Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week ordered the country's governors to revive the Regional Intelligence Coordinating Body (Bakorinda), a network of intelligence offices last used to quell dissent in the Suharto era, amid criticism that Indonesia's intelligence bodies had failed to anticipate terrorist attacks in the country.
Under the plan, a new anti-terror agency will also be set up to coordinate all agencies currently involved in the national "war against terrorism", namely the police, the military (TNI) and the National Intelligence Agency. Bakorinda will thus synchronize the anti-terror drive by the military, police and judiciary across Indonesia.
Cynics might argue that the latest moves were prompted by the president's embarrassment that his meeting with US leader George W Bush in Washington last month almost coincided with the temporary closure of the US Embassy in Jakarta, in response to "specific information" of terrorist threats. But the real catalyst for the new push on the home front is likely to have been the May 28 market bombing in the mainly Christian town of Tentena, near Poso, Central Sulawesi.
Twenty-two people died and dozens of others were injured in that blast, making it the deadliest bombing in Indonesia since the Bali bombings killed 202 people in 2002. Local officials have hinted that the Tentena bombing could have been politically motivated to justify a strong military presence in the area. The police, however, say it may have been the work of Islamic militants hoping to revive religious tensions in Central Sulawesi.
Shortly after the anti-terror plan was announced, TNI chief General Endriartono Sutarto, unsurprisingly, gave his blessing to the proposed resurrection of Bakorinda. Asked about fears the new plans would bring back repressive government, Sutarto said: "Which do you prefer, having such fears or losing lives."
State Secretary Sudi Silalahi deemed the reinstatement of Bakorinda necessary and said it "is not aimed at frightening people, but rather to improve the coordination among our security authorities".
Threat to the region
Australia has long been wary of its neighbor – the world's most populous Muslim country and the setting for Australia's own September 11, the Bali bombings, in which 80 Australians were killed. The Australian Department of Foreign Trade last week cited "credible reports" suggesting that plans by terrorists to carry out attacks in Indonesia were in advanced stages. The warning noted that the bomb attack outside the Australian Embassy on September 9, 2004, "underscores that the threat to Australians in Indonesia is real".
Police say Malaysians Noordin Mohammed Top and Azahari bin Husin, alleged key members of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) Southeast Asian terrorism network, both of whom top Indonesia's most-wanted list, are currently recruiting people and planning another attack. Just last week Top's wife was sentenced to three years in jail for hiding him.
Noordin and Top are believed to be among the perpetrators of a series of blasts in Indonesia, including those in Bali, the 2003 JW Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta that claimed 12 lives, and the blast near the Australian Embassy in September that killed 10.
The usual suspects
Lieutenant General Zen Maulani, head of the Coordinating Agency for National Intelligence (Bakin) from 1998-2000, has said on record that organizations such as Laskar Jihad, Front Pembela Islam, Laskar Jundullah and Laskar Hisbullah were not terrorist or extremist groups in the real sense; they were formed in response to the repression of Suharto's New Order regime and unfair and unjust treatment by the government. They have nothing to do with al-Qaeda or the US "war on terrorism", claimed the general.
This is the same man who preached to around 6,000 chanting followers crowded in and around a Solo (Surakarta) mosque to show their support for militant cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir prior to his arrest less than a week after the Bali bombings. Maulani disputed the allegations against Ba'asyir and told the gathered masses, "This war against international terrorism is merely a tool to dominate the world oil sources."
Ba'asyir, accused by the major powers of leading the JI, designated a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council, is presently serving a 30-month jail sentence for involvement in the conspiracy behind the Bali bombings. Washington and Canberra have accused Jakarta of letting the courts get in the way of fighting terrorism and lacking "political will".
Yudhoyono, for his part, has said Indonesia would outlaw the JI if its existence could be "legally proven" and if its members were involved in terrorist acts. Under current anti-terrorism regulations, suspicions of terrorism are based on individual actions and not as a consequence of group membership.
Criticism of the police
The national police are coming under increasing fire for a perceived view of terrorism as a routine matter, instead of a real threat to public security. The military and the police were integrated under the aegis of the Indonesian Armed Forces, until being separated in 1999. Currently, the two forces are under the direct supervision of the president.
Rights groups say the police and military should remain separate, as they fear any form of reunification will encourage the military to resume its socio-political role, in which the rights of ordinary Indonesians were often pushed aside to succor and defend the business and political interests of the ruling elite.
Two leading legislators – Permadi, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle who is a member of a commission on defense, foreign affairs and information; and Golkar legislator Akil Mochtar, deputy chairman of a commission on law, legislation, human rights and security – have called for the dismissal of national police chief General Dai Bachtiar.
Their outspoken demands came after radical Muslim cleric Abu Jibril, a Ba'asyir associate and member of the Ba'asyir-led Indonesian Mujahideen Council, claimed a bomb blast a week ago outside his house may have been masterminded by the US to intimidate him into stopping his campaign for an Islamic state.
Jibril, described by the US State Department as JI's primary recruiter and second in command, was arrested in Malaysia in June 2001, during a crackdown on the JI and local militant organization Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia, a militant group that like JI seeks to set up an Islamic state. Jibri was detained for two years on suspicion of links to terrorism, but was later deported to Indonesia.
Mochtar was quoted as saying he thought the bombing outside Jibril's home could have been conducted by terrorists as a warning that they had approached Jakarta and might also have been perpetrated by Australians opposed to the recent conviction of Schapelle Corby for drug smuggling.
Permadi, though conceding that police have caught several perpetrators after bombings, claimed they had failed to take adequate steps to prevent terrorism. He cited the fact that Azahari, stopped by traffic police after last year's bombing at the Australian Embassy, simply paid a small bribe to avoid a traffic fine. "We should not expect the security situation to improve much if police are still like that," Permadi said.
An unseen enemy
The most potent weapon against terrorism remains effective intelligence, but pinpointing the enemy in the vast Indonesian archipelago will be no easy task. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty has warned the effort needed to eradicate terrorism in Indonesia was "not a sprint, it's a marathon".
Speaking just after the attack on the Marriott Hotel in 2003, Keelty noted that in Indonesia there was an "almost endless supply of people who are willing to take up the radical and fundamentalist cause".
The JI claims to aspire to an Islamic state, a concept historically rejected by most of Indonesia's Muslim majority. But its ability to recruit feeds on powerlessness, poverty and injustice. The government has, for some time been working with the two large mainstream religious organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, through the Ministry of Religious Affairs, to seek their help in educating the masses away from the influence of radical groups in the national interest.
Public attitudes toward radical Islam have already hardened considerably, particularly since the Marriott bombing that struck at the very heart of the capital, and in doing so, threatened the rich and powerful. Despite some 190 arrests throughout the region, the bombing proved that the JI had clearly retained the capacity and the will to launch such devastating attacks. Now up to two-thirds of Jakarta's 26,000 policemen are deployed daily to maintain security.
Indonesians now have little doubt that their country has all the ingredients needed to nurture and sustain terrorist "sleepers" who are ready to act given the green light from the paymaster. Thus, high-profile leaders of local radical groups are likely hard pressed to whip up anti-authority sentiment on the basis that Muslims are the object of observation and surveillance under the newly stepped up intelligence gathering network.
Trade-off
The US-led "war on terror" has been extremely damaging for human rights, and has been used as an excuse by totalitarian regimes to impose oppressive laws, according to a report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The report, "Human Rights and Counter-terrorism in America's Asia Policy", says certain countries have brought in so-called anti-terrorist laws insisting they are not much different from the Patriot Act enacted by the Bush administration. The emotional passage of the Patriot Act only weeks after the September 11 terror attacks allowed little time for scrutiny of its measures. The act's many critics point out that although it was passed hastily without any debate or hearings and under a cloak of fear, its provisions were obviously very carefully thought out and crafted to take power out of the hands of the courts and ensure absolute lack of oversight of law enforcement and intelligence gathering.
During the New Order era in Indonesia, the country's security institutions had similar and absolute authority to act against those found or suspected of disturbing security and order. Non-governmental organizations in Indonesia argue that terrorism allegations derived from US sources could be used by the military for its own benefit to either smooth the path to a better relationship with the US, or to reinforce its political role.
Though the government has promised it would not resurrect draconian internal security laws like those used with impunity under Suharto, and scrapped after his downfall in 1998, Indonesian society could be forced to come to terms with a forced trade-off between human-rights expectations and the sweeping powers expected to be granted to security authorities. These are contained in a proposed revision of the existing Anti-terrorism Law No 15/2003, which Inspector General Ansjaad Mbai of the anti-terror desk at the chief security minister's office has described as the world's "softest" law against terrorism.
The draft law, which has been ready for debate in the House since February 2004, states that suspected terrorists can be detained by the police for up to seven days on the basis of very little preliminary evidence and then for a further six months for questioning and prosecution. It would also allow intelligence reports to be admitted as prima facie evidence in order to detain suspects. Investigators would also have the authority to go through personal mail and parcels and to tap telephone conversations or other forms of communication.
Crucially, the draft law provides for the arrest of suspects by the military, which would thus give the military direct involvement in policing and criminal investigations, the very powers that were so widely abused in the Suharto era.
This may already be underway. On taking office last October, the president ordered the police to capture Noordin and Azahari during the first 100 days of his term. Significantly, at the beginning of this week, troops were brought in to hunt down five vehicles suspected of carrying bombs made by Noordin's recruits.
[Bill Guerin, a Jakarta correspondent for Asia Times Online since 2000, has worked in Indonesia for 19 years in journalism and editorial positions. He has been published by the BBC on East Timor and specializes in business/economic and political analysis in Indonesia.]