Buying guns, explosives, passport as easy as buying rice

Buying guns, explosives, passport as easy as buying rice

Sidney Jones, Singapore

Indonesia has more victims to mourn after yet another attack
that killed and maimed ordinary civilians. The same criminals
behind the Christmas Eve bombings, the Bali bombs, and the
Marriott attack, and numerous equally lethal bombings in the
Philippines, are the likely perpetrators.

The name those criminals have given themselves is Jamaah
Islamiyah, "Islamic Community". Indonesian Muslims living in
Malaysia chose that name in 1993 -- it wasn't foisted on them
from outside by anyone trying to stigmatize the Muslim faithful.
And it wasn't the first time that a political group had
deliberately chosen a name designed to suggest that it
represented more than just a very narrow fringe.

The Gamaat Islamiya in Egypt, which served as something of an
inspiration for the founders of its Indonesian namesake, was
responsible for a series of violent attacks, including the
massacre of tourists Luxor in 1997. That act, which devastated
the tourist industry in Egypt and hurt thousands of ordinary
Egyptians as a result, led to such disagreements and rifts within
the organization that eventually it collapsed. But the Egyptian
government also had no hesitation about using the full force of
the state -- indeed, sometimes too much force -- against it.

Indonesians know perfectly well that the terrorists who commit
atrocities such as the attack on Thursday don't represent them,
and no one should be worried any longer about using the words
"Jemaah Islamiyah." The government is right not be too hasty to
identify those responsible for Thursday's bomb until the evidence
is clear, but there's no difference between Da'i Bachtiar
speculating in a press conference that the embassy bombing was
linked to Bali and the Marriott, and speculating that it was
linked to JI.

But government officials are still loathe to use the term. The
fact remains that more than four years after JI first undertook
bombings on Indonesian soil -- in May 2000 in Medan -- no one in
the Indonesian government has gone on national television at
prime time and carefully laid out the case against JI, the nature
of the threat they pose, and what concrete steps the government
is prepared to undertake to counter it. This is not just a
question of catching the bombers and bringing them to justice --
the police are doing an excellent job, and JI is much weaker now
than it was two years ago, Thursday's bombing notwithstanding.

Nor is it a question of strengthening laws to expand the
powers of arrest and detention. Indonesia has the legal tools it
needs.

This is an issue that goes beyond law enforcement. The
government needs to halt ongoing recruitment and prevent a new
generation of JI from emerging. It needs to figure out ways of
channeling the anger of young men in the communities where JI has
particularly strong followings into non-violent pursuits that
will at the same time help suffering human beings in places like
Palestine, Iraq and Chechnya. It needs to examine the ideology of
JI and like-minded groups committed to the use of violence, and
understand why it has taken root in Indonesian soil. It needs to
clean up the corruption that allows would-be terrorists to buy
guns and explosives, passports and identity cards almost as
easily as they can buy rice. It may also need to take action
against the tiny number of schools that have produced a
disproportionate number of bombers.

After so many horrors committed by JI, and so many Indonesian
deaths, the Indonesian government will surely find strong support
for an approach that seeks to pre-empt and prevent as much as to
react to outbreaks of terrorism. It would be wonderful if the
government could prepare a program for showing to all Indonesians
just after the evening news, explaining the history and
development of JI. Then both candidates for president could be
interviewed, together or separately, spelling out in very
concrete terms what steps would be taken to ensure that the
activities of JI and other groups like it, were stopped.

The writer is Director of the Southeast Asia Project of
International Crisis Group, Jakarta