By
Derwin
Pereira
INDONESIA CORRESPONDENT
JAKARTA - The images are horrifying.
The charred remains of churches and mosques in the Maluku
islands lie stark against the sky, as if to stab the conscience of
a province once held up as a poster child for religious harmony in
Indonesia.
Over the past three years, about 5,000 people have been killed
there in never-ending sectarian and religious strife.
Some might argue that the recent arrest of Jafaar Umar Thalib,
the leader of the paramilitary Laskar Jihad outfit, who had been
stoking the flames of hatred there, offers hope for peace.
But peace in Indonesia's 'Beirut' is turning out to be elusive
- as elusive as Jakarta's continued failure to come to terms with
religious intolerance.
Yes, the rancorous Jafaar is under detention and the government
has just signed a wide-ranging pact with Malaysia and the
Philippines to fight terrorism and cross-border crime.
But very few believe that these two events in the space of four
days signal a sea change in Jakarta's response towards creeping
extremism at home and in the region.
This was amplified once again by Indonesian Foreign Minister
Hassan Wirajuda's response when he was in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday
to sign the trilateral pact.
Asked about views that Indonesia was not doing enough to fight
terrorism, he said with a trace of irony: 'We are combating
terrorism in our own way.'
He said Indonesia was drafting anti-terrorism laws, but they
might not be the same as the internal security laws in Singapore
and Malaysia.
Fighting terrorism 'our own way' is nothing but an escape
clause to hide the fact that the political elite, harbouring
ambitions for the 2004 election, continues to tread carefully in
dealing with the growing clout of militant Islam.
In the case of the Malukus, the government has been anything
but decisive in adopting a series of half-hearted measures to
resolve the conflict there, especially after a ceasefire agreement
was inked between warring factions there three months ago.
The Malindo peace pact saw the Indonesian armed forces (TNI)
pulling out its pro-Islamic 733 Airborne Battalion - notorious for
taking sides and, at times, sponsoring violence - from the region.
Strangely enough, the government left the Police Mobile Brigade
untouched, ignoring persistent reports that several of its
personnel were equally guilty of siding with rival religious
groups.
With the ceasefire in place, the provincial administration
banned foreigners, including Dutch missionaries whom they accused
of backing Christian hardliners, from entering the region.
But it appeared to close an eye to Jafaar stepping into the
territory on the eve of the separatist South Maluku Republic's
anniversary, to whip up tensions outside the provincial capital of
Ambon.
Jafaar's opponents in the government and the TNI saw this as an
opportunity to move against him, given the situation was
spiralling out of control.
The public line, of course, was that the Cabinet was united on
the issue.
In reality, it was anything but.
Just look at Vice-President Hamzah Haz's defiance in breaking
ranks to visit the jailed militant leader, whom he declared to be
his 'Muslim brother'.
Mr Hamzah, like his political rivals, has an interest in
courting Jafaar and other militants bandying Islamic slogans and
symbols, with an eye towards securing the presidency two years
from now.
If the government was really serious about cracking down on the
activities of the extremist leader and his organisation, why then
are 700 Laskar Jihad members still operating with impunity in the
Malukus?
One would assume that all of them would have been evicted from
the province.
The politicians and generals, once again, are sending out very
confusing signals, tugged in different directions by a domestic
agenda to cultivate the Muslim ground and international pressure
to weed out radicals.
As the situation in the Malukus demonstrates, it is clear that
they are being constrained by concerns of a Muslim backlash if
they go for the jugular.
On the other hand, Jakarta may be showing signs that it is
bending under the weight of pressure from the United States.
Although Jafaar enjoys influential political and military
connections in Indonesia - which, besides Mr Hamzah, also include
former President Suharto - his links to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda
terrorist network have caught the attention of the US.
Jafaar, who fought with the mujahideen in Afghanistan against
the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s, is believed to have met
Osama in Pakistan during that period.
Besides this striking bit of evidence, there have been reports
that an envoy from Al-Qaeda paid his group a visit in the weeks
before Sept 11, with several observers suggesting that Laskar
Jihad could have been given financial backing to carry out
terrorist attacks.
Despite Jakarta's reluctance to crack down on extremist
elements in the past, it is plausible that it decided to do
something this time before Washington took matters into its own
hands.
Indonesia's importance to the US stems not just from its size
but also the fact that, as the largest Muslim nation in the world,
it could be a symbolically important ally in the fight against
global terrorism.
The US-based think-tank Stratfor notes in its latest report
that his arrest 'is likely the result of an ultimatum from
Washington which wants potential terrorists brought to heel'.
The Indonesia government stands to lose a great deal more -
economic aid and normalised military ties - if it continues to be
uncooperative on an issue that is central to US foreign policy.
So, it might be using this opportunity to impress the US
Congress, which holds the purse strings and has so far been a
thorn in the side of the Indonesians by withholding aid.
This could also explain Jakarta's aim in joining Malaysia and
the Philippines in the anti-terrorist pact.
The agreement, which is supposed to help the three countries
jointly monitor potential security threats by sharing information,
is the first concerted attempt at regional level to fight
terrorism.
But the jury is still out on whether it will yield results and
get other Asean countries to join it.
It is instructive that Asean's role as a manager of regional
order has long been limited because of the mixed strategic
perspectives of member states.
This was exposed in Cambodia, where members' participation in
the United Nations peacekeeping operation took place on an
individual rather than organisational basis.
Developments in the South China Sea also revealed this
weakness.
A lot depends on the motivations of the individual signatories
for the trilateral pact to succeed.
Kuala Lumpur's objective appears to be grounded in internal
politics - to weed out Muslim militant groups that could challenge
Umno.
Likewise in the Philippines, which is now waging a war against
Abu Sayyaf separatists.
Jakarta seems to be intent on creating a more favourable
impression with the US.
But compared with the other two countries, Indonesia's domestic
- Muslim agenda - will stall rather than encourage firm action.
This is what is happening in the Malukus today. President
Megawati Sukarnoputri faces the dilemma of trying to avoid
stirring up a hornet's nest among politicians and radicals hoping
to gain by playing the Islamic card.
But by doing this, her administration stands accused of sins of
omission rather than commission on this matter and the broader
issue of confronting terrorism in Indonesia.
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