Paras Indonesia, October, 13 2005 @ 08:59 pm
Gus Dur, Security Forces & Bombings
Former president Abdurrahman 'Gus Dur' Wahid has been ridiculed for suggesting the
military or police might have been involved in the October 2002 Bali nightclub
bombings that killed 202 people.
Wahid's claim seems quite bizarre, although it should be noted that Indonesia's
military has a long history of covert connections with radical Islamic groups.
Under former dictator Suharto, fundamentalist groups seeking to make Indonesia an
Islamic state received covert backing from the military's intelligence network in an
effort to identify and then jail opponents of the regime.
Following the 1998 fall of Suharto, elements of the Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI)
were accused of forming or working closely with new radical groups such as the
Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), Laskar Jihad for business and political reasons.
Many analysts believe that powerful elements of TNI still maintain ties with
fundamentalist groups. Some claim that senior generals may want to engineer
mayhem to discredit the government, as happened during deadly religious violence in
the Maluku islands over 1999-2002. Others suggest that violence has been
engineered to justify calls for the reactivation of TNI's territorial command structure -
which reaches down to the village level - ahead of the government's planned takeover
of the military's lucrative business assets.
But few analysts believe TNI was involved in the 2002 Bali bombings, which
Indonesian authorities and foreign governments blamed firmly on regional terrorism
network Jemaah Islamiyah. At least 36 militants were convicted and jailed over the
attacks.
Wahid (64), in an interview with Australian public television network SBS, said that he
believed terrorists were responsible for the first blast, which hit Paddy's Irish Pub. But
he said the second, more powerful, blast - that destroyed the Sari Club and caused
the most casualties - might have been organized by the military or police.
He did not give any evidence to support his allegation.
Wahid, who is near blind and has suffered several strokes, served as president from
October 1999 to July 2001. He was dismissed by the People's Consultative
Assembly, the nation's top legislative body, for alleged incompetence. His successor
was Megawati Sukarnoputri, who lost the presidency in October 2004 to former chief
security minister/retired Army general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
In an interview with SBS's Dateline program broadcast Wednesday (12/10/05) - the
third anniversary of the bombings - Wahid said he was concerned by links between
Indonesian security authorities and terrorist groups.
Asked who he thought was behind the second bomb, he replied: "Maybe the police...
or the armed forces. The orders to do this or that came from within our armed forces,
not from the fundamentalist people."
TNI spokesman Major General Kohirin Suganda Saputra strongly rejected the
accusation. "That is really untrue. How could the military and police, as protectors of
the nation and people, do such a thing? We all know that those involved in the 2002
bombings have been convicted and sentenced," he was quoted as saying by the
Associated Press.
Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer, who on Thursday completed a
three-day visit to Indonesia, curtly described the allegation as "just rubbish".
In the Australian capital of Canberra, Prime Minister John Howard said: "I don't believe
it."
The Australian newspaper said Wahid's claim was "bizarre and disturbing, not
because it is convincing, but because it could further confuse the terrorism debate in
Indonesia".
Singapore-based terrorism analyst Rohan Gunaratna was perplexed by Wahid's
comment, saying it had "absolutely no credibility" because "the Indonesian police
have been doing a great job of hunting down the terrorists".
He was quoted by The Australian as saying the Indonesian government was
committed to combating terrorism and there was "no evidence to suggest TNI
involvement".
Likewise, Greg Fealy, an Indonesian expert at the Australian National University, said
Wahid's claim was a "bizarre suggestion". "There is absolutely no evidence to
suggest that the Indonesian police are in cahoots with the terrorists."
Wahid has condemned the more recent October 1 suicide bombings that killed 23
people in Bali, saying: "It is the Indonesian people who are being cheated and not the
government."
But when asked about the possible masterminds of the attacks, he merely said: "I
don't want to comment on that."
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