Cambodia seems very much in the news these days. Over the weekend, the United Nations Security Council's Committee Concerning Sanctions Against Al-Qaeda and the Taleban dropped a bombshell with its pointed declaration that Cambodia was poised to become a breeding ground for terrorism and a convenient platform for the operations of Jemaah Islamiah and other groups associated with Al-Qaeda - unless there was urgent international assistance.

The report warned that there was already violence in southern Cambodia, where apparently the local Muslim community had been discriminated against.

The committee would have failed in its duties if it had not highlighted potential terrorist threats in the region. But its statement could have been less alarming: It was grossly inaccurate to suggest that there had been violence and discrimination against Muslims in southern Cambodia. The committee probably mistook Cambodia for southern Thailand.

This should not detract from the fact that international militant groups have definitely shown an interest in Cambodia, although its Muslim community is relatively small - numbering about 400,000 in a population of about 13 million, of whom more than 90 per cent are Buddhists.

Cambodia does not now have a critical militant or radical mass. The majority of the Muslims, Chams and Malays, are poor farmers, fishermen and traders. The Muslim intelligentsia was wiped out during the Pol Pot era and there was a lack of qualified religious teachers - which led to an influx of foreign teachers and social workers, some of whom were genuinely concerned that the Cambodian Muslims were not following the traditional form of Islamic worship.

Following the Paris Peace Agreement of 1991, assistance from the Middle East began to flow in to help build and renovate mosques and to administer to orphans and the poor. It was a natural progression for these early charitable organisations to subsequently conduct religious classes and then to build schools.

The activist teachers and social workers from Pakistan and Middle Eastern countries came in later. Their aim was not to create any instability or violence - in fact they preferred to keep a very low profile in Cambodia and did not welcome any official attention. The objective of the activists was long-term - to create over time in the Muslim community a core group of well-educated Muslims, aware of their civic rights, proud of their religion and its heritage and trained to energise local Muslims and to act as couriers and teachers in neighbouring countries. The rationale was that a Cambodian passport would sound fewer bells in security corridors than a Syrian or a Pakistani passport.

Cambodian students were to receive their early training inArabic, the Holy Quran and Islamic history in Cambodia, with the better students continuing their studies in Pakistan.

Cambodia was attractive for other reasons as well - the borders were porous, corruption was rife, anti-terrorism laws were non-existent and funds could move in and out without too much fuss or official scrutiny. Above all, the Cambodian Muslim community was not on the active radar screen of the international security agencies. Cambo- dian Muslims were seen as domesticated, apolitical, disorganised and thus not a threat.

Cambodia was also attractive as an excellent and convenient hideaway or cooling-off point for international activists who wanted to escape scrutiny elsewhere. The presence of Hambali in Cambodia for a few months is a case in point.

Sept 11 came as a shock for both sides. The Cambodian authorities took a sudden interest in the activities of the innocuous-looking educational and religious organisations. With US assistance and persistence, they were shocked to discover an organisation, Umm al Qura, with a bank balance and transactions far in excess of its operational requirements in Cambodia. There were sufficient reasons to suspect that the organisation was operating as a financial disbursement centre.

In the event, the Cambodian authorities arrested an Egyptian and two Thais and expelled 28 teachers from Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Egypt and Thailand along with their family members.

To be fair, the Cambodian government has cooperated well with regional and international agencies and has been responsible in the war against terror. But there is a limit to what it can do. Nevertheless, it can earn greater international confidence and goodwill by accelerating the formulation of its anti-terrorism law and enhancing its capacity to enforce these laws. It has to root out corruption, especially in its judicial system, and tighten its financial institutions and banking laws.

In this, the UNSC Committee is absolutely right - there is no denying that Cambodia and other such poor and vulnerable states require adequate and timely international assistance to strengthen their weak defences and alert mechanisms against all forms of terrorism. There is also no denying that the governments of these countries owe it to their people and, by extension, to the international community, to be aggressively responsible for creating the necessary environment for their own security.