In search for formless Jamaah Islamiyah<\/p>\n
Muhammad Nafik
\nThe Jakarta Post
\nJakarta<\/p>\n
"Do you believe Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) really exists here?" a
\nfriend of mine once asked. Others have also raised the same
\nquestion on other occasions.<\/p>\n
It is truly hard to verifiably say "yes" in reply to that
\nquestion, although police have repeatedly linked Indonesian
\nbombers to JI.<\/p>\n
Several leading Muslim leaders also doubt the existence of the
\nregional terrorist network but have firmly stressed that
\nterrorists are at large in the world's largest Muslim country of
\nsome 212 million people.<\/p>\n
Hasyim Muzadi, who chairs Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) -- the nation's
\nlargest Muslim organization with 40 million members, was one of
\nthose casting doubt on JI's existence.<\/p>\n
Last September, he accused the United States of playing the JI
\ncard to put pressure on and control Indonesia and other Muslim
\nnations.<\/p>\n
His statement came after the Central Jakarta District Court
\nfailed to convict elderly cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir of leadership
\nof the regional terrorist group, although he was sentenced to
\nfour years in prison for treason and immigration offenses. A
\nhigher court in Jakarta later acquitted him of treason charges
\nand reduced his imprisonment to only three years.<\/p>\n
"The verdict is proof that JI does not exist in Indonesia,
\neven if it exists in other countries," Hasyim said.<\/p>\n
Also airing similar skepticism were another NU leader
\nSolahuddin Wahid, who is also a deputy chairman of the National
\nCommission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), and legal expert Rudy
\nSatrio from the University of Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Solahuddin said it required hard evidence to convince people
\nthat JI was operating in Indonesia. "Frankly speaking, I doubt
\nthat JI exists in our country."<\/p>\n
Satrio said there was no strong evidence to prove that JI
\noperated in Indonesia, adding that the trial of Ba'asyir was the
\nright occasion to prove it, but Indonesian authorities had failed
\nto do so.<\/p>\n
JI is a shadowy terror group connected to Osama bin Laden's
\nal-Qaeda terrorist network, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001,
\nattacks that killed more than 3,000 people in New York and
\nWashington.<\/p>\n
Indonesian Police blamed JI for the Oct. 12, 2002, Bali
\nbombings that killed 202 people and the JW Marriott Hotel blast
\non Aug. 5, 2003.<\/p>\n
JI gained notoriety worldwide after it was officially listed
\nby the UN as a regional terrorist network, following the
\nhumiliating Sept. 11 attacks.<\/p>\n
But for many (if not most) Indonesians, JI remains a mystery.<\/p>\n
Confessions that Ba'asyir, 64, was the emir of JI were made by
\nterror suspects detained overseas, such as Umar Al-Faruq and
\nothers arrested in Singapore and Malaysia under the Internal
\nSecurity Act.<\/p>\n
Their confessions could not, however, be directly verified by
\nIndonesian investigators as they were denied access to the
\nsuspects.<\/p>\n
Nor could worldwide reports that Hambali was the JI operative
\nleader be legally confirmed. He was captured in Thailand and is
\nbeing by held by American security forces at an undisclosed
\nlocation, but Indonesian police investigators were prevented from
\ngrilling the terror suspect directly, for reasons as yet unknown.<\/p>\n
The Jakarta office of the International Crisis Group (ICG)
\nreleased this year a report that JI was established by Ba'asyir
\nand another extremist, the late Abdullah Sungkar, and how it
\noperated in Indonesia. But once again, the report has not, as
\nyet, been verified in court.<\/p>\n
Branding the convicted Indonesian bombers as part of JI only
\nmay have precluded consideration of the possibility that other
\ngroups or individuals might have been involved in the series of
\nterror attacks across Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Even though the Bali bombing convicts confessed to have
\nassembled and detonated the powerful bombs, many remained
\ndoubtful of the bombers' expertise to do so.<\/p>\n
Doubt still shrouds the genuine masterminds of the devastating
\nattacks, as the key suspects, some of whom received death
\nsentences, have not been ordered to reenact how they mixed the
\ningredients for the bombs to be assembled.<\/p>\n
Police have said they found traces of high-powered explosives,
\nparticularly RDX, at the scene of the bombings on Jl. Legian in
\nKuta, Bali. But the sources of those explosives remain
\nunexplained.<\/p>\n
JI was said to have plans for a regional Islamic state
\ncovering Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines in the
\nfuture. The question was how they would make good on the plan,
\nfor it appears not to be viable due to the diversity of the
\nSoutheast Asian countries' social and religious cultures.<\/p>\n
In Indonesia, JI is apparently not one of the extremist Muslim
\norganizations that have campaigned peacefully for Islamic sharia
\nlaw to be enforced in the country.<\/p>\n
Harold Crouch, a prominent Indonesianist from the Australian
\nNational University (ANU), has said there has been a tendency for
\nhard-line groups campaigning for the adoption of sharia in
\nIndonesia to have ceased to use violence to achieve their goals,
\nas the now-defunct Darul Islam radical movement did in the 1950s.<\/p>\n
Darul Islam, led by Marijan Sukarmaji Kartosuwiryo, fought
\nviolently for sharia in the country in the 1950s. Established in
\nWest Java, the group declared an Indonesian Islamic state on Aug.
\n7, 1949, and waged a rebellion against government forces.<\/p>\n
Crouch said radical movements had significantly declined in
\nIndonesia since then, even though Islamist parties continued to
\nstruggle for the inclusion of sharia in the amended 1945
\nConstitution at the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).<\/p>\n
Moreover, the wave of recent terror incidents put major
\nIslamist political parties in a difficult position to reaffirm
\npublicly their ties with radical groups, so as to secure their
\ntraditional support in the 2004 elections.<\/p>\n
Like Crouch, other experts brushed aside claims that radical
\nmovements could pose a serious challenge to the secular forces
\nthat controlled the country's political stage due to their poor
\nunity and lack of support from most Indonesians.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, foreign media have often exaggerated reports of
\nradical movements in Indonesia but have failed to highlight the
\nroot causes of the problem.<\/p>\n
Radicalism and terrorism are inseparable from injustices that
\nprevail across the globe, particularly the perceived double
\nstandard of United States policy in the Israeli-Palestinian
\nconflict and in its invasion of Iraq.<\/p>\n
The recent capture of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein
\nand how he will be treated before the law could further anger
\nradicals and terrorists who might launch new terror attacks
\nagainst the U.S. and its allies.<\/p>",
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