Last week marked the second anniversary of the terrorist bombings that killed hundreds of tourists and Indonesians in the vacation paradise of Bali. That tragedy was a wakeup call to Southeast Asia about the dangers lurking within the region, a call to which governments have only slowly responded.
Unfortunately, the terrorists have not been inactive: They continue to threaten the region, its peace and its prosperity. While progress to eradicate the menace has been made, it has become clear that individual governments cannot do so alone. It is a job for cooperative, coordinated action among all concerned nations, including Japan, with vital interests in Southeast Asia.
On Oct. 12, 2002, a series of explosions devastated two nightclubs on Bali, one of Asia's most popular vacation spots. The blasts claimed 202 victims and wounded hundreds more. The attack was blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group indigenous to Southeast Asia that aims to establish a fundamentalist Islamic government from Indochina to northwestern Australia.