Slobodan Lekic, Jakarta – Despite a $50 million US aid package and a push by Washington to renew military ties, a new report suggests Indonesia's military created the network now said to be Southeast Asia's most serious terrorist threat.
The report, released by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels, Belgium-based think tank, says that Jemaah Islamiyah – a shadowy group allegedly trying to topple governments in Southeast Asia and carve out an Islamic state – was created in the 1970's by the head of Indonesia's military intelligence.
The goal was to compromise Muslim opponents of then-dictator Suharto and to depict them as fundamentalists, the document said.
"If you scratch any radical Islamic group in Indonesia, you will find some security forces involvement," Sidney Jones, the International Crisis Group country director, said Monday. "These links need further investigation." The report's release could embarrass the Bush administration, which has made renewing links with Indonesia's military – cut three years ago because of human rights abuses – a centerpiece of its anti-terror strategy in Southeast Asia.
It comes after accusations by former President Abdurrahman Wahid that Laskar Jihad, another extremist organization accused of killing thousands of Christians in the Maluku islands, was set up by hard-line generals opposed to democratic reforms after Suharto's fall in 1999.
The Bush administration has been looking for ways to re-establish military ties with Indonesia. The effort, spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz – a former ambassador to Indonesia during the Suharto regime – gained momentum after September 11, amid fears Indonesia could become a haven for the al-Qaida terrorist network. This week, Pacific fleet commander Adm. Thomas B. Fargo is due in Jakarta to discuss a $50 million aid package announced by Secretary of State Colin Powell during an August 2 visit.
Jemaah Islamiyah, which authorities in Malaysia and Singapore claim has links to al-Qaida, is also accused of plotting to bomb US targets in Singapore. Dozens of alleged members have been arrested in Malaysia and Singapore, but not in Indonesia.
Jemaah Islamiyah has its roots in the Darul Islam rebellion in Indonesia in the 1950s which sought to transform Indonesia into an Islamic state, according to the International Crisis Group report. The uprising collapsed in the early 1960s.
In 1966, Gen. Suharto seized power in Indonesia. By the 1970s, Suharto had become concerned about the opposition groups' growing popularity and set about to discredit them, the report said.
In a sting operation, Suharto's intelligence chief Gen. Ali Murtopo persuaded former Darul Islam members to reactivate themselves, ostensibly to prevent communist infiltration. When they did so in 1977, the security forces arrested 185 activists and accused them of seeking to establish a fundamentalist state.
The name Jemaah Islamiyah first surfaced in court documents as the organization the activists thought they were setting up at Murtopo's behest.
Most activists were released in the 1980s, and some – radicalized by their experience in prison – organized to fight the dictatorship. These included Abu Bakar Bashir, a Muslim cleric now accused by Singapore of being Jemaah Islamiyah's ringleader.
Jones said senior Indonesian military officials retained close ties to the group at least through the 1980s.
With Suharto's overthrow in 1998 after massive pro-democracy protests, the brutal repression of political rivals that characterized his dictatorship ceased.
But Jones warned that Jakarta was now under international pressure to re-institute arbitrary measures against Bashir and his followers, who deny links to al-Qaida. She said imprisoning suspects without trial or using torture to extract confessions would backfire and transform them into national heroes.
As an example, Jones cited Agus Dwikarna, an Indonesian jailed in the Philippines after being caught carrying explosives at Manila airport. Most Indonesians, she said, are convinced the evidence was planted by intelligence agents.