Gary LaMoshi, Denpasar – As he faces a second trial on terrorism charges, Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir has taken on symbolic value far beyond his real importance. To the West, Indonesia's handling of Ba'asyir, the alleged head of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terror group, is a crucial indicator of Indonesia's commitment to fighting terrorism. But putting Ba'asyir on trial at the West's insistence makes it harder for Indonesia to confront more important facets of its terrorism problem.
Ba'asyir went back on trial last week on terrorism and conspiracy charges in connection with the October 2002 Bali bombings and the September 2003 JW Marriott Hotel blast in Jakarta, both blamed on the JI. The prosecution's indictment claims Ba'asyir visited a JI training camp in the southern Philippines in 2000, where he passed along an order to fighters from al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden inciting "waging of war against, and the killing of, Americans and their allies," according to the 65-page document read in court last Thursday.
Ba'asyir also allegedly gave his blessing to the Bali bombings that killed 202 people, most of them Western tourists. He is the co-founder of the Pondok Ngruki Islamic boarding school that sports numerous links to the Bali bombers. Ba'asyir could face the death penalty if convicted.
Wirawan Adnan, an attorney for Ba'asyir, calls the prosecution's charges "ridiculous", dismissing them as "repeated circumstances, repeated conditions of [Ba'asyir's] previous trial".
Cushy custody?
Despite criticism that Indonesia has been soft on Ba'asyir, the 66-year-old cleric has been in custody since the week after the Bali bombings. Last year, he was acquitted of terrorism charges – prosecutors reportedly presented a laughably weak case – but found guilty of plotting to overthrow the government. That conviction was overturned on appeal, and Ba'asyir's prison term for immigration violations was sliced in half. When that sentence expired on May 1, Ba'asyir enjoyed seconds of freedom before police rearrested him for questioning in connection with these latest charges.
But that's not enough for some. Singapore's minister mentor and founding father, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, wrote in his column for Forbes magazine discussing presidential elections in Indonesia: The feared electoral strength of the Muslim extremist group Jemaah Islamiah (responsible for the bombings in Bali) did not warrant the government's kid-glove handling of Abu Bakar Baasyir [sic], the group's spiritual leader. In Indonesia only those terrorists directly involved in bombings are prosecuted; their religious mentors are left untouched, even though they are the most crucial part of the terror chain. Because of this, madrassas (religious schools) that teach and promulgate extremist Islam continue to spawn new generations of suicide bombers.
Little, old knife maker
Ba'asyir admits proudly, "I've made a lot of knives" with his teachings of the Koran, which as he interprets it, includes sharply anti-American, anti-Israeli views. But Ba'asyir claims he has never stabbed anyone, and no one has presented credible evidence directly linking him to violence. (He blames the US Central Intelligence Agency and Israeli intelligence for the World Trade Center and Bali attacks).
Many of the allegations against Ba'asyir arise from Western intelligence interrogation of captured al-Qaeda operatives. Cheerleaders for Ba'asyir's conviction tend to uncritically accept the word of terror suspects in custody telling captors what they want to hear while disregarding uncoerced statements to the contrary.
It's no surprise that Singapore's Lee wants Ba'asyir convicted of thought crimes for his preaching. By Lee's way of thinking, if a rapist reads Playboy magazine, then Hugh Hefner deserves caning (and, perhaps, those naughty playmates, too). Singapore didn't get where it is by valuing free speech, an independent judiciary or disabusing its founding father of his Confucian conviction of infallibility.
That concept of justice may fly in Singapore, but it is ironic to see the United States and its allies applying pressure to punish Ba'asyir while insisting freedom and democratic values need to be nurtured around the world as the real antidote to terror. In Indonesia, it's particularly troubling for Westerners to endorse the habit of political interference in the judiciary. One of the few places where the interests of Indonesian democracy advocates and foreign investors converge is the promotion of independent courts. However, when Westerners think it's in their interest, as in the case of Ba'asyir – and the alleged pollution of Buyat Bay – they're quick to call for politicians to overrule judges.
"I asked the panel of judges and prosecutors to beware of efforts by the two enemies of Allah – America and Australia – to interfere in this courtroom," Ba'asyir said at his trial's opening session on Thursday. This public pressure from the West regarding Ba'asyir is a bigger issue in Indonesia than his alleged ties to terrorism. After all, the Marriott Hotel attack and September's bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta took place while Ba'asyir was already behind bars.
The West's fixation on Ba'asyir reinforces Indonesian impressions that terrorism is a Western problem and that the West's so-called "war on terrorism" is a war on Islam. It creates sympathy for a figure whose views are not widely held among the Indonesian public at large, and boosts his popularity, making Ba'asyir an underdog who defies the West. That popular acceptance, in turn, makes it harder for responsible Indonesian leaders to denounce the Islamic radical fringe without seeming to pander to the West.
Test cases, true and false
Media, such as Lee Kuan Yew's state-controlled hometown paper, compound the error by characterizing Ba'asyir's trial as a test case for Indonesia's new President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Yet Ba'asyir's indictment predates the two-week-old administration, so it's not responsible for whatever happens. If the West would stop talking, it would make it easier for Yudhoyono to placate Muslim parties, which largely support him, and their followers if the court convicts Ba'asyir.
If the West wants a test case for Yudhoyono, it need look no further than his appointment to the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs portfolio he held until March. Yudhoyono's successor as Indonesia's point man on terrorism is former admiral Widodo A S. In the three years after Suharto's fall, Widodo was the first chief of Indonesia's armed forces drawn from a service other than the army.
Widodo's otherwise undistinguished tenure was marked by the growth of military-supported religious violence. In defiance of presidential orders, the armed forces provided weapons and other assistance to thousands of Muslim fighters in conflicts with Christians around the archipelago. This support for religious radicals gave a mainstream platform to the likes of Ba'asyir. Amid other military efforts to promote political destabilization under former president Abdurrahman Wahid, support of jihad contributed to the spread of lawlessness, encouraging bolder terror attacks.
Western governments, however, remain far more active and vocal in calling for the scalps of those who wrap violence in Muslim robes and have killed hundreds than those who wear military fatigues and have killed tens of thousands. No wonder Indonesians think the war on terror is just a guise for a war on Islam.
The focus on Ba'asyir reflects the decision to attack Iraq: the West chose the wrong target, then labeled it a central front in the war on terror, making that region and the world at large more dangerous, and giving terrorists more fertile ground in which to grow.
[Gary LaMoshi, a longtime editor of investor rights advocate eRaider.com, has also contributed to Slate and Salon.com. He's worked as a broadcast producer and as a print writer and editor in the United States and Asia. He moved to Hong Kong in 1995 and now splits his time between there and Indonesia.]