RI wants JI included on UN terrorist list

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In a unprecedented move, Indonesia joined many other countries on Thursday in supporting the inclusion of Southeast Asia-based Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) on the United Nations list of terrorist groups.

Foreign affairs ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said that the move expressed a strong signal that Indonesia would go all the way in fighting terrorism.

"We are taking the decision not because we are under pressure but because we have our own judgment and have proof that there is a link between Jamaah Islamiyah and al-Qaeda terrorist network," Marty told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Antara news agency reported from New York on Wednesday that the Indonesian government had submitted a letter to the United Nations Security Council to support the inclusion of JI on its list of international terrorist organizations.

As of Thursday, at least 45 countries had expressed their support for the inclusion of JI in the UN list of terrorist groups.

Other UN members would have until Friday to state their objections to the inclusion of JI in the terrorist list. If no country files an objection, JI would be officially declared a terrorist organization.

According to UN resolution No. 1267/1999 and 1390/2002, all UN-member countries have to freeze all assets of organizations included in the terrorist list, in an effort to hamper their movement and halting possible military operations.

Marty said that as a UN member who supported the new list, Indonesia had no choice but to abide by those rules and had to fulfill the demands.

The government's move to support the inclusion of JI in the UN terrorist list on the same day the U.S. labeled JI as a terrorist group won praise from some countries, including the U.S. and Australia, but drew mixed reactions from some quarters in the country.

Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer in Canberra welcomed Indonesia's stance, saying that the move was a positive step that reflected the strength of the two countries' bilateral cooperation in investigating the Bali bombing.

A senior U.S. official here welcomed the Indonesian decision and said that the vast majority of Muslims in Indonesia would not mistakenly take the decision as an attack on Islam but underlined that JI was part of a terrorist network.

"We have a number of reasons to believe that Jamaah Islamiyah is a terrorist network," the official said, citing evidence from the Singapore, Malaysian and Indonesian governments that links JI members to many bomb attacks in the region.

According to Coordinating Minister of Politics and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, JI was founded by the late Abdullah Sungkar, an Indonesian, but it did not exist as an organized group in the country.

He also believes that Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir is the spiritual leader of JI while Riduan Isamudin alias Hambali is its operative chief.

The police have arrested and detained Ba'asyir, currently being treated at a hospital in Surakarta, Central Java, and plan to bring him to Jakarta for questioning.

Ba'asyir's followers, however, question the government's decision to ask the UN to include JI in the terrorist list, saying that JI was nonexistent.

Wahyudin, Ba'asyir's deputy at his Ngruki pesantren (Islamic boarding school) and also Abdullah Sungkar's son-in-law, told detik.com news portal on Thursday that JI was just a forum for discourse among Muslims and not an organization. Jamaah Islamiyah is an Arabic term which means Islamic community.

He asserted that his father-in-law never founded an organization named JI.

The country's two largest Muslim organizations, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, nevertheless, cautiously welcomed the government decision while expressing reservations.

Muhammadiyah chairman Ahmad Safii Maarif said Muhammadiyah members and other broad-minded people would accept the decision provided that the government supported its decision with enough evidence.

Therefore, he called on the government to disclose all details about JI to the people.

NU leader Solahuddin Wahid, meanwhile, described the decision as "surprising."

"I am worried that the government may repeat the 1965 tragedy when they disbanded the Indonesian Communist Party 1965 by branding certain organizations as terrorist groups," Solahuddin told the Post.

He said that such branding may lead to the arrest of JI members in Indonesia, and this would provoke reactions from Muslims.

"I called on all Muslims not to react to this immediately, we have to keep the peace as this is our government's decision," Solahuddin, the brother of former president Abdurrahman Wahid, said.