Southeast Asia Urges World Not to Warn Against Visits

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 ◆ Southeast Asia Urges World Not to Warn Against Visits

A summit of Southeast Asian nations demanded on Monday that the rest of the world stop issuing warnings against travel to a region that depends on tourism for large amounts of revenue. Still reeling from the shock of a devastating bombing on Indonesia's resort island of Bali last month that killed more than 180 people, many of them tourists dancing at a popular nightspot, the appeal marked rare unanimity for the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). "We call on the international community to avoid indiscriminately advising their citizens to refrain from visiting or otherwise dealing with our countries in the absence of established evidence to substantiate rumors of possible terrorist attacks," ASEAN said in a declaration at the start of a two-day summit in the capital Cambodian, Phnom Penh. Just days earlier, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri told members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Mexico to lift travel warnings against her country, which relies on income from tourism for a large chunk of its economy. The United States is among the many countries that have urged citizens not to visit Indonesia and which has withdrawn families of embassy staff from the country, citing fears of more attacks. The ASEAN declaration recognized the threat of terror in the region, a danger that has been repeatedly stressed by several members -- particularly by Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines -- but has been virtually ignored by Indonesia. "We are determined to cooperate actively in mitigating the adverse impact of terrorism attacks on ASEAN countries and urge the international community to assist us in our efforts," the declaration said. It stressed the need to combat money laundering and furtive flows of funds used by extremist groups to finance their activities around the world. However, the group that includes the world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, and predominantly Muslim Malaysia, condemned what it called a trend toward identifying such attacks with individual religious groups but stopped short of naming them. "We deplore the tendency in some quarters to identify terrorism with particular religious or ethnic groups," it said. The group pledged to intensify cooperation to track down and suppress terror acts around the region, but gave no details.