Villagers struggle with dark past

Villagers struggle with dark past

The Jakarta Post, Talangsari, Lampung

Talangsari was an ordinary village with ordinary people living
an ordinary life.

That was until 1989, before military troops stormed the
village to crush a Muslim militant group led by Anwar Warsidi
that had resided in Cihideung, one of the four hamlets in the
village.

A.M. Hendropriyono, then an army colonel and chief of
Lampung's Garuda Hitam Military Resort Command, led the operation
in which hundreds of people were killed.

According to an official statement, as many as 27 people,
including Warsidi, were killed in the military attack on their
compound on Feb. 8, 1989.

Villagers, however, said that more than 300 people, including
three residents who were not Warsidi's followers, were killed.
The three were Suwarsono, Bejo and Imam Bakri, the younger
brothers of one of the villagers, Turasih,

"We believe they were also buried around here, although there
were no graves. Some of the corpses were said to have been dumped
into this well," another villager, Mardi, said, pointing to a
well near the village mosque that is now in disrepair.

Warsidi moved to Cihideung a year before the incident and
occupied a small mosque here.

According to Turasih, Warsidi's followers increased sharply in
the following months and occupied land around the mosque and
established the Mujahidin group.

"Some of them used lu and gue (Jakarta dialect) to address
each other. They, men, women and children, arrived here at
night," Turasih said.

The newcomers were easily recognizable from their attire. The
men wore white and black robes while the women wore head scarves.

After occupying the mosque, they built makeshift houses around
the mosque and practiced martial arts and archery.

According to Al Chaidar's book entitled Lampung Bersimbah
Darah (Bloody Lampung) and Widjiono Wasis' book entitled Geger
Talangsari (Talangsari Riot), most of Warsidi's people were
followers of the Al-Mukmin Islamic boarding school in Ngruki,
Surakarta, Central Java.

The boarding school was founded by militant preachers the late
Abdullah Sungkar and Abubakar Baasyir. They fled to Malaysia
shortly before the incident.

Abubakar is currently being sought after by the Singapore
government for leading the Islamic militant group Jama'ah
Islamiah whose members are under detention in Singapore and
Malaysia for alleged terrorist acts.

Abubakar, who currently leads the Indonesian Mujahidin Council
(MMI), has repeatedly denied his involvement in the militant
group.

So far, only four of Cihideung's 17 families have returned to
the hamlet, which was closed for almost 10 years after the
incident. The four families paid village officials between Rp
250,000 (US$27) and Rp 500,000 to return to the village, Turasih
said.

"The other families are still staying with their relatives in
nearby districts. They don't have money to get their land back
and rebuild their houses," the mother of six children said.

She claimed that none of the 17 families had any relation
whatsoever with Warsidi.

The villagers, who live a simple life, are hoping for
compensation from Hendropriyono, now chief of the State
Intelligence Agency (BIN), to help them reclaim their land and
rebuild their houses which were burned down during the bloody
incident.

"We beg Pak Hendro to give compensation and rebuild our
houses. It would revive our quiet village," Mardi, 60, told The
Jakarta Post without mentioning the amount of compensation the
villagers sought.