Al-Ahram Weekly [Cairo], 17 - 23 October 2002
Issue No. 608
Pandemonium in paradise
The tragic blasts in Bali were a rude reminder that the terrorist threat has yet to be
contained and prompts a serious reappraisal of the US-led international war on
terrorism, writes Gamal Nkrumah
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri tearfully confessed that terrorism poses
a terrible danger to Indonesia's national security. The vast archipelago, the world's
most populous predominantly Muslim nation, is a chain of 17,000 islands stretching
for 4,000 kms from the Indian to the Pacific Oceans. Indonesia has emerged as the
perfect hideout for Al-Qa'eda network members. Not only are many of its equatorial
islands covered in impenetrable jungle, but the inhabitants are overwhelmingly
Muslim, with possibly many millions sympathetic to the Islamist cause. Indonesia's
Defense Minister Matori Abdul- Djalil conceded publicly and for the first time that,
"Al-Qa'eda exists in Indonesia."
Indeed, the secularist administration of President Sukarnoputri has been most
reluctant to tackle the prickly subject of pursuing Islamist militants whose express
aim is to strike Western and especially US citizens and interests in Indonesia. The
US is withdrawing 100 "non-essential diplomats" and 250 family members as a
security precaution. And, Americans are advised to avoid visiting Indonesia. Many US
nationals residing in Indonesia are expected to leave the country.
Terrorists cannot be deterred, or coerced into submission. The latest outrage in the
Indonesian island resort of Bali graphically demonstrated the point. More than 200
people, mostly Western tourists, were killed in at least two blasts that wrecked
Paddy's Bar and the adjacent Sari Club in the southern Balinese resort of Kuta,
popular with Western tourists. Another explosion went off almost simultaneously next
to the nearby US Consulate in the Balinese provincial capital of Denpasar.
The massive explosions in the heart of Bali's nightclub district teaming with tourists
were obviously calculated terrorist attacks aimed at drawing maximum attention and
publicity. Typical of Al-Qa'eda, the targets were replete with sordid symbolism -- a
now familiar hallmark of the dreaded network. Tourists dancing the night away in jam-
packed discotheques are soft targets albeit as far as the Islamist militants are
concerned also highly visible symbols of Western decadence and immorality.
There is the danger that acts of terrorism are going to increase in scale and intensity
as the US-led international war on terrorism commences. An all-out assault on Iraq
may easily provoke Indonesia's militant Islamists. And the US bias against the
Palestinians and in favour of Israel is universally detested in Indonesia and is yet
another reason for the militant Islamists' fury. The recently released audio tape of
Al-Qa'eda leader Osama Bin Laden and his right-hand man Ayman El- Zawahri
reiterated their aversion to US policy on Iraq and the Middle East. They vowed
retribution until the West "take their hands off our Muslim nation, and stop their
aggression against us and their support of our enemy [Israel]. They will pay a heavy
price for the plunder of our wealth," they promised. What is clear is that many in
Indonesia obviously sympathise with these views. Al-Qa'eda's threat is bitter cause for
consternation.
But, that sort of provocative comment cuts no ice with the Indonesian authorities. As
the Indonesian authorities shore up security measures, two Al-Qa'eda suspects are
currently held by the Indonesian police. Indonesian officials are now determined to
whitewash the country's image. But, that promises to be a difficult task. Indonesia's
police chief Da'e Bakhtiar said that the car- bomb blasts were the worst terrorist
incident in the history of the country.
Ralph Boyce, US ambassador to Indonesia, described the Bali attack as "a
despicable act of terrorism". Spelling out the dilemma for the Indonesian authorities,
Boyce added that, "no cause or aspiration justified the taking of innocent life".
Western powers, and in particular the US and Australia, Indonesia's neighbour,
expect the Indonesian authorities to crack down hard on suspected terrorists.
However, there are several complicating political factors that have forced the
Indonesian authorities to be much more lenient with the militant Islamists than the
West expects them to be. First, the Indonesian Islamists have been careful not to
target government property, officials or installations. The more moderate groups of
Islamists have been incorporated into the Indonesian political establishment. The
Islamist-oriented United Development Party is part of the Indonesian government of
national unity headed by Sukarnoputri. Indeed, Hamzah Haz, the party's head is
Indonesian vice-president. Even though he has expressed reservations in the past
about Sukarnoputri's ability to rule the country, saying in 1999 that no woman was fit
to head a Muslim nation, he was pragmatic enough to backtrack and eat his own
words. Haz is widely expected to condemn the Bali as vociferously as President
Sukarnoputri. But, Haz is also known to have defended militant Islamist leaders Habib
Rizieq leader of the Front for the Defenders of Islam and the jailed leader of Lashkar
Jihad, another militant Islamist group who attack nightspots and gambling haunts.
Will Indonesia now join the ranks of beleaguered governments like Algeria's
desperately battling against militant Islamists? A pre-emptive strike against militant
Islamist organisations in Indonesia might set off a chain reaction difficult to control.
The country's many restive minorities might take advantage of the government's
preoccupation with the Islamists to step up their struggle to secede. A pre-emptive
strike on Islamists could also set an example that might incur the wrath of more
moderate Islamists. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation. But, it
also has substantial minorities of Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, animists and
followers of indigenous tribal religions. The resort island of Bali is a largely Hindu
island in a predominantly Muslim nation. Previously, it was thought that it is relatively
insulated from the violence that has engulfed other larger, mainly Muslim and less
prosperous Indonesian islands like Java, Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Bali has been relatively free of the disturbances that have characterised other outlying
Indonesian islands. The nearby island resort of Lombok was rocked by anti-Christian
riots in January 2000 in which scores of churches were burnt down. And, sectarian
violence in the Moluccas (Maluku) claimed the lives of several thousand people in
2000-2001. Kalimantan, too, has witnessed bloody clashes between the indigenous
mainly non-Muslim people and newcomers from the overcrowded predominantly
Muslim islands of Java and Madura. The separatists in Irian Jaya and Aceh are poles
apart: the militant Islamist separatists of oil-rich Aceh pride themselves in being the
first ethnic group in the archipelago to be thoroughly Islamised, while the indigenous
ethnic Papuans and Melanesians have fiercely resisted conversion to Islam.
Anti-US riots erupted in several Indonesian cities including the Indonesian capital
Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan and the central Javanese town of Solo. These cities have
been rocked by bomb blasts, and because of threats by militant Islamists, the US
Embassy in Jakarta closed down for a week in September. Indeed all US and most
Western diplomatic missions in Indonesia have been on high alert since 11
September 2001.
Indonesia's neighbours are jittery, too. Thailand, Singapore and especially the
Philippines and have restive Muslim minorities. While Malaysia and Brunei are mainly
Muslim nations with many suspected Al-Qa'eda sympathisers. The entire region
appears to have become the focus of the Al-Qa'eda network. On 10 October, a bomb
exploded at a crowded bus stop in Kadapawan, the Philippines. There have been
several scare attacks and threats made against Western and US interests in
Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand.
Terrorists have no standing army, but Al- Qa'eda is known to have gained recruits from
Indonesia and the Southeast Asian region. Members of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiah
(JI) received military training in Afghanistan and want to create an Islamic super state
in Southeast Asia that groups together Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei,
southern Thailand and southern Philippines. They have close links to the Abu-Sayyaf
group active in the predominantly Muslim southern Philippines.
These groups appear to have secret operational agreement with Al-Qa'eda. Such
organisations have operational links with Al- Qa'eda. JI members have been arrested
in Singapore for plotting attacks on US targets. Then there are the outspoken
anti-American clerics like Abu Bakar Bayasir who urges his followers to return the
pristine Islam of the Prophet Mohamed and his disciples. He may not have ordered
the Bali blasts, but Indonesia's neighbours are calling on the country's authorities to
arrest the militant and outspoken Muslim cleric who has publicly praised Bin Laden.
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
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