USINDO Open Forum
Indonesia's Reactions to the War on Terrorism
Speaker: Sidney Jones
Indonesia Project Director, International Crisis Group - Jakarta
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
8:30 - 10:00 am
Cosmos Club, Powell Room
2121 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington DC
Indonesians have reacted in many ways to the war on terrorism. Some continue to
deny the issue exists in Indonesia. While most have come to recognize since the
police round-up and trials of the Bali bombers that terrorism is home-grown and must
be stopped, many nevertheless believe the United States exaggerates the threat as
justification for its domineering foreign policy. Some Indonesian politicians and
religious figures have played on this sentiment by suggesting that U.S. policies and
actions actually give rise to terrorism. Extremists demonize the United States as a
destroyer of Islam in an effort to promote the power and influence of their own brand of
the religion within moderate Indonesia.
Join us for an update with Sidney Jones, Indonesia Project Director for the
International Crisis Group (ICG). An authority on regional terrorism and the author of
the seminal report Jemaah Islamiyah in Southeast Asia: Damaged but still Dangerous
[ICG August 2003], Ms. Jones has a tremendous reservoir of expertise to share. Prior
to joining ICG, She was executive director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch
from 1989 to 2002. She has served as director of the Human Rights Office of the U.N.
Transitional Administration in East Timor from December 1999 to July 2000. She has
written extensively on human rights in Asia with a particular focus on Indonesia and
East Timor.
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