Illegal guns enter Indonesia through four countries
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Arms smuggled into the country from Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia have been responsible for fueling the violence in conflicts across the nation, a senior intelligence officer said on Tuesday.
State Intelligence Agency (BIN) deputy chief Brig. Gen. Bom Soerjanto said that the illegal arms trade highlighted the need for cooperation with neighboring countries.
"There is an agreement for close cooperation (with ASEAN members) as it is assumed that these developments threaten regional stability," Bom said in his paper presented during a discussion on transnational crimes among ASEAN members.
Smugglers in Thailand and Malaysia, he said, had supplied arms to separatists in Aceh and Irian Jaya, as well as warring Muslim and Christian groups in Maluku.
The Philippines has also sold arms to warring groups in Maluku, while separatists in Papua have bought additional arms from Australia.
Bom said the rise in small arms trafficking came on the heels of an increase in armed conflicts, which have spurred demand for the weapons.
Indonesia has become a hotbed of communal conflicts since 1998, with the addition of possible terrorist activities.
The outbreak of violence has been attributed to the collapse of law and order that followed the 1998 downfall of Soeharto and his iron grip over the sprawling archipelago.
A paper by the customs and excise office quoting the March 2001 edition of Jane's Intelligence Review cited Thailand, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Sabah in Malaysia as transit points for smuggled arms.
The magazine listed China, North Korea, Cambodia, Myanmar and Pakistan as among the producers or key suppliers of smuggled arms.
Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence (ISI), it said, had access to three million AK-47s stockpiled from the Afghanistan war against Russia. Of that amount, about 70 percent had disappeared.
"The number of arms-producing countries has grown, so there is more access for those who wish to own these illegal weapons," the paper said.
It said the trade of small and light arms was lucrative since they were mobile, inexpensive, durable, required minimum maintenance and there was a high demand for them.
Falling under the category of small arms were, among other things, self-loading pistols, rifles, submachine guns, assault rifles and light machine guns.
One notch up the scale are light arms, such as heavy machine guns, portable rocket launchers and antiaircraft missile systems.
The paper said 19 countries in the Asia Pacific region had produced small arms, including Indonesia and five other ASEAN members.
"This region is host to the various armed conflicts and rebellions, making trafficking and the use of illegal arms more widespread and uncontrollable," it said.
With a coastline stretching 81,000 kilometers and 17,506 islands dotting the country, Indonesia's territory is difficult to guard by any standard.
Adding to this is the poor condition of the Navy and the National Police in charge of curbing smuggling activities.
Director of the Police Intelligence Body Brig. Gen. T. Ashikin Husein said the police force was undermanned and under-equipped to make any difference in the struggle against curbing arms smuggling.
He said smugglers owned speed boats that were much faster than those used by the police. "They wave goodbye to us every time we try to go after them."
The government's chief negotiator in talks with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), Wiryono Sastrohandoyo, said that Indonesia must increase its cooperation with other countries to stem the inflow of illegal arms.
Quoting research conducted by an Australian Federal Police analyst, Sandy Gordon, he said that the Asia Pacific region covered just three percent of the entire Interpol operation, indicating the minimal use of available resources to fight transnational crimes.
ASEAN has signed several agreements to fight transnational crimes together, but Wiryono said Indonesia's main contribution should come from maintaining national stability.