Move against militant ideas hailed
Move against militant ideas hailed
Dean Yates, Reuters/Jakarta
A move by Indonesia's mainstream Muslim groups to form a team to
counter militant ideas, work with the police and review radical
publications is an important step but must be more than just
rhetoric, analysts said on Monday.
The special team was set up last week after the discovery of
videos showing three suicide bombers using Islam to justify
attacks on restaurants in Bali on Oct. 1 that killed 20 people.
It is the first time moderate groups have agreed to play a
decisive role in tackling terrorism. In the past, they have been
reluctant to criticize militants or have said fighting terrorism
was the responsibility of the government and the police.
Sidney Jones, director of the International Crisis Group in
Indonesia and an expert on the country's radical fringe, praised
Vice President Jusuf Kalla for summoning mainstream clerics to
view the videos of the young suicide bombers last week.
"That's a real new step and we haven't had this level of
government involvement before in any of the cases that have come
up from Bali onwards," Jones said, referring to the 2002 Bali
nightclub bombings that killed 202 people.
"It's taken this long for some of the (Muslim) organizations
to realize the extent of the problem in Indonesia and to realize
it's got a kind of staying power."
All major bomb attacks in Indonesia in recent years have been
blamed on Jamaah Islamiyah, a shadowy network seen as the
regional arm of al-Qaeda. It usually recruits young, poor Muslims
from teeming Java island as its foot soldiers.
Jones said it would be interesting to see how the team
challenged militant arguments and whether it addressed issues of
how and where bombers and others were recruited.
The head of the team and deputy chairman of the Indonesian
Ulema Council (MUI), Ma'ruf Amin, told El Shinta radio that
clerics wanted to devise a strategy that looked at Islamic
boarding schools known as pesantrens in the world's most populous
Muslim nation, the youth and also publications.
"We will clarify these ideas with pesantrens, especially those
alleged to have indications of influences from radical terror
views," said Ma'ruf.
He also referred to a book written by Imam Samudra, one of
three bombers on death row over the 2002 Bali attacks, which he
said was "everywhere" in Indonesia. Imam wrote his book in jail,
setting out his arguments for the attacks.
The team gathers top preachers from the two mainstream Islamic
groups in Indonesia, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, that have
a combined 70 million members.
Minister of Religious Affairs M. Maftuh Basyuni said the team
would be involved in tracking information about terrorist
suspects and searching for books that promote radicalism so they
could be banned.
However, it was unclear if it would review curriculum in Islamic
boarding schools. The International Crisis Group has listed
several where Jamaah Islamiyah members send their children and
where some convicted bombers studied.
Andi Widjajanto, a security analyst from the University of
Indonesia, said the team could be effective in dealing with
formal, registered organizations and schools.
Underground groups were a different matter.
"Its effectiveness against fringe groups that are the main
recruitment ground will be difficult," Andi said.
Antiterrorism campaigns in Indonesia have often faced
challenges because of a widespread belief that the U.S. wants to
attack Islam.
While Islamic groups across the spectrum condemn bombings,
memories also remain fresh of the persecution of Muslim leaders
and activists by former President Soeharto during 32 years of
military-backed rule that ended in 1998.
Indeed, officials are still reluctant to use the term Jamaah
Islamiyah, which means Islamic community, believing it could be
seen as putting the general Muslim populace under watch.
And Indonesia has not followed Western countries in banning
Jamaah Islamiyah. Officials say they cannot ban an organization
that does not have a concrete structure or address.