They say charity begins at home, I wonder whether security begins at home too?

For the past week, our newspapers were inundated with the issue of regional security as Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Najib Abdul Razak travelled to Singapore for the Asia Security Conference while things appeared not too good at home.

I will never forget this incident: one fine day in 2002, a friend and I were walking from Jalan P Ramlee to KLCC. To our horror, we saw a Russian lady battling, successfully that is, a snatch thief in front of the world's tallest building.

The lady began cursing in Russian. Although we did not understand, the shock and fear in her eyes spoke about the woeful security condition in Kuala Lumpur.

Two years on, the situation has hardly improved. In the past month, a series of crimes involving both Malaysians and foreigners has severely tarnished Malaysia's image as a safe country, and the perpetrators are clearly not selective about location.

Crimes galore

In Jalan Ampang, where security is supposedly among the tightest in the capital, a South African diplomat is abducted. However, he is later released unharmed. He is fortunate.

But lady luck was nowhere around a Malaysian girl who met with her death after a snatch theft incident in broad daylight at Brickfields. That was the third time she had fallen prey to snatch thieves.

Even along the highway to our magnificent international airport, a Burmese journalist is kidnapped and beaten up by a mysterious group of people claiming to be from the Malaysian Police Special Branch division. Ah! Asean solidarity.

The journalist is grilled on his activities, allegedly assaulted, and later released.

Then there is the case of prominent human rights lawyer P Uthayakumar, who was allegedly assaulted and threatened at gunpoint by a group of unidentified men, whom the lawyer believes were cops.

This led the lawyer, a vocal critic of police brutality, to seek asylum in the United Kingdom. Perplexed by the move, Rehman Rashid wrote a piece in the New Straits Times expressing regret and sadness over Uthayakumar's lack of trust in Malaysia's security.

Well, it is easy for us to be puzzled and sarcastic about someone 'fleeing' the country, while dismissing the magnitude of the fear felt by him or her.

Nobody in the government seems interested in addressing the pressing issue of public security. Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz, however came the closest.

Conceding the weaknesses in the police force, he urged Uthayakumar to come home. Having received the Suaram Human Rights Report 2003 in Parliament, he promised to raise the report with the cabinet.

Regional security

Fortunately for Najib, he did not have to agonise over the issue of public security. He was in Singapore arguing the case for greater cooperation among the nations in securing regional peace and stability, and rejected categorically any presence of US forces in this part of the world.

In international politics, there are always countries whose importance to the great powers hinges on their geopolitical and geographical advantages. Egypt, for instance, would count less in the eyes of the Europeans and Americans if not for the fact that it is in control of the Suez Canal and sits right next to the volatile Middle East, while Japan, South Korea and Taiwan must be grateful to be close enough to China and Russia for the Americans to realise their strategic value.

In the same vein, the Straits of Malacca, one of the world's oil transit chokepoints, compels the US and other powers to attach greater importance to Malaysia and Indonesia. The Straits is the shortest sea route for China, India and Indonesia, countries with a combined population of some 2.4 billion.

If it was closed due to any untoward incident, such as war or terrorist attacks, nearly half of the world's ships would be required to re-route, generating a substantial increase in costs. Quite naturally, whether or not there should be US military presence in areas around the Strait became the bone of contention at the Singapore conference.

In general, Najib got it right, that the presence of foreign forces in Southeast Asia could be a setback for the effort to fight against religious extremism. And history has shown that US military involvement in this part of the world may turn out to be a bane rather than a boon. Remember Vietnam?

Also, given the strategic importance of the Malacca Straits, China, India and Russia would be dead against it being guarded by the Americans. In other words, bring in the US forces, a Great Game would ensue, with all the major powers seeking to turn things to their own advantage, not to mention the extremist groups constantly on a lookout for an excuse to wreak havoc. Like it or not, keeping the Americans at bay while engaging them in intelligence sharing and capacity building would secure better outcomes for all.

But Indonesia's inertia in tackling the piracy issue in the Straits is worrying. It remains to be seen if the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA), involving Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom, would be effective in solving the problem. After all, the raison d'etre of the FPDA was in response to the Konfrontasi launched by Jakarta in the early 1960s, although Tim Huxley, a British defence expert , argues that 'it is an open secret the FPDA was intended from the beginning to keep open channels of communication between the armed forces of Singapore and Malaysia than to reflect any clear-cut mutual defence interests between them'.

Measured reporting

Given the different perceptions of security between Singapore and its 'touchy' neighbours, the choice of the venue of the conference was rather interesting too: a security conference in Singapore, the irritating neighbour, or the 'little red dot', in the words of former Indonesian President B J Habibie, to be graced by Donald Rumsfeld. There you go, enough ingredients for another cross-strait spat if Dr Mahathir Mohamad was still in power. But with Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in charge, I found the Malay press here reporting the event in a measured and reasonable tone.

In Singapore, Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, would not have to feel like a persona non grata , having to explain all the blunders in Iraq. If the event had been held in Jakarta or Putrajaya, Rumsfeld might have sent someone else instead.

Despite the mainstream press putting forward arguments against US military involvement in Southeast Asia, I tend to think that it mostly reflects the sentiment of the Muslims here. More often than not, the Malaysian media is quick to jump on the anti-West bandwagon as sanctioned by the Umno-led government, while relegating the views of the non-Muslims to insignificance.

In reality, there are Malaysians, though their numbers may be few, who are western educated and well disposed to much of the liberal values promulgated by the US, Britain and Australia, and may actually favour a greater role played by these powers.

Similarly, I was bemused last year when group after group of Chinese Malaysian businessmen gathered to protest against the war on Iraq and sued for world peace. I couldn't help but laugh.

Money-making taukehs now duty-bound to prevent war and save innocent lives? What a golden opportunity for them to demonstrate their loyalty to the government.