulama-politician Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur). It is interesting to
note that even at the peak of the reform movement in Indonesia, the
Western press remained silent over the Islamist background of many
of the pro-democracy leaders. Amein Rais was described as a democrat
and civil society activist, though it ought to be remembered that he,
along with Nurcholish Madjid, Ulil Abshar Abdallah, Abdurrahman
Wahid, and others were all active leaders and members of Islamic move-
ments like the Muhamadijjah and Nahdatul Ulama of Indonesia.
The 9/11 attacks marked a radical reversal of fortunes for the
Islamists in general. With a new (and weak) president as head of state—
Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of the country’s secular–nationalist
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Uncle Sam to the Rescue?
229
founding father, President Sukarno—the army was once again in a
position to play the role of power broker and kingmaker. The appar-
ent weakness of Indonesia, coupled with renewed Islamist activism in
Java and Sumatra, opened the way for the resurgence of the secular
generals and their cohorts, with the backing of the Indonesian presi-
dent and the powers-that-be in Washington. In time, Megawati pro-
moted the controversial figure of General Hendrypriyono (dubbed
the “Butcher of Lampung”) to head the country’s new integrated
antiterror operations unit based in Jakarta. At the same time, Megawati
also courted the help of U.S. military and intelligence services to track
down the terrorists who were allegedly behind the bombings in Bali
and to eliminate “terror cells” that might be operating in the country.
These moves may have endeared Megawati and her generals even
more to the United States, but it also had the immediate effect of
alienating her from her own Muslim-majority constituency. The move
on the part of the President was immediately criticized by the country’s
Vice-President Hamzah Has, who was openly linked and close to
the country’s Islamist parties and radical Islamist movements. The
more vocal and aggressive components of the Islamist fringe wasted
no time before warning Megawati of the dire consequences of her
diplomatic choices. Like Malaysia, though, the Indonesian govern-
ment was not able (or inclined) to show excessive support to the United
States for its military adventures abroad. The concerns expressed by
Indonesia’s political elite demonstrated their own worries about the
possible reignition of radical Islamism in the country as a result o
f
Megawati’s closer ties with the United States.
The major concern expressed by the government of Muslim coun-
tries like Malaysia and Indonesia was the fact that the economic and
political grievances of the Muslim world have hardly been addressed.
No attempt was made—particularly by the Western/American media—
to look at the root causes of Muslim anger. No attempt was made to
understand how and why the attack on the United States managed to
turn around such a large number of Muslim moderates and bring them
on the side of Osama and the Taliban. Factual and historical analysis
was put to the side and culturalist assumptions prevailed. There
was talk of the bogey of the “global Islamic threat,” about how Islam
“condoned” such acts of violence, and the recurring image of the
Muslim as the fanatical terrorist was widespread in the Western media.
Similar considerations were less evident in the non-Muslim countries
of ASEAN—particularly Singapore and the Philippines—that were
more preoccupied with the problem of internal Muslim dissent and
increasingly vocal opposition from their Muslim minorities.
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230
F arish A. Noor
Bringing the War against Terror Home: The Reaction
of Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines
The countries that have latched on to the discourse of the war against
terror the most in ASEAN happened to be those that had the most to
gain from a closer alignment with the United States and had to deal
with the problem of internal dissent coming from their Muslim minority
communities.
Singapore was the first to lead and the decision of the Singaporean
government to support the United States in its global campaign did
not come as a surprise to many ASEAN-watchers. It was well known
that by the 1980s, Singapore had clearly aligned itself to the West and
that unlike the other countries in the region, its economic and political
lot was closely tied to Western economic, military, and economic
interests. From the time of independence (in 1965), the economy of
the island city-state was very much dependent on external economic
variables that were beyond its control. Singapore’s economy was very