SA countries bound by ingrained norms, values

Excerpts of the statement made by Public Administration and Home Affairs Minister W D J Seneviratne at the fifth meeting of SAARC Ministers of Interior/Home in Maldives on September 14, 2012:

“Whilst SAARC Member States strive hard towards the development of the region, the fruits of our toil and sweat should not be wasted away by the destructive quest for power and influence. Several fundamental problems such as terrorism and drugs, continue to require determined concerted action by all our Member States.

“Human trafficking is yet another threat that is flourishing in our region, because of its clandestine and lucrative nature, it needs to be dealt a with wide vision, closer understanding, cooperation and coordination of nations concerned.

The Convention on Preventing and Combating the Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution signed during the Eleventh SAARC Summit, has opened up avenues of working together in this front for the Member States. This will strengthen law enforcement agencies in the Member States and help them to take effective steps to combat these crimes by reforming their laws in line with the spirit of the Convention we have signed.

“In this regard, the meeting of the High Level Group of Eminent Experts on Strengthening the SAARC Anti – Terrorism mechanism held in New Delhi from February 19-20, 2012, had made efforts to identify the effective enforcement of related SAARC Conventions, which I consider a valuable recommendation.

“Several key developments in the region have also created new challenges, which warrant even greater coordination and calibration of efforts by the Member States. We the SAARC Member States can engage ourselves more actively, to cripple the mobility of terrorists and criminals. Mobility is an essential requirement for the capable development and operations of global and regional terrorist groups. ‘By enhancing border control security, the Member States would be in a position to restrict movements, interaction and networking among terrorists and criminals.

“Towards this end, my Government is thankful to SAARC in general and particularly wish to appreciate the efforts made by the Government of Maldives in introducing the subject matter on Maritime Security in the SAARC fora, a concept accepted by all Member States.

Sri Lanka being an island nation, is conscious of the threats posed by the growing incidents of maritime piracy in the Indian Ocean and have fully endorsed the proposal made by the Maldives on information sharing, enhancing maritime domain awareness, strengthening the national legal framework and establishment of effective intelligence network, among others, in the SAARC Region as effective ways to counter the menace.

“On sharing of intelligence among the Member States, the Government of Sri Lanka has already announced the meeting of the SAARC Terrorism Offences Monitoring Desk (STOMD) on the establishment of the STOMD Secure Database to be held this year which is rescheduled and dates will be announced shortly. This web portal will be launched as the first step towards the creation of an advanced integrated information sharing system among SAARC Member States.

The objective would focus on obtaining information from a primary source and sharing information on a real time basis. It would be a platform to allow regulated and secure access to information stored in the secure central database. It is our fervent wish for this mechanism to become a groundbreaking and a cutting-edge initiative, for the Member States to share information on a common platform, thereby firming up the process of exchanging of information among Member States.

It is also our wish that this process would pave the way for Sri Lanka to make the STOMD (SAARC Terrorism Offences Monitoring Desk) and the SDOMD (SAARC Drug Offences Monitoring Desk) located in Colombo more vibrant so that it is gratifying to note the measures adopted by the SAARC Police Conference on Cooperation in Police matters such as establishment of networking arrangements among police authorities in Member States and more frequent interactions at the apex level, sharing expertise in police investigations, training, technology and capacity building which would further improve police, judicial and intelligence cooperation among its members.

“Sri Lanka in our commitment towards eradicating terrorism in the region and as a means of contributing for the strengthening of the law enforcement mechanism in the region, would be offering a 14 day training programme on “Counter – Terrorism Strategic Management Training course” for the mid-level officers.

“Sri Lanka welcomes the proposal made by Maldives to introduce a concept paper on cyber crimes. This is once again a timely initiative, as it is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face in the region.

Many terrorist groups have utilized this state-of-the-art mechanism, either to suppress the free media exposing the crimes committed by the terrorist groups and have even effectively used cyberspace to replicate its recruitment, training, communication and planning facilities by motivating/brainwashing the vulnerable groups. Hence, there is a need to reduce the vulnerability and susceptibility of individuals from joining terrorist organizations using this medium.

“Sri Lanka has experienced terrorism for three decades and the economic impact on Sri Lanka had been enormous. Today with the dawn of a new era, we wish to work even closer with the rest of the SAARC Member States to strengthen our efforts and to translate our decisions and policies into tangible results, with a view to promoting peace and stability and to uphold our norms and values, which we all SAARC Members truly cherish.”