THE WEEKLY STANDARD [Washington D.C.]
Volume 07, Number 16 - December 31, 2001 / January 7, 2002
Jihad Comes to Indonesia
Bin Laden's allies attempt a hostile takeover
By Paul Marshall
[Senior fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, in Washington,
D.C., where he edits a global survey, Religious Freedom in the World]
THE ROAD BETWEEN Poso and Tentena on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi runs
past burned-out homes, stores, and churches, and is blocked by check-points
adorned with pictures of Osama bin Laden. Some have signs proclaiming him "our
leader." Islamic militias stop vehicles and check identity papers. Christians have been
dragged out of cars and buses and summarily shot.
The checkpoints are the work of the Laskar Jihad militia. In the last two years it has
slaughtered thousands. It has also forcibly converted other thousands to Islam, and
then circumcised them, men and women, sometimes with scissors. Its goal is to kill,
convert, or drive out all non-Muslims, mainly Christians, from Indonesia's eastern
islands and to implement Islamic sharia law throughout this sprawling and populous
country.
Indonesia is about 85 percent Muslim, but many parts of the east have Christian
majorities and are sparsely populated. Some areas, such as Maluku and Irian Jaya,
have had independence movements. In the 1970s, the Indonesian government began a
"transmigration" program to move people from the overcrowded central islands, mainly
Java, to these less populated regions. In addition to its economic motives, the
government hoped to make Islam the majority religion in all parts of the country, and
so dampen separatist sentiment.
The transmigration effort fueled ethnic and religious tension. Locals feared becoming
minorities in their own areas and believed that newcomers were getting government
preferences, including the best jobs. Eventually there was violence.The worst carnage
came in the Maluku islands, some 1,400 kilometers northeast of Indonesia's capital,
Jakarta.
In 1999, an argument between a Muslim and a Christian over bus fare led to pushing
and shoving, then riots, then full-scale religious war. In the last two years in Maluku
there have been 9,000 killed and half a million refugees.
Still, many in Maluku thought peace was still possible, and Muslim and Christian
leaders jointly called for reconciliation. These hopes were dashed by Laskar Jihad's
intervention in mid-2000. Using tales of Christian attacks on Muslims, some of them
true, the group recruited youths in Java, its headquarters. In full view of Indonesian
security forces, it outfitted its recruits with white uniforms, gave them military training
and automatic weapons, and shipped off thousands to the east.
With the arrival of the Jihad forces, what had previously been religious clashes, with
dead on both sides, became one-sided religious cleansing and slaughter. The Jihad
swept through Maluku, burning homes and churches, and killing and driving out
Christians, as well as the few Hindus and Buddhists. The government stood passively
by until early 2001, when the arrival of government special forces brought some order,
though sporadic bombings, burnings, and massacres continue.
The Jihad then turned its attention to the neighboring island of Sulawesi, where there
had been similar violence. In July 2001, 750 jihadists arrived, after notifying the local
governor of their coming. In the next few months, more arrived, broadcasting their goal
of driving out all Christians and instituting sharia law.
They set up roadblocks, put up bin Laden posters, and, using armored bulldozers,
automatic rifles, and the occasional rocket launcher, isolated and surrounded 60,000
Christians in the Poso area, threatening to finish them off before Christmas. In the first
week of December 2001, government security forces finally arrived, and there is now a
measure of peace. But there are fears that the Jihad will move into northern Sulawesi,
and kill again until someday government forces catch up with them.
There are other radical Islamic groups in Indonesia. The province of Aceh, at the
northern-most tip of Sumatra, has long been hospitable to militant Muslims. Its
Islamists have always been highly restrictive, out of step with the easy-going ways in
the rest of the country, and have fought for independence in order to create a pure
Islamic state along the lines of Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. The Indonesian army has
repressed them in a decades-long brutal war.
After Indonesia's first truly democratic elections in 1998, the new president,
Abdurraham Wahid, sought to end the Acehnese rebellion by reining in the army and
meeting some of the militants' demands. In July 2001, the Indonesian legislature gave
the province more autonomy and allowed it to institute Muslim courts and sharia. This
past October, as part of its program to implement its version of Islamic law, the local
government in Aceh Singkil district ordered the destruction of churches and forbade
Christians to practice religion in their own homes. The order allowed five small church
buildings to remain "as a sign of Islamic tolerance."
Religious tensions have steadily worsened throughout the country in recent years.
Church burnings were one or two a year before 1995, but the figure has escalated to
hundreds a year. During Indonesia's economic collapse in the 1997 Asian financial
crisis, there was an eruption of violence, much of it directed against ethnic Chinese,
the predominant merchant class and a frequent scapegoat in troubled times. Most
Indonesian Chinese are Christians, and there was a strong religious element to the
attacks, with many non-Chinese as well as Chinese churches torched. This religious
violence has continued. Over Christmas 2000, churches were bombed in 18 cities
including Jakarta, killing 40 and wounding hundreds. This Christmas, the government
has deployed 5,000 people in Jakarta alone to head off further violence.
Terrifying anywhere, these trends are especially ominous in Indonesia. Despite the
country's myriad divisions and problems, Indonesian Islam has historically been
tolerant. It arrived in the country starting in the thirteenth century, brought by
merchants, not conquerors. Its moderate Sufi style took hold in a largely Hindu
culture adept at absorbing and taking the edge off incoming religions. Muslim and
Christian villagers often helped each other build mosques and churches.
Abdurraham Wahid once epitomized this tolerance. Before entering politics, he was
head of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), a village-based educational and social network with up
to 40 million members, making it the largest Muslim organization in the world. Wahid
proved a lousy politician; it takes a certain perverse genius to be impeached 591-0
and removed from office, as he was on July 23, 2001. But he had been a great
religious leader. As head of NU, he said that his favorite novel was Chaim Potok's My
Name is Asher Lev, and could explain why. His denunciations of Islamist violence
were full and frank, with no ifs, ands, or buts. He sent NU members to protect
churches under attack by radicals.
Some clues as to how this openness has been undercut may be found half a world
away, in Spain. When Spanish police cracked an al Qaeda cell in Madrid last month,
they reported that the cell had sent hundreds of militants to Indonesia for military
training. Intelligence officials say that these cadres had gone to three training camps,
one in Java, one in Maluku, and one in Aceh.
Other connections are now apparent. Laskar Jihad's head, Jaffar Umar Thalib, fought
alongside bin Laden in Afghanistan. There are many reports of Pakistanis and Arabs
fighting with Laskar Jihad. The Indonesian government long denied any link between
Laskar Jihad and al Qaeda, but on December 11, the head of Indonesian intelligence,
Abdullah Hendropriyono, finally agreed with his American counterparts that the two
were linked. Similar ties are apparent with other growing radical groups, including
Darul Islam, in Java, which has been targeting Americans, and boasts of sending
200-300 people a year to bin Laden for training and indoctrination.
What does all this mean for America's war on terrorism? Well, shielding people from
being slaughtered or mutilated for their religion is a worthy goal in itself. But even for
hard-nosed realists, there are other good reasons to be involved in Indonesia.
A member of OPEC, Indonesia controls most of the sea routes to Asia. The Strait of
Malacca, next to Aceh, is the world's busiest shipping lane. If you want to go from
Europe or the Middle East to East Asia, you must either go through Indonesian
waters or take a 6,000-mile detour into the Pacific and back through the Philippines.
Indonesia also borders China (according to that country's government maps of the
South China Sea). An Islamist or fragmented Indonesia would have dramatic
repercussions for the politics of Asia and the world and would present a national
security nightmare for the United States.
At the very least, Indonesia's travails highlight the fact that we are in a global struggle.
The war on terrorism is unique, yet it has certain parallels with the Cold War. It
engages us against an ideological movement that recruits across international borders
and whose political ambitions are worldwide. It requires us to fight against those who
fight against us. It obliges us to undercut and marginalize the ideology that breeds
these enemies, and to support those people and movements that also resist them.
Our military cannot fight everywhere, but there is room to encourage and aid countries
fighting their own Islamic radicals. If the Laskar Jihads and Darul Islams flourish, then
anti-American terrorism will flourish as well.
The United States broke off military ties with Indonesia in 1998 because of its army's
brutality in suppressing the independence of East Timor. There is a strong case now
for engaging, training, and reforming that military, and pressuring Indonesia's
recalcitrant politicians to use it well. The defense appropriations bill passed by
Congress on December 20 allows funding for counterterrorism training for armies in
Southeast Asia. Indonesia should beallowed to benefit from it. There is an equally
strong case for shoring up the friends of democracy and freedom in Indonesia, the
world's largest Muslim country, and so sending a signal of hope to democratic forces
in the rest of the Islamic world.
Photos 1 and 2, Christian fortifications and church in the Maluku islands. Photos by
Sam Dealey
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