Inside Indonesia, July-Sept. 2002
Is Indonesia a terrorist base?
The gulf between rhetoric and evidence is wide
Greg Fealy
Indonesia has frequently been cast as a country with a serious international terrorism
problem. The US, Singapore and Malaysia claim to have evidence of terrorists being
based in Indonesia or of Indonesians leading offshore terrorist groups. Singaporean
senior minister Lee Kwan Yew declared that Indonesia was a ‘hotbed of terrorism'.
The claims have been used by the Bush administration to pressure Indonesia to take
strong action against them.
A close look at the ‘evidence' suggests, however, that the terrorist threat has been
overstated and that foreign officials and the media have been alarmist in their claims.
The emphatic anti-terrorism policy pursued by the US and some of its allies towards
Indonesia is misguided.
Among many alleged instances, I shall restrict this present discussion to the two
most prominent and instructive cases. These are that: (1) al-Qaeda fighters received
terrorist training in the Poso region of Central Sulawesi; and (2) Indonesian Muslims
played a leading role in the Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM) and Jemaah
Islamiyah (JI) ‘terrorist groups' in Malaysia and Singapore respectively, both of which
have been linked to Osama bin Laden's network.
The claims of terrorist training bases in Sulawesi emerged originally in testimony
given to a Spanish judge by eight al-Qaeda activists. They claimed 200-300 fighters
had trained in Poso and mentioned an Indonesian, Parlindungan Siregar, as a pivotal
figure. The claims were soon taken up by Hendropriyono, the head of Indonesia's
State Intelligence Agency (BIN), who stated publicly in mid-December 2001 that his
officers had found evidence of foreigners training near Poso. The US press also began
carrying stories, presumably based on briefings from Bush administration officials,
that high-resolution satellite imagery had confirmed the existence of the camps and
their foreign personnel.
Much of this ‘evidence', however, was soon shown to be equivocal. Key allies of the
United States regarded the satellite photographs as inconclusive, because they failed
to show who might have been using the base. A number of Western missions in
Jakarta sent their own teams to Poso but found nothing to support the ‘foreign base'
claim.
Hendropriyono's statements were also contradicted by senior Indonesian police and
military officials, who admitted that, while there were certainly Indonesian paramilitary
training bases in Poso, they had no evidence of outsiders training there. Finally, there
was the general question of how the training of several hundred foreign Muslims could
go unnoticed by the large Christian community around Poso or by local security
officials.
The KMM and JI allegations surfaced following a series of arrests in Malaysia and
Singapore between mid-2001 and early 2002. Officials in both countries claimed there
were links between the two organisations. They said that testimony given by the
detainees pointed to three Indonesians as having a leading role in KMM and JI. The
three were Abubakar Ba'asyir, a fiery Islamic preacher from Central Java and
supposed spiritual leader of both organisations, Riduan Isamuddin (commonly known
as Hambali) who was credited with the daily management of JI, and Mohammad Iqbal.
Iqbal was captured by Malaysian authorities in late 2001 and has not been seen in
public since; Ba'asyir has returned to Indonesia where he maintains a high public
profile; and Hambali went to ground after Indonesian police issued a warrant for his
arrest. Malaysia and Singapore have pressed the Indonesian government to arrest
Ba'asyir but have been told there is no case against him. This has led to highly critical
reporting in the international press of Indonesia's ‘soft stance' on terrorism.
The JI-Indonesia connection received further coverage when Philippines officials
arrested an Indonesian, Fathur Rohim al-Ghozi in January 2002, on charges of
importing explosives. Al-Ghozi, a former student at Ba'asyir's boarding school, was
soon identified as JI's bomb expert and accused of involvement in various bombings
across the region. This was followed in mid-March by the detention of another three
Indonesian Muslims — Tamsil Linrung, Abdul Jamal Balfas and Agus Dwikarna — in
Manila on charges of smuggling C4 explosive in their luggage. Philippines authorities
claimed the men were linked to JI and other terrorist organisations. Tamsil and Balfas
were eventually released in mid-April for lack of evidence but Dwikarna remains in
detention, reportedly at the request of BIN.
Sweeping claims
The KMM-JI connection has been frequently cited by foreign officials and the media in
sweeping claims about Indonesia's terrorism problem, but the available evidence only
warrants a narrower interpretation. In the case of JI, the Singaporean government has
released substantial documentary and video evidence to back its claim that this was a
genuine terrorist group, and there appears little reason to doubt this information. The
case against al-Ghozi is also strong. Much of the original JI testimony that led to his
arrest has proven accurate and al-Ghozi has admitted his involvement in terrorist
training and bombings. He was found guilty in the Philippines in mid-April and
sentenced to a minimum ten years' jail. But the Singaporeans have failed to present
evidence proving that Ba'asyir, Hambali and Iqbal had a role in JI's terrorism.
The KMM case is far less credible. The Malaysian government has offered the public
almost no evidence to back its assertion that KMM is a terrorist group. Indeed, so
flimsy is the government's case that a number of analysts have queried whether KMM
even exists. The Mahathir administration has clear political and diplomatic motives in
playing up the terrorism issue. It has sought to discredit its main political foe, the
Islamist PAS, by alleging links between PAS and the KMM. It has also curried US
favour by appearing pro-actively anti-terrorist. As with the Singaporeans, the
Malaysian government has not revealed evidence showing the complicity of Ba'asyir,
Hambali and Iqbal in KMM's terrorism. Indonesian police who have examined the
testimony of the KMM detainees claim that, while it clearly shows that Ba'asyir and
Hambali were militant preachers, it does not indicate any terrorist intent.
Also dubious is the case against Tamsil, Balfas and Dwikarna. Almost from the
outset, their arrest showed signs of being a frame-up. Tamsil told the Indonesian
press that he and his two associates had been the only passengers searched from
their flight and that they had seen Filipino officials plant the explosives in one of their
suitcases. Filipino police had later told them that their arrest had been ordered by
Hendropriyono and that a senior BIN official had travelled to Manila to oversee the
operation. Meanwhile the Filipino police refused to allow a visiting Indonesian police
team access to the ‘smuggled' explosive. The role played by Hendropriyono and BIN
has attracted strong criticism from Islamic groups, the press and parliamentarians.
Misinformation
A number of conclusions can now be drawn. The first is that there is little basis for
asserting that Indonesia is a proven base for terrorist groups. While a small number of
Indonesians can reasonably be assumed to have engaged in terrorism, the data
regarding bases and cells is, at best, inconclusive. This is not to say that Indonesia
has no terrorists, but rather, that those who assert it has a serious international
terrorist problem lack sufficient evidence or are not placing what they know on the
public record (I suspect the former).
A second conclusion is that US and Malaysian officials as well as Hendropriyono
appear to be engaging in deliberate misinformation over the terrorism issue,
apparently for domestic political and diplomatic purposes.
The Indonesian government and Islamic community have grounds for scepticism over
foreign claims of terrorists within its borders. It is in part true, as outsiders often point
out, that Megawati is wary of arousing Muslim sentiment. But the point remains that
those doing the accusing have failed to provide compelling reasons for Indonesian law
enforcement authorities to act. Rather than excoriate Jakarta, the international
community should commend it for upholding the principle of presumption of innocence
and not arresting citizens without evidence of guilt.
The above conclusions call into question the wisdom of the current US policy towards
Indonesia, which entails pressuring it to step up action against terrorists. Indonesia's
intelligence services, for example, have a notorious reputation of fabricating evidence
and abusing human rights. The greater the US pressure, the greater the risk that
these services will act in an unprofessional if not illegal way.
It seems that the Bush administration is planning to give a leading role to
Hendropriyono and BIN as part of its ‘anti-terrorism solution' for Indonesia. In so
doing, they appear willing to overlook the lamentable record of Hendropriyono and the
organisation he leads. Apart from bungling the issue of al-Qaeda bases in Poso and
arousing controversy over his role in the arrest of Tamsil, Balfas and Dwikarna,
Hendropriyono has been accused of involvement in the massacre of more than a
hundred Muslim villagers in Talangsari, Lampung, in 1989, when he was the local
military commander. More recently he has attracted adverse press attention over his
extensive business interests and for his suspected complicity in the assassination of
Papuan leader Theys Eluay.
BIN's record under his leadership is little better. It has been publicly ridiculed for its
inaccurate and often politically loaded reporting. In early 2002, it was derided by
ministers and senior politicians when it emerged that BIN had written separate and
contradictory reports on the economy for cabinet ministers and a parliamentary
committee. BIN also prepared an error-filled briefing for parliament's Foreign Affairs
and Security Commission prior to John Howard's visit to Indonesia in February.
Among other things, it alleged that Australia's Lt-Gen Peter Cosgrove had written an
autobiography denigrating Indonesia's role in East Timor. It also asserted that the
Howard government had formed a secret twelve-person committee to engineer
Papua's secession from Indonesia.
The cornerstone of any US anti-terrorism policy in Indonesia should be to win the
confidence of the Islamic community. Cooperation from Muslims is critical if terrorists
are to be exposed. This is only possible if the US and Indonesia's security officials
and ASEAN partners provide reliable information to a community where anti-Western
sentiment is already high.
Dr Greg Fealy (greg.fealy@anu.edu.au) is a research fellow in Indonesian politics at
the Australian National University in Canberra.
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