CLIMATE OF TERROR
Alex Spillius on how moderate Islam in
Indonesia has been infiltrated by Arab-leaning extremists — with murderous consequences
Denpaser 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 alcoholfuelled 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 grave yard 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 betes-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.
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