REUTERS, Monday January 28, 2002 9:49 AM
Muslim militants cast shadow over Indonesia
By Dean Yates
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Ridwan Zaki is only 14 but has already seen
plenty of action fighting Christians in Indonesia's eastern Ambon city.
While Zaki is not sure he killed any with his homemade gun, he is ready to return to
the conflict if his teachers at a small religious school in central Java run by Laskar
Jihad, Indonesia's best known militant Muslim group, give the command.
"If I'm ordered to by my teachers, I'll go back to the war in Ambon," Zaki said, stroking
his camouflaged army-issue pants, a gift from Laskar Jihad personnel when he lived in
the key hub in Indonesia's Moluccas island chain.
Zaki has been at the school on the outskirts of the ancient royal capital Yogyakarta
for a year and lauds Laskar Jihad for joining the fight against Christians in Ambon.
He looks like any ordinary Indonesian teenager, but breathes the talk of hatred one
should probably expect from youths caught up in Indonesia's worst communal conflict
in decades, which has killed thousands of people in the past three years.
What worries some is that boys like Zaki who pass through the hands of Laskar Jihad
will join the ranks of local Islamic extremists. Those groups comprise a tiny portion of
the world's most populous Muslim nation but their activities have triggered speculation
Indonesia's tolerant brand of Islam is under threat.
The issue of groups such as Laskar Jihad has taken on greater significance for
Jakarta since the United States launched its war on the al Qaeda network of Muslim
militant Osama bin Laden.
Washington holds Saudi-born millionaire bin Laden and his al Qaeda network
responsible for the September 11 aircraft attacks on the United States.
Many believe al Qaeda would find Indonesia an inviting target given its woes and the
emergence of organisations like Laskar Jihad from the turmoil and weak leadership of
recent years.
Security officials have publicly said they had no evidence of links between al Qaeda
and local Muslim groups. Laskar Jihad has denied having ties to al Qaeda and scoffs
at its views of Islam.
FEARS OVERBLOWN?
Despite the fears, some analysts do not see groups such as Laskar Jihad radically
changing the face of Islam in Indonesia.
Harold Crouch of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group and a leading
Indonesian expert, said the activities of Laskar Jihad and its influence needed to be
kept in proportion.
"They're a problem but they are hardly threatening the state...They are so peripheral I
think in terms of Islam in Indonesia," Crouch told Reuters.
Islam was not imposed there by force but melded with local customs during centuries
of contact with Arab traders, depriving radicals of a cultural base to exploit for political
purposes.
The commander of Laskar Jihad is Jafar Umar Thalib, a 40-year-old of Yemeni
heritage who claimed in an interview last week that his 10,000-strong group had been
misunderstood and his fighters in the Moluccas and around Poso town in Central
Sulawesi province were only acting in self-defence.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in fighting between Muslims and Christians
around Poso in the past three years. Some of the worst massacres, committed by
both sides, took place in Poso and the Moluccas before Laskar Jihad arrived.
Wearing a Muslim skull cap and coloured sarong, the slightly rotund Thalib denied
Laskar Jihad wanted to create turmoil.
He railed at the U.S. government and its policies but said his group had no links to
radical organisations abroad.
At times jovial, Thalib also said Laskar Jihad was ready to fight on the side of
Muslims anywhere in Indonesia if they were being attacked and the government failed
to protect them.
"Whatever is the shape of (the help) we provide it will be in accordance with the
conditions there," he said, speaking in a garage attached to his modest home which
has been converted into a library of Islamic books.
Chickens scratched around outside as young men, almost all unsmiling, performed
tasks around the several rundown dwellings and simple mosque that comprise the
group's base.
In both the Moluccas and Poso where roughly equal numbers of Muslims and
Christians live, festering social and political resentments burst to the surface when
autocrat Suharto fell from power in 1998, providing the spark for the fighting.
That opened the way for Laskar Jihad to enter, circumstances some analysts don't
see repeated elsewhere for now.
PREPARED TO LEAVE THE MOLUCCAS
Thalib gave Jakarta a couple of conditions for withdrawing his paramilitaries from the
Moluccas and Poso -- demands the weak central administration is unlikely to meet
soon.
"If the Muslim people who have been neglected are protected by the government, if the
rioters who have taken so many Muslim victims are arrested and tried by the
government. If that happens, then we will return to our religious schools," he said.
Crouch recently returned from a 10-day visit to Ambon and said Laskar Jihad
appeared to be less of a problem there now.
This could be because their source of funds was drying up, he said. Laskar Jihad had
also come off badly in clashes last year with special forces troops and marines,
Crouch added.
Separately, a peace deal signed in Poso last month has held.
Thalib said Laskar Jihad had representatives in 24 of Indonesia's around 30 provinces,
including remote and resource-rich Papua in the far east, where large numbers of
Muslim immigrants live uneasily with indigenous tribesmen.
He said about 25 Laskar Jihad members were there, but denied reports they wanted
to stir up trouble.
Around 3,000 members were in the Moluccas, some to help with education, while in
Poso there were about 700, he said.
Thalib added that 84 Laskar Jihad members had been killed in fighting in the
Moluccas since 2000, with one wounded in Poso.
While Thalib insisted his aim was not to destabilise Indonesia, his vision of what the
country should be seems somewhat austere, and his four wives all wear the black
chador, which covers everything but their eyes.
The odd contradiction is never far away, however.
Carrying a bucket of water, one beefy Laskar Jihad member walked past wearing a
Muslim skull cap and a T-shirt emblazoned with a symbol that could not be more
American -- a Nike swoosh.
Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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