JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian Vice President Hamzah Haz branded America the "terrorist king" Wednesday in remarks at odds with Jakarta's support for the war on terror. "Actually, who is the terrorist, who is against human rights? The answer is the United States because they attacked Iraq. Moreover, it is the terrorist king, waging war," the official Antara news agency quoted Haz as saying.
It was unclear what prompted Haz to make his remarks in a speech to heads of Muslim boarding schools in Central Java.
The comments are likely to anger Washington and harm Jakarta's desire to get their hands on key terror suspect Hambali, who is in U.S. custody.
The conservative Muslim politician is known for strong statements that appear out of step with the government.
He once showed no hesitation visiting leading militants, including Abu Bakar Bashir, whom regional governments accuse of being spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiah militant network, blamed for attacks in Southeast Asia including the Bali blasts.
A court in Jakarta sentenced Bashir Tuesday to four years in jail for participating in acts of treason, but ruled prosecutors failed to prove he led Jemaah Islamiah.
Haz said that verdict should be respected, and told foreign governments to stop meddling in the affairs of the world's most populous Muslim nation by commenting on the decision.
When later asked by reporters to elaborate on his remark the United States was the "terrorist king," Haz said the country was carrying out international terror, Antara added.
Haz was not more specific.
The United States has praised Indonesia for its cooperation in the war on terror, particularly since last October's Bali bomb attacks, which killed 202 people.
Indonesia wants access to Hambali and would like him brought home for trial over a series of bombings, including Bali.
The radical Indonesian preacher, believed by some governments to be a senior al Qaeda operative and key figure in Jemaah Islamiah, was captured in Thailand last month. He is being held by the United States at a secret location.
The vice president said Indonesia was still being accused of being a terrorist's nest.
"Moreover, I am always perceived as protecting terrorists," he told the Islamic school leaders.
Indonesia's Muslim boarding schools, or pesantren, have come under the spotlight over charges a few are incubators for militants.
This VP is someone to watch carefully. How come the State Dept. never issues any sort of condemnation when foreign governments say things like this?
If the president of Indonesia is killed does he become the new president? A scary thought.
If the president of Indonesia is killed does he become the new president? A scary thought.
Nope.
The party Haz represents only got around 10% of the vote ... if Megawati falls off her perch, then there's a long and involved process to replace her .. but it would almost certainly NOT be Haz.
Here are a couple of articles from Australian radio tonight that help place it in perspective:
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s940174.htm and
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s940210.htm UN releases list of suspected JI funders PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY
PM - Friday, 5 September , 2003 18:10:00
Reporter: Nick Mckenzie
MARK COLVIN: The Indonesian Vice President who called the United States "the king of terrorists" has changed his tune a day later. Now, Hamza Haz says Indonesia is not anti-American and the United States should not be suspicious of Muslims there.
Vice President Hamza Haz is a long standing friend of Abu Bakar Bashir, who was convicted of taking part in treason this week but cleared of leading it or being the spiritual head of the terrorist organisation, Jemaah Islamiah.
Meanwhile in the latest American move in the war on terrorism in the region, the US has zeroed in on Indonesia, with the release of its biggest ever listing of alleged operatives and funders of JI.
The US Treasury Department's naming of 10 suspected top-ranking JI operatives came only hours after the United Nations listed a further 10 JI leaders. The UN's list included a key financier of the Bali Bombing. Both actions are designed to stop the terrorists getting access to financial networks or travelling across borders.
But some are disappointed that the list is still not broad enough. For instance, the founder of an Indonesian charity which funded JI and received terror funding from Saudi Arabian has been designated, but the charity itself has not.
Nick Mckenzie reports.
NICK MCKENZIE: This morning the United Nations released a list of ten suspected JI funders. They're all Malaysians, including a man called Wan Min Wan Mat. He's accused of being the conduit for the $US 35,000 which funded the Bali bombing.
The UN took the action after a request from a country in the region. Almost simultaneously, the United States released its own list of ten JI suspected members, half of whom are already arrested, including Bali bomber Imam Samudra.
Those named by the US should soon be incorporated into the UN list, requiring UN member countries to freeze the assets of all 20 JI members and deny them movement across borders.
The US Treasury Department says the move will prevent the fugitives on the list carrying out further terrorist attacks, although it acknowledges it won't have a huge effect on those already behind bars.
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: If you think about it, the practical effect is they no longer have any way to access the financial system. They can't move money.
NICK MCKENZIE: That's US Treasury Spokesman Taylor Griffin. He says one of the most important suspected JI figures on the list is Aris Munandar. Now on the run, he founded Indonesian Islamic charity Kompak, which is accused of financing Jemaah Islamiah.
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: Munandar has a very close relationship with Bashir. He also heads Kompac, an NGO that produces videos that were used to recruit JI members. Munandar has been known to procure explosives.
NICK MCKENZIE: Well it's all well and good to name Aris Munandar, but the organisation he founded, Kompak, that still remains up and running.
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: Well, I understand that, these designations are certainly not the last action that we'll be taking against JI.
NICK MCKENZIE: In 2000, Kompak received a one-off $5,000 donation from Muslim Aid Australia, although that charity denies it was aware of Kompak's JI links. But a bigger source of Kompak funds is Saudi Arabian charities like Al-Haramain, which is closely linked to both to the Saudi royal family as well as Jemaah Islamiah.
Through a translator, Kompak's Deputy Chairman Amlir Yasin told the ABC in June:
AMLIR YASIN (translated): Yes we got aid from the country, both personally and institutionally. We got it from the Saudi Kingdom, through their religious attache.
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: The Saudis have given us assurances that they are going to take action to shut down the ten Al-Haramain branches that we've discussed with them and that would include the Jakarta branch.
NICK MCKENZIE: But Zachary Abuza, one of the world's foremost experts on Jemaah Islamiah funding, isn't impressed. He says US treasury has whittled down its list from 300 to ten in order not to anger the Indonesians and risk losing their support in the war on terror.
ZACHARY ABUZA: I'm still absolutely shocked that none of the companies were named. We are completely missing charities and the front companies. It's true that this list displays an appalling lack of Indonesians or Indonesian corporations or people that are still in Indonesia.
NICK MCKENZIE: Terrorist watchers are now waiting to see if the US will risk offending Asian countries and take the next step to publicly list the charities and front companies that continue to fund Jemaah Islamiah.
MARK COLVIN: Nick McKenzie with that report.
MARK COLVIN: Greg Barton is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Deakin University. He was an advisor to former President Abdurrahman Wahid, and he wrote an insider's account of Wahid's time in Government.
Dr Barton joins me now.
Greg Barton, first of all, is it a question, as Nick Mckenzie suggested there, of the US stepping on tip-toes so as to avoid offending the Indonesians or is it a question of perhaps the Indonesians dragging their feet on giving the US what it needs to name the charities and perhaps act against them?
GREG BARTON: I expect it's probably more the latter than the former, but I suspect there's also the practical problem of where do you stop with this? How many groups do you include, because there are plenty of groups who at one stage or another have been a conduit for funds perhaps unknowingly and for practical reasons you've got to draw the line somewhere.
But I think that...
MARK COLVIN: What about the particular case that Zachary Abuza was talking about there, where you've got the founder of the trust being named, but the charity still effectively free to operate?
GREG BARTON: I think Zachary Abuza makes a very strong point. We've got to look at this in the context of a situation where in Indonesia, which has suffered more than any other country from the activities of Jemaah Islamiah, Jemaah Islamiah is not even banned. It's still allowed to operate.
The Indonesian authorities say that they're cracking down on terrorists, but that the organisation itself is not a banned organisation. So with that as a starting point, it's not surprising that there is a lot of muddle-headed thinking and a lack of political will to act really decisively.
MARK COLVIN: I want to come in a moment to that political will, but first of all, can I just take you back a few days and ask you if you think that the four years for Abu Bakar Bashir, that either the verdict or the sentence, reflected something political going on or was it just a case of the prosecution bungling?
GREG BARTON: It was certainly a case of the prosecution bungling. But my speculative understanding is that the prosecution went soft, partly because they were ill-experienced at functioning an open, democratic court system, but partly also because they're political masters and indicated that they wanted to go easy on Abu Bakar Bashir, for two reasons.
One is that they were fearful of the consequences of acting… of coming down hard on Bashir, but secondly they were also mindful that if they came down hard on Bashir, they would then be obliged on perhaps looking at closing down his pesantren and the three or four others linked with it, closing down Majelis Mujahadin Indonesia and of course banning Jemaah Islamiah.
And they seemed very reluctant to act in a systemic fashion. So far the efforts that we've seen have been piecemeal and have been prompted by strong police evidence, but there's been a surprising lack of willingness by the government to go about things in a systemic fashion.
MARK COLVIN: So let's talk about the politics that drives this then. Does Hamza Haz represent a strong political force when he talks about the United States being the "king of terrorists" or is he being sincere when he says that or when he says it's all alright?
GREG BARTON: Hamza Haz is a chairman of a party that got ten and a half per cent of the vote in the '99 elections and it's probably on track to get that or a little bit more in next April's election.
Having said that, I would imagine that his views represent the more extreme end of views within the party, that a lot of people within his own party would regard them as a little bit over the top. So it's a big enough block of votes to be worried about, but it's only a small minority of the overall population, I think.
MARK COLVIN: But even Abdurrahman Wahid, whom you of course know very well indeed, he says that nobody hates Jemaah Islamiah as much as he does, but he, the leader of the largest as I understand it, moderate Muslim block in Indonesia, said on AM only a short while ago that Amrozi was a scapegoat in the Bali bombing and that Jemaah Islamiah was a scapegoat too.
Is this a very broad strain of thinking right across Indonesian political thinking?
GREG BARTON: I think the situation is more complex. I think that Wahid's response which is, I agree disturbing, reflects an openness to buying in to some extent to these conspiracy theories, and this comes out of decades of military rule, where those conspiracy theories often had a very real basis.
I think what he meant by saying Amrozi was a scapegoat was that people like Bashir were much more culpable, but I think unfortunately even people with unambiguously liberal credentials like Abdurrahman Wahid have been swayed to some extent by conspiracy theories by foreign involvement and are asking the question, is something going on here that's beyond what we've been told?
And that's extremely worrying and that's the reason why the very lenient sentence on Bashir this week is very bad news because not only is there a question of justice, as far as Bashir himself is concerned, there's the broader sense of giving credibility to his outrageous statements.
And if he says the CIA and the Jews are behind the bombings, even if people only believe a third of that, it still ratchets up this willingness to accept that the situation is not an Indonesian terrorist group, but something more complex.
MARK COLVIN: So do you think that it will get better soon or do you think that the ratchet is sliding the other way at the moment?
GREG BARTON: At the moment, things unfortunately are sliding the other way. I think unless the Indonesian government is willing to grasp the nettle and to act decisively and recognise they've got a problem that has to be tackled systematically, I'm afraid that Jemaah Islamiah is likely to regenerate than the police can crack down on them.
