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