Author: Alex Spillius
Publication: The Spectator
Date: October 19, 2002
Alex Spillius on how moderate Islam
in Indonesia has been infiltrated by Arab-leaning extremists - with murderous
consequences
Several days after the bombs, the
people of Bali, and tourists who have stayed on, are still in profound
shock, still asking, 'Why here? Why us?' This was not an American embassy
or military base, so why Bali? Yet in the twisted minds of the bombers
an entertainment zone packed with alcohol-fuelled Westerners was the perfect
target, and the warning signals that something big was being planned in
south-east Asia had been flashing for months, if not years.
For some time Indonesian Islamic
militias have targeted nightclubs frequented by Westerners, as well as
brothels favoured by local men. Such assaults were mostly with sticks and
stones. Last year militiamen of the Islamic Defenders Front bearing wooden
clubs stormed into JJ's nightclub in Jakarta. They cleared the dancefloor
as thumping house music continued to pound out of the speakers.
Then came much more serious incidents,
with multiple fatalities: a series of church bombings in Indonesia in late
2000, blasts in the Muslim south of the Philippines, and in Manila.
Singapore has made two mass arrests
of men allegedly plotting to bomb American and Western facilities. A man
was jailed in the Philippines in July for possessing several tons of explosives.
Malaysia has detained about 60 suspects, including men it said had communicated
with Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker. South-east Asian
intelligence officials declared that they had found other proof of connections
with al-Qa'eda; the connections may have gone as far back as 1995. Many
of those arrested were allegedly connected to Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the
group being most closely connected to the Bali bombing.
Last month, Omar al Faruq, an al-Qa'eda
operative detained in Indonesia, caved in to US interrogators and said
that JI planned to hit American targets in Jakarta. Last week the American
ambassador in the Indonesian capital briefed 40 senior envoys about the
imminent danger of an attack. He also urged the Indonesian government,
not for the first time, to arrest Abubakar Bashir, the alleged head of
JI.
The Sari Club, reduced to a mass
graveyard in seconds, was the liveliest watering hole in Kuta Beach. Paddy's
Bar, diagonally across Jalan Legian, was almost as popular, and had a reputation
as a pick-up joint for Western men looking for local girls. The street
is lined with surfing and swimwear shops, bars, restaurants and boutiques.
As a target, the Legian strip embodied
fundamentalist bêtes-noires: alcohol, pop music, sexual predation
and Western cultural infiltration. The terrorists may have observed that
the Sari Club was a magnet to the young of Australia, which has not been
forgiven by many Indonesians for its active role in rebuilding an independent
East Timor. Even the 'collateral damage' of local dead may not have troubled
the killers: uniquely in Indonesia, the Balinese are 95 per cent Hindu.
It is easy to castigate Indonesia,
as its neighbours have done vociferously, for failing to clamp down on
extremists. President Megawati Sukarnoputri, however, leads an alarmingly
fragile nation of 210 million, with an 80 per cent Muslim population. Her
government is an improbably broad coalition that includes Islamic parties
which recently called for, and lost, a parliamentary motion calling for
Sharia law. Her justice minister, Yusril Mahendra, who heads the Crescent
Star party, led the clamour. He is now supposedly drafting new anti-terror
laws.
The dictator Suharto jailed Abubakar
Bashir for subversion in the 1970s. The law used to imprison him and thousands
of others - students, clerics, journalists, communists, academics - was,
however, soon abolished when Suharto was overthrown in 1998. Even if the
police had the security laws to round up suspected militants - as Malaysia
and Singapore do - the force has descended into inefficiency and corruption.
They are poorly paid and inadequately trained.
The majority of Muslim Indonesians
practise a faith that owes much to the country's Hindu and spiritualist
past. For decades, various Arab-leaning movements have urged a purge of
these pre-Islamic elements. These movements were repressed under Suharto,
but his departure has allowed them to flourish, along with the criminals
who have sent nearly 200 innocent people to their deaths.
