Indonesia: The enemy within

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Indonesia: The enemy within
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/DJ15Ae02.html

By Bill Guerin

JAKARTA - For Indonesia the pretense is well and truly over.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri, reading out a prepared seven-point official statement more than 13 hours after the carnage in Bali occurred, said the government expressed its condolences to the relatives of victims in the brutal and inhumane violence, which was against the existing laws, religious teachings and moral values adopted by the Indonesian nation.

In the so-called Island of the Gods where 95 percent of the 3 million population are Balinese Hindus, with very small Muslim and Christian minorities, three bombs exploded almost simultaneously shortly before midnight Saturday, just when the extremely lively nightlife scene kicked off in Kuta. The mainly young and foreign crowds heading out to seek action and fun in the Sari Club and Paddies, two of the most "in" venues close to the center of the original Kuta village, fell victim to a massive car-bomb explosion that killed at least 180 and injured more than 400, many of them seriously.

Since September 11, 2001, the Indonesian government and police have been able to balance domestic interests and dangers against the security concerns of foreigners. Kuta has changed that forever. The terror in Bali that the national police chief General Dai Bachtiar called the greatest act of terrorism in Indonesian history has placed Indonesia directly in the world spotlight over it's support for the war against terrorism.

The sheer horror and evil of this incident, one year, one month and one day after the destruction of New York's World Trade Center, will have extremely far-reaching consequences for Indonesia.

Balinese life is culturally and spiritually linked to satisfying and appeasing the gods, spirits and demons, but the gods have deserted them this time. A driver, Putra, summed it all up: "It was horrible. I am devastated. Bali has always, always been safe. We depend on tourism for our livelihood. Our name has been smeared by this horrible blast, what are we going to do now?''

Bali's economic lifeblood, tourism, will quickly drain away after the terror. A steadily increasing influx of Australian surfers drawn by the waves at Kuta and those seeking spiritual solace in Ubud made tourism in Bali one of the few sources of stability in the New Order economy. An estimated 75 percent of the injured were Australians who had flocked to Kuta in droves and the attack caused the greatest single loss of Australian lives overseas during peacetime.

Ninety percent of the province's total income comes from tourism, and Bali attracted nearly 1.5 million foreign tourists last year, compared with five million for Indonesia as a whole. Some 406,000 foreign tourists arrived in July and 153,500 entered via Bali.

Previous blows to the island's tourism were from a cholera scare (which proved unfounded) and from the knock-on effect of the bombing incidents in Jakarta, notably the blast at the Jakarta Stock Exchange, but this time the effect on the Balinese economy will be devastating. The hotels and restaurants in Bali now face their most severe test ever and the thousands upon thousands of locals who live off the tourism sector will likely be driven into hardship.

Their Hindu status in the Islamic nation has cost the Balinese dearly. In the bloody anti-communist purges of the late 1960s, given the green light by Suharto when he took over power, as many as 100,000 Balinese were killed, some as suspected communists, others because of their Chinese heritage. The Balinese are now not only shocked but very angry. There are unconfirmed reports of vigilante extremist Hindu groups setting up roadblocks in Kuta, Sanur and elsewhere to target Muslim Indonesians.

For the Indonesian people as a whole the main responses are likely to one of great shame and also anger at their own authorities who have been unable to come to grips with the terror in their own country.

The risk of destabilization in Indonesia has for long been exacerbated by the political crisis that started under Abdurrahman Wahid and continues under a different guise within the Megawati administration. During the final months of Wahid's presidency, the more militant and radical Islamist groups such as the Front Pembela Islam (FPI - Defenders of Islam) and Laskar Jihad (Holy Warriors) Islamic militia, seeing the political impasse, seized the opportunity to act outside the law particularly following Wahid's expulsion of military hardliner General (ret) Wiranto from the cabinet and his removal of the army from matters of internal security, which were handed over to the police. These violent and aggressive elements of the Indonesian Muslim community were able to exercise an influence vastly out of proportion with their tiny representation in society.

Sixty-four-year-old Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, a self- confessed admirer of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is claimed by Malaysian and Philippines authorities to be the leader of Jemaah Islamiah, which in turn is said to have ties with al-Qaeda. Ba'asyir denies Jemaah Islamiah exists and that he has links to terrorism.

Though there has been no official comment or suggestions from Indonesia of a link between the Kuta bombs and Ba'asyir, only three days before the Bali attacks the cleric had threatened the Indonesian government with a jihad. True to form, at a news conference on Sunday, Ba'asyir blamed the United States for the attacks. "It would be impossible for Indonesians to do it," he said. "Indonesians don't have such powerful explosives ... I think maybe the US are behind the bombings because they always say Indonesia is part of a terrorist network."

Less than a week ago, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said during a regional meeting in Malaysia: "The organization that we are most concerned about is a group called Jemaah Islamiah. We think Ba'asyir is a significant figure in JI." On Sunday, after the blast, Downer said, "Jemaah Islamiah does have links to al-Qaeda and it's conceivable that an organization like that could be behind this action."

Powerful interest groups, including active, or retired, senior officers in TNI, are also said to be intent on destabilizing and undermining the authority of Megawati's secularist and shaky coalition government and further stalling reformist policies as a means of protecting their own vested interests. There have even been suggestions this weekend that the carnage was indeed the work of disgruntled generals who hate Australia for its interference in East Timor.

Former president Wahid accused those who had earlier been members of the Indonesian government itself. He said the terrorists within "want to create instability in the country and create an environment of fear so that tourists will not come here", adding that he was not prepared to name those he believed were behind the action, because the police had asked him to keep quiet. Harnessing Muslim discontent with Western and American influence and perceived arrogance, and undermining US influence in Indonesia to pressure the government toward a more Islamist stance are tactical options that may no longer be available to these shadowy commanders

The United States was quick to condemn the bombing and is likely to force the pace on strengthening Indonesia's capability to tackle terrorism. "It was a despicable act of terrorism, the likes of which Indonesia has never seen," US Ambassador to Indonesia Ralph Boyce said in a statement, which concluded, "The United States has offered all appropriate assistance to the government of Indonesia to see that those responsible for this cowardly act face justice."

The events in Bali, however, have also greatly strengthened the hand of the Indonesian military (TNI). TNI chief General Endriartono Sutarto said only last week that if the government wants to beef up the "fight against terrorism" it must impose a tough law that provides a legal basis that enables the military to move fast. Sutarto's power play follows rising concerns over the ability of the police, currently the only institution authorized by law to deal with internal security issues, to crack down on terrorists operating in the country.

The military has always justified itself as the guardian of the country against political extremes, defender of the Pancasila (the philosophical basis of the Indonesian state) and the guarantor of domestic stability. With communism no longer a threat, militant Islamic fundamentalists and terrorist acts could be used to justify military intervention and continuing political involvement. TNI will also see the post-Kuta situation as an opportunity to create a more favorable impression with the US, and it also has a vested interest in backing up the US-led campaign against international terrorism in cracking down even harder on Free Aceh Movement (GAM) insurgents.

The country's leaders show little sign of rising to meet the challenges and have preferred to slam the US in public as being anti- Indonesian and anti-Muslim rather than take warnings of terrorism seriously.

For a month, the ambassador Boyce has been warning of a high risk of terrorist acts in Indonesia, but has been repeatedly slammed by religious leaders and many leading politicians, including Indonesia's Vice President Hamzah Haz. The embassy was closed for five days after an undisclosed threat of terrorist attacks on staff. Soon after, Time magazine said a senior al-Qaeda member in Indonesia, Omar al-Faruq, had been masterminding a car-bomb attack on the Jakarta embassy when he was arrested in June.

The CIA interrogated al-Faruq after he was deported to the US and he confessed to planning a series of terrorist attacks in Indonesia, which the US embassy confirmed. Al-Faruq admitted that he was in the region to plan wide-scale attacks against Western interests in eight countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia) and to assassinate Megawati Sukarnoputri (before she became president) as she was a secular threat to al-Qaeda's future goals in Indonesia. He also said he had been behind a series of 24 attacks against churches and leisure venues on Christmas night 2000 and logistical support had come from Abu Bakar Ba'asyir.

Akbar Tanjung, the House of Representatives (DPR) Speaker and chairman of the Golkar party, as well as a convicted felon, last week slammed the US government's plan to withdraw all of its representative staff from Indonesia, with the immortal words: "There is no proof Indonesia is unsafe."

Megawati's support for the chairman of the United Development Party (PPP), Hamzah Haz, as her vice president has also created an image problem all of its own. Haz, who leads Indonesia's largest Muslim political party that forms a key plank in the Megawati administration is widely seen as blatantly vying for support from among Indonesian Muslims, including the militant groups, to strengthen his run for the presidency in the country's next general elections in 2004.

Over the last few months the vice president has overtly supported the Muslim hardline clerics, and held meetings with Ba'asyir, visited the detained leader of the Laskar Jihad, Jafar Umar Thalib, whose troops have fought to evict Christians from the sectarian-ravaged Moluccas islands, and played down the recent violence by members of the FPI.

Haz has also challenged recent US State Department allegations that radical Islamic groups were active in Jakarta and continued to threaten US interests, saying there is no terrorist network in the country: "There are no terrorists here. I guarantee that. If they (terrorists) exist, don't arrest any Muslim clerics, arrest me," he said during a meeting with Ba'asyir's followers.

Though conspicuously saying nothing about the victims, Haz was quick to point the finger at Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, saying on Sunday that the minister ought to explain why the explosion had happened. "Our weakness lies in the management of politics and security," Haz said. Such crass insensitivity is nothing new for Haz, who said after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington that the attacks "will cleanse the sins of the United States".

The challenges for Megawati, her shaky coalition government, and the moderate Muslim majority in Indonesia to keep on track with such economic reform as has been planned now becomes more of an impossible mission. The domestic political strife brought about by electioneering, and the readiness of the Islamic-oriented parties to exploit nationalist and anti-foreign sentiments for political gain, added to the likely pressure from the US after Bali, will be too heavy a burden for a leader like Megawati with such a dearth of political experience.

This political manipulation using Islamic symbols is extremely dangerous and poses the greatest danger ever to Indonesia's stability since the downfall of Suharto. The crisis of leadership suffered by Indonesia that allows Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism to be confused with all Islamic movements, political and social, non- violent and violent, is driving a wedge between the West and the Indonesian Muslims. If the West and the Islamic world cannot meet in the middle, then the future holds only the frightening prospect of more hatred and radicalism, the rise of more extremist movements, and a breeding ground for recruits for the bin Ladens of the world.

At War With EVIL(Posted By Freeper GaryMontana)

What did we (in America) learn from September 11, 2001 and the deaths of 3,000 people. I am tempted to admit: Absolutely nothing.

Among the many unlearned lessons of Day-Which-Will-Live-In-Infamy-II-- the necessity to control our borders, the need for a patriotic renewal and the importance of combating multiculturalism -- the most significant is the nature of Islam. You will note that I do not say militant Islam, or radical Islam, or Islamic extremism or other such weasel words – but Islam, period.

Every one of the hijackers who flew airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon were professing and practicing Moslems, as is Osama bin Laden. The Al Qaeda terrorist network, is based in Moslem countries and supported financially by the so called pious Moslem leadership of Saudi Arabia.

The overwhelming majority of Moslem religious authorities who have spoken out on the subject, including those at the main mosque in Mecca and Egypt’s prestigious Al Azar University, either endorse or rationalize acts of terrorism. On a day when Americans were incinerated or buried under tons of rubble, Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia, celebrated in the streets.

Sept. 11 was one chapter in a 1400-year jihad. Every day, the World Trade Center massacre is reenacted on a smaller scale somewhere in the world. Jewish women and children are burned alive in a bus in Israel. A missionary is beheaded in the Philippines, gunmen shoot up a church in Pakistan (deliberately firing into the prostrate bodies of women trying to shield their children). Ancient monasteries and convents are destroyed in Kosovo. Women are sentenced to death for adultery in Nigeria, Hindus are murdered in the Kashmir. In Denmark, the Muslim community there has put a $30,000 bounty on the heads of Jews and those who support Israel. Nuns are beheaded in Baghdad, Christians in Sudan are forced into slavery, and in Britain, Islam openly states it is going to take over not only the UK, but the whole world -- and the beat goes on.

Genocide in the Sudan, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, religious persecution in Saudi Arabia, calls for another holocaust in mosques from Mecca to Gaza, the imposition of Islamic law in Nigeria, forced conversions in Indonesia, synagogues burned in France, Jews attacked across Europe – these are everyday events, as Third World and much of the First slowly turns Islamic green.

Sadly our leaders, from President Bush on down, insist on peddling the absurdity that Islam is a religion of peace – a creed of kindness and benevolence tragically and inexplicably corrupted by fanatics.

Why is the leadership of the West reluctant to confront manifest reality? The reason lies partly with our absurd foreign policy. We have declared certain Moslem nations to be our loyal allies – including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. We would not want to offend these dear friends by saying something unflattering about their bloody, butcherly, dark ages faith.

Americans are naturally benevolent. Most of us are taught from childhood that is religion is good (and it does not matter which religion). As long as little Johnny believes in God and goodness, it’s inconsequential whether he lights candles, wears a skull cap to services or prays in the direction of Mecca.

This works with every religion except Islam.

Consider the following: Of the three major western religions: one was started by a lawgiver who helped to free slaves; one by a man of peace; the last one by a man who loved war and having sex with children. Mohammed not only led men into battle, he enjoyed marrying girls as young as six years old (it is in the Koran). The essence of his message is sick and disgusting. A holy war where you slaughter your enemies, while at the same time encouraging followers to have sex with the children they capture (as he did) for the glory of Allah. He even advised his followers to negotiate false peace treaties in order to lull their enemies.

For almost 1,400 years, that has been the reality of Islam. Within a century after the death of Mohammed, Islam spread throughout the Middle East and across North Africa. It overran the Iberian peninsula and was finally stopped in southern France. It spread eastward as far as the southern Philippines. It was not propagated by fresh-faced young men knocking on doors and announcing: “Hello. I’m from your local mosque. Have you considered the Koran?” It was and is spread by force – conversion by the sword or death. This is still in practice today.

Some will respond that all religions go through periods of violence, usually in their infancy. Christianity had its crusades and Inquisition, its forced conversions and expulsions. The evil committed in the name of Christ happened centuries ago. The evil committed in the name of the Prophet is going on now, as you read these words. Of 22 conflicts in the Third World, 20 involve Moslems versus someone else. Coincidence? In his brilliant book, “Clash of Cultures and the Remaking of World Order,” Samuel Huntington speaks of Islam’s “bloody borders.”

There is no Methodist Jihad, no Jewish Hasidic holy warriors, no Buddhist monk wanting to have 72 virgins waiting for him after a suicide bombing, no Hindu Holy men plotting to blow up people, no Southern Baptist suicide bombers, no Mormon elders preaching the annihilation of members of other faiths.

Islam is a warrior religion – the perfect vessel for fanatics, the violence-prone, the envious and haters of all stripes. This is one reason why Islam is making so many converts among the peaceable denizens of our prison system.

Still, much of the West is addicted to a fairy-tale version of Islam. Christian and Jewish clergy fall all over themselves to have interfaith services with imams. Representatives of Moslem groups are invited to the White House. The president signs a Ramadan declaration. In California, public schools ask children to role-play at being Moslems. Our universities take carefully selected verses from the Koran and present them as the essence of the faith. All that’s needed is a Moslem character on “Sesame Street.” Look – it’s the Jihad Monster!

This perspective engenders a fatally false sense of security. Imagine, in 1940, Winston Churchill taking to the airwaves to announce “Nazism is an ideology of peace which, regrettably, has been perverted by a few fanatics like Hitler and Goebbels. But most storm troopers and SS men are fine follows – your friends and neighbors.”

For the first thousand years of its history – from the death of Mohammad to the 17th. century decline of the Ottoman empire, Islam was an expansionist force. For the next 300 years, as the West rose to preeminence, Islam receded. For the past four decades – fueled by Arab oil wealth, a surplus population in the Middle East, the waning of the West and the rise of more virulent strains of the faith (Shiism, Wahhabism, Sunni fundamentalism) – Islam is expanding once more.

Due to Moslem immigration and aggressive proselytizing, Islam is being exported to the West. Moslem populations are burgeoning throughout Western Europe. (In southern France, there are more mosques than churches.) In Judeo-Christian America, Islam is the fastest growing religion. It is also spreading down the coast of West Africa, through the Balkans (after Serbia, Macedonia is the next target) and up from Mindanao in the Philippines.

Wherever it comes, Islam brings its delightful customs – child marriages, female circumcisions, rabid hatred toward Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists and every other non-muslim, terrorism and support for terrorism and a virulent intolerance of other faiths.

Am I suggesting we declare war on over 1 billion million Moslems? The question is moot – Islam has declared war on the rest of the human race. When one side knows it’s at war and the other thinks peace and brotherhood prevail, guess who wins?

Ultimately, it is not about Jews in Israel, or Orthodox Serbs in Kosovo, or Hindus in Kashmir, Buddhists in Thailand, or Maronite Catholics in Lebanon, Taoists in China, or Christians in Sudan and Nigeria, but all of us. As Ben Franklin would have it – Either we will hang together, or surely we shall all hang separately.

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