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Howard unmoved by 'preemption'
furor
By Bob Burton
CANBERRA
- Despite the outrage his statements have caused among
governments across Asia, Prime Minister John Howard has
stood pat on his position that he would support
launching preemptive military strikes against terrorists
based in neighboring countries if they posed a threat to
Australia.
Amid angry reactions from Thailand,
Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, he told the
Australian Parliament on Monday: "Nothing that I said
yesterday was in any way directed against the countries
of our region, it was not in anyway directed against the
governments of our region ..."
He insisted his
comment was "related to the willingness of this country
to defend Australia's national interest ... to take
legitimate measures if other alternatives were not
available and if there was a clear precise and
identifiable threat".
Greens Party Senator Bob
Brown urged Howard to withdraw his statement and
apologize. "It damages our relationship not only with
the countries in our neighborhood but obviously it
creates a lot of tension.
"Our job is to create
better relationships within our neighborhood like
Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand and not to be
inherently threatening as the prime minister has done in
this statement," he said on Monday. "This is a major
gaffe by a prime minister who's been caught out by
jingoism."
Officials around the region described
Howard's statement as "arrogant" and "very dangerous".
"Nobody does anything like this," Thai Foreign
Ministry spokesman Ratthakit Manathat said. "Each
country has its own sovereignty that must be protected."
Interviewed live on the national current-affairs
program on Sunday, Howard was asked if he would act
against terrorists based in another country planning to
attack Australia.
"Oh yes, I think any
Australian prime minister would. I mean, it stands to
reason that if you believed that somebody was going to
launch an attack against your country, either of a
conventional kind or of a terrorist kind, and you had a
capacity to stop it and there was no alternative other
than to use that capacity, then of course you would have
to use it," he said.
He went a step further by
suggesting that the United Nations charter be reviewed
to allow a country to launch a preemptive strike against
"terrorists" in other countries. This was met by a
chorus of criticisms from officials across the region
who were appalled by Howard's comments.
The
Philippines' national security adviser Roilo Golez told
Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) radio on Sunday that
Howard's statement was extraordinary. "That's a very
surprising statement, to say the least, in fact
bordering on shocking. I can't believe that it would
come from a supposed friendly country in the
neighborhood. You are talking about a region with very
strong government, the ASEAN region. This is the 21st
century, not the 19th century," he said.
Brushing aside the criticisms, Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer told ABC radio on Monday: "If people
misinterpret what the prime minister has said then they
have to live with the consequences of their
misinterpretation."
(Inter Press
Service)
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