Far Eastern Economic Review, Issue cover-dated June 10, 2004
Vol: 167, No:23
INDONESIA
A Dinosaur in the Terror War
Jakarta's intelligence tsar has played a key role in fighting terrorism, but critics say
his tough-guy ways are out of date in today's democracy
By Michael Vatikiotis/JAKARTA
UNIFORMED GUARDS snap to attention as Indonesian intelligence tsar Abdullah
Mahmud Hendropriyono heaves his bulky frame out of the electric golf cart he uses to
get around his extensive National Intelligence Agency compound. The former
three-star army general has arrived at his staff's regular evening karate training, and as
he enters the hall more than a hundred people turn and bow.
The passion for martial arts is part of a tough-guy image the 59-year-old
Hendropriyono has cultivated for years. As a military commander under former
President Suharto, Hendropriyono used uncompromising force. In 1989 he led an
assault on a village in south Sumatra that wiped out a community of alleged Islamic
radicals and left scores dead. Many soldiers from that era have faded away in the face
of reform and democracy. Hendropriyono, however, has reinvented himself as
Indonesia's chief anti-terrorism expert.
Using close political ties to President Megawati Sukarnoputri, the former
special-forces officer, since taking over the agency (known as the BIN) in August
2001, has effectively re-created the intelligence network that hardened Suharto's New
Order regime. And because of his belief in fighting the terrorist threat in Southeast
Asia while others disputed its seriousness, Hendropriyono gained the trust of United
States officials following the September 11, 2001, attacks.
That was before. These days, Hendropriyono is under fire for threatening to use
violence against non-governmental organizations and having a hand in the expulsion of
a prominent Jakarta-based American researcher who has helped expose Islamic
militants held responsible for terrorist attacks in Indonesia.
Sidney Jones, the director of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, was
informed at the end of May that her visa would not be renewed. Hendropriyono, who
weighs in on such visa matters, supported the decision. "Actions should be taken
against those who disturb the government and the people," he told The Jakarta Post.
"Why should we let her stay here?"
The intelligence chief also said that ICG was on a watch list of 20 NGOs considered
to be threatening to national security. He warned that "old measures" could be used
against NGOs that "sell out the country."
These words have a chilly resonance with Indonesians who recall the persecutions of
the Suharto era. Within the new constraints of Indonesia's democracy, newly minted
legal rights make it hard for intelligence officials to pursue terrorism suspects with
impunity, as they once did. "People worry that Hendropriyono is trying to recreate the
Suharto-era intelligence network. He may have been right about terrorist groups, but
no one trusts him because of his New Order credentials," says a prominent
Indonesian academic, who asked not to be named.
The approach highlights a troubling contradiction in the global war against terrorism,
as democratic governments seeking to stamp out militancy find that it can be useful
to suspend the rights of individuals.
As many of Hendropriyono's critics acknowledge, the tough approach has paid off in
Indonesia. In the days after September 11, 2001, while many Indonesians rejected
claims of the existence of extremist groups like Jemaah Islamiah (JI), Hendropriyono
insisted that the threat was real. He met at that time with U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency Director George Tenet. Working on information supplied by the CIA,
Hendropriyono's agency quietly tracked down a number of terrorist suspects,
including two who were subsequently handed over to American agents.
"From September 2001 until October 2002, he was our only go-to guy on terror" in
Indonesia, says a senior U.S. official. But since the Bali bombing on October 12,
2002, the police have stepped in and played a larger role, the official says. The official
adds that Hendropriyono's advocacy of the use of uncompromising force against
separatist movements in Aceh and Papua has also soured ties between the BIN and
the U.S.
"Terrorists are undermining us and putting us in a bad light with the international
community," Hendropriyono told the REVIEW in an interview at his lavishly
refurbished East Jakarta headquarters. "We have to show the world that we can
overcome them and fight against them."
To do this he has dug deep into his military tool bag. For example, he boasts of a
small army of informers drawn from among disillusioned Afghan-trained fighters. He
claims that even prior to the Bali bombings his agency had leads on JI's existence,
based on informer information. "They became our radar. These are the people that
gave us the access to penetrate JI."
His high profile has had its downside. Hendropriyono, worried about his own security,
rarely sleeps at home and changes his mobile-phone number frequently, says a
former foreign military attachi who knows him well.
Indonesia has changed since Hendropriyono last battled Islamic radicals allegedly
armed with poisoned arrows and hiding in trees in South Sumatra. At the height of the
Suharto era in the 1980s, radical Islam was stamped on hard, forcing leading radicals
like Abu Bakar Bashir and Abdullah Sungkar to flee to Malaysia.
When they returned after the fall of Suharto in 1998, Hendropriyono argues, the
military was powerless to detain people it knew were dangerous. "We were in a very
different situation," he says. "We were no longer under an authoritarian system. We
could not arrest or detain these people as we could do in the past." Worse, in
Hendropriyono's eyes, under President B.J. Habibie in the euphoric aftermath of
Suharto's fall, all political prisoners were amnestied, including the Islamic radicals.
"Instead of ordering us to arrest these people, they got an amnesty. It was really
confusing. If we arrest this man, we could be branded as traitors."
So, he says, the radicals were free to organize and plot. Seen through
Hendropriyono's prism, they were also becoming harder to stop because tough
internal security laws were abolished. By the time alleged JI spiritual leader Bashir
was brought to court in 2003, judges did little more than convict him on minor
immigration charges. "We used to be able to remove the judges whenever they
disappoint us," Hendropriyono reflects, wistfully. "But now we cannot do that."
The intelligence chief prompted domestic criticism for his role in the arrests of three
Indonesian militants in Manila in March 2002, and for handing over two Al Qaeda
terrorist suspects--Pakistani Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni and Iraqi-born Omar
al-Faruq--to CIA agents. Madni later died in the custody of Egyptiann authorities.
Since then, and particularly after the Bali bombing, Hendropriyono has forged a much
closer relationship with the Indonesian police. That's because the police department is
the only arm of the Indonesian government with the power of arrest and the legal
mandate to tackle terrorists on the ground. Hendropriyono has also increased the
level of civilian recruitment. For the first time more than half the staff at the BIN, once
dominated by the military, are civilians, says Ken Conboy, an American consultant
who has written a book on Indonesia's intelligence services.
Critics say Hendropriyono's zeal for terrorist hunting can't disguise the inefficiencies
typical of any Indonesian bureaucracy. An official attached to the Politics and
Security Ministry, which officially oversees the BIN, says the agency's intelligence
product isn't always all that good.
This hasn't stopped Hendropriyono from chasing after support from foreign
governments willing to help Indonesia improve its security agencies. In the lobby of his
office, he shows off models of two elaborate complexes planned for intelligence
training, one of them a grandiose "International Intelligence Institute" on Batam Island,
close to Singapore. Classes are set to start in September in Jakarta with help from
the Australian National University in Canberra.
The idea is to attract foreign students and experts to learn about terrorism. "Indonesia
is a very good example," he says with a broad smile.
John McBeth in Jakarta contributed to this article
Copyright ©2004 Review Publishing Company Limited, Hong Kong. All rights
reserved.
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