THE WASHINGTON POST, Tuesday, January 14, 2003; Page A14
Indonesians Begin to See Conspiracy as Homegrown
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 14, 2003; Page A14 JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Barely three weeks
after the massive Bali bombing, police displayed their first catch, a handsome young
Indonesian suspect named Amrozi, with thick bangs and a winning smile, who
confessed to buying the explosives and minivan used in the attack. As he joked with
his interrogators for the television cameras, Indonesians began to put a face to
terrorism.
That picture became clearer when police produced the suspected field commander of
the attack two weeks later, a cooler customer named Imam Samudra, from the
western end of Java island, who appeared briefly before the media in leg irons and a
blue Converse T-shirt. He made clear to detectives his abhorrence of the United
States.
With each advance in this fast-moving investigation, Indonesian police have come
closer to solving the worst terrorist attack in the country's history. They have also
gradually chipped away at the conviction, prevalent among Indonesian politicians and
laborers alike, that the Oct. 12 attack in Bali was the work of foreign provocateurs in
the pay of Western governments, most likely CIA agents.
"A lot of people at the time believed the CIA or other agents from the United States or
Israel or Australia must be involved in the Bali bomb blast," said Bhakti, a political
analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences who, like many Indonesians, uses only
one name. Bhakti himself initially suggested the CIA might have carried out the
October attack as a way of precipitating a crackdown by the Indonesian government
against Islamic activists.
"But after the police investigated matters, a lot of Indonesians, particularly observers
like myself and politicians in the parliament, have bit by bit changed their minds," he
said. "Now they believe it is possible that radical Muslim groups in Indonesia are
involved."
Indonesian suspicions about CIA involvement in the attack reflect not only the
agency's Cold War record of covert operations in Indonesia but also an abiding
reluctance of many here to think their fellow citizens capable of such a horrific act.
Moreover, many Indonesians became susceptible to conspiracy theories during three
decades of dictatorial rule by President Suharto, when the public's access to
information was sharply restricted and news was often passed around in whispers.
The police forwarded a 1,600-page dossier to prosecutors last week detailing the
evidence against Amrozi, who is the first of more than 20 suspects held in connection
with the Bali attack to face court proceedings. The police now expect him to go on
trial next month. As the evidence becomes public, investigators and analysts are
confident that even more Indonesians will accept that their fellow citizens carried out
the bombing, which killed nearly 200 people, half of them tourists from Australia.
"If the trial is conducted in a transparent way, people will probably realize that blaming
another country is not wise," said J. Kristiadi, deputy executive director of the Center
for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta.
[Early Tuesday, Indonesian police said they had arrested two more key suspects in
the bombing, the Associated Press reported.
[Ali Imron, described as the "field coordinator" of the attack, and Mubarak, who police
said helped finance it, were arrested on Berukan island, in eastern Kalimantan
province, as they tried to flee the country, said Lt. Gen. Erwin Mapaseng, chief of
national police detectives.]
The public's recognition that the attack was homegrown, in turn, could strengthen the
hand of President Megawati Sukarnoputri's government as it presses for tougher
anti-terrorism laws. Kristiadi said Islamic militant groups might now be reluctant to
demonstrate against the proposed measures.
But even as the evidence mounts and jail cells fill, the notion of CIA responsibility has
proven stubborn. In the cheap-food stalls that line Jakarta's traffic-clogged streets and
in the corridors of parliament, some Indonesians still say they believe that local
militants such as Amrozi, a mechanic, and Samudra, a computer expert, were
unwittingly exploited by Western agents. This view has adherents even among
members of Megawati's political party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle.
"To be honest, the police will only be able to determine the actors in the field and will
not be able to reveal the mastermind behind the attack. But I think the CIA was
involved in this case," said Permadi SH, a legislator from Megawati's party who sits
on the security, defense and foreign affairs committee. "We'll never know the truth,
like they don't know who killed Kennedy or who is really behind the World Trade
Center attack."
Indonesia has been abuzz with talk of CIA involvement from the moment that a pair of
bombs devastated the heart of Bali's nightclub district. Some Indonesians spoke of a
blue flash that preceded the detonation and said this was a well-known CIA signal.
Others shared rumors of a bomb dropped from covert aircraft. In recent weeks,
speculation has mounted that the larger of the two blasts, which leveled the Sari Club,
was caused by something called a micro-nuclear device that is believed to have
originated in the West.
In the week after the attack, an opinion poll conducted for the Jakarta news magazine
Tempo found that 62 percent of the respondents doubted the bombing was carried out
by Indonesians. Of those who blamed outsiders, nearly 70 percent said the attack
was part of a conspiracy to paint Indonesia as a "nest of terrorists." Even after the
capture of Samudra, the accused ringleader, in November, nearly half the respondents
in another Tempo poll said they doubted his arrest would lead to the discovery of who
was ultimately behind the attack.
Din Syamsuddin -- general secretary of the Indonesian Council of Muslim Scholars
and deputy chairman of Muhammadiyah, a large organization of moderate Muslims --
said the participation of investigators from the FBI, the Australian Federal Police and
other foreign agencies in the Bali probe has raised doubts about the credibility of the
police findings. He faulted detectives for ignoring evidence that could incriminate the
CIA. A leading political activist who holds a doctorate from UCLA, Syamsuddin said
the Bush administration or its allies could have hatched the plot to build support for its
global conflict with al Qaeda.
"It's our belief that it was done by professional intelligence operatives from a foreign
intelligence agency, maybe making use of Indonesian citizens with the purpose of
creating a certain image of Indonesia," he said in a recent interview.
Profoundly suspicious of Western intelligence agencies, Indonesians are quick to
recite the history of CIA interference in their domestic affairs.
During the Cold War, the Eisenhower administration provided covert support to a pair
of unsuccessful army rebellions on the western island of Sumatra and the eastern
island of Sulawesi against President Sukarno.
Some Indonesians also believe U.S. agents were involved in a series of events in 1965
that ultimately ended with Sukarno's ouster by Gen. Suharto, though no American
role has ever been proven.
Indonesian police, burdened by their own record of corruption and ineptitude, are now
trying to reassure the public that the conclusions of the Bali investigation are credible,
not "engineered."
Meanwhile, media watchdogs have tried to dampen speculation in the press about the
involvement of Western intelligence agencies in the Bali attack.
But it is the suspects themselves who may have done the most to convince
Indonesians that the West was not the source of the bombing. Earlier this month, as
Samudra was waiting under guard outside the Bali police headquarters, he raised his
handcuffed fists for the television cameras and called out: "Pray for America's
destruction!"
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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