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| 1. INDONESIA: The Marriott Bombing and Jema'ah Islamiah | ||
| Most people now realise that the al Qa'ida-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) is a very substantial Islamist terrorist movement in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia. With over five hundred cadre trained in Afghanistan and other places, we should expect further Marriott-style terrorist attacks by JI and other Islamist groups against soft targets whether on land, sea or in the air. Political assassinations and bombings should also be expected. | ||
| As has been said before Jemaah Islamiah (which simply means Islamic community), al Qa'ida and other Radical Islamist forces constitute evolutionary political guerrilla movements deploying terrorist weapons across global and regional fields. The aim of their leaders like Abu Bakar Bashir and Osama bin Laden is to create national and and transnational regional Islamic states based on Sharia Law. JI's aim is not only to turn Indonesia into a radical Islamic state but to create a regional Caliphate embracing Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Southern Thailand, Mindanao and more if possible. Consistent with these aims, the attack on the Marriott was, like Bali, as much an attack against the Indonesian government and polity as it was against American and other Western interests. The leaders of Indonesia's moderate mainstream Islamic organisations, including Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah who together have about 75 million followers, condemned the terrorists, having long ago recognised the dangers that radical Islamism and its intolerant theocratic strictures posed for their communities and therefore the nation's political leadership and orientation. | ||
| Other points about JI: | 1See, for example, The Australian, 12/08/2003 | |
| Another expert claimed that JI members didn't even begin arming themselves until after 1999. But JI and its terrorist activities go back much further than that, at least to the mid seventies. Major General Ali Moertopo, the head of Soeharto's Special Operations (Operasi Khusus or OPSUS) arrested numerous JI members and leaders including Abu Bakar Bashir in November 1978. While Bashir was charged with promoting a radical Islamic state and organising an Islamic militia, other members of JI and associated radical groups were charged with bombing Christian churches, Hindu temples and movie theatres. Moertopo had a very clear appreciation of what these people represented. He understood their violent Islamist temper, their political objectives and that their origins and local inspiration went back to the Darul Islam rebellion against the central government in the 1950s. He said that if they were allowed to be free, they would be a threat to us all, for they sought to violently overthrow the existing society. There is no doubt that had Moertopo had his way, he would have closed down Pondok Ngruki and other radical Islamist boarding schools (pesantren), preventing them from brainwashing a generation. Had he been allowed to arrest all the radicals in the late 70s and early 80s, they would have not been able to go off to Afghanistan and elsewhere to be trained by al Qa'ida. And he might have been able to effect this throughout Southeast Asia as he had the informal contacts and influence to those sort of things in those days. But, as Moertopo realised, even that would not have been enough because, ultimately, theocratic Islamism has to be defeated not legally, but politically and religiously within Islam. | ||
| Abu Bakir Bashir was eventually tried and sentenced in 1982, but, having spent four years in jail, was released shortly afterwards. In 1985, he was convicted again of involvement in the bombing of temples, but somehow fled to Malaysia where he was based until 1999, visiting, among other places, Australia. | ||
| The political and terrorist activities in the seventies of JI and other radical Islamic groups such as Kommando Jihad and Darul Islam, and the arrests of many of their leaders, were all extensively written about in the mid to late 70s. Australia, however, showed little interest and consequently slept for 25 years. Indonesia did much the same thing after Moertopo died in May 1984. | ||
| 2. THE PHILIPPINES Al Ghozi, the Trillanes putsch and Irrational Turbulence | ||
| Over the last few weeks the Philippines has been rocked by a number of bizzarre events and developments, among them:
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| Millions of words have been written about these and some other recent bizarre events in the Philippines. We simply want to make a few brief observations of our own and a comment or two on the Philippines itself. | ||
| Only in the Philippines: 1. The Al-Ghozi escape | First, the al Ghozi escape from Philippine Police Headquarters in Camp Crame. Obviously, this has been a serious setback in the war against terrorism in the region. This is not only because al Ghozi is now free to plot with his associates further terrorist attacks around the region, but because it has revealed an incredible degree of stupidity, incompetence and corruption at the heart of the Philippine national security apparatus. An official enquiry has concluded that no conspiracy was involved. That may or may not be true, but it is believable. Some things can only happen in the Philippines. Al Ghozi escaped from the same cell that Abu Sayyaf leader Hector Janjalani escaped from some months ago. Janjalani got out through the concrete ceiling. Afterwards, they reinforced it with bars! But they didn't fix the door, which could be bent manually and, with a simple manoeuvre, lifted off its hinges! That's how al Ghozi walked out, while the guards supposedly slept. A few days later, a suspected drug runner walked out the front gates of the same Camp Crame with a folding bed handcuffed to his wrist. | |
| 2. Coup Attempt | Now the coup attempt: The first thing that should be said is that in terrorising the population in an effort to overthrow the Arroyo government, Trillanes and his friends, like other coup plotters before them, were trampling on the very institutions and values they claim to stand for. This is especially true given that they were secretly supported (and used) by the disgraced and corrupt Estrada camp and the permanently disgruntled, perennial coup plotter, Senator Gregorio 'Gringo' Honasan and his mentor Senator Juan Ponce Enrile. | |
| Following the coup attempt, we were intrigued to hear numerous commentators and eminent citizens speak warmly of the coup plotters saying they had "genuine grievances" (that is, like everyone else, they objected to corruption in the military and the government). We were even more intrigued to read that the 'handsome' young Trillanes was "brilliant", "another Honasan" and just the sort of person the military and the nation needed. From our vantage point there was nothing brilliant about the thoroughly inept, failed coup attempt he led and the last thing the nation needs is another Honason. | ||
| It might be remembered that the young lieutenant Honasan initially became famous as the charismatic leader of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) which played a major role in the overthrow of Marcos. Then, supposedly in the name of reform, he led a series of disastrous and irrational military coup attempts against President Aquino in the late eighties, shooting up buildings in Makati, imprisoning foreign visitors for days and scaring off foreign investors for years. He was jailed, escaped and was written up as some sort of swashbuckling hero. Eventually released, he entered politics, joined the Estrada camp with Enrile and got elected to the Senate. There he has done nothing, rarely gives a speech, confesses to being bored by the processes, but, nevertheless, is being promoted as a possible presidential candidate in 2004. | ||
| Dominant Political Families | Like all rising young military turks and up and coming young, and sometimes not so young, politicians from the 'boondocks' and the lower middle classes, Honason was in effect politically bought off by one or more of the nationally dominant provincial or regional based establishment families who have no national vision, no policies, and no international interests - only family ones. These self-serving dominant political families are complemented by the supposedly "patriotic' Philippine nationalists who, often on the left, dislike foreign and especially American influence with the result that far fewer American and Japanese companies base themselves in the Philippines than in places like Thailand and Malaysia. As a consequence the country misses out on importing the latest technological, industrial and managerial know how which is one of the reasons for what the Asian Development Bank (ADB) recently called its "stagnant productivity and anaemic growth" and of course, lack of industrialisation. (The ADB described the general Philippine investment climate as one of the worst in Asia). | |
| 3. Citibank Robbery | Thirdly, there was the extraordinary mid-August Citibank robbery carried out in the middle of a busy Monday afternoon in the heart of the Makati financial district. The robbers shot at buildings in nearby streets and at an armoured van, although not at civilian vehicles, and easily escaped in waiting vehicles while police and security guards did next to nothing. It is thought to have had political rather than monetary objectives and to have involved one of the bought military groups acting for opposition forces out to discredit the Arroyo administration. Whatever, it is another indication that the country has sadly lost its way and is in a state of political fragmentation. It might also indicate that more coup attempts are on the way | |
| Irrational Turbulence | For these and many other unfortunate reasons, there is little or no prospect of the country progressing very far in the future. It is simply not going to open up to foreign economic and intellectual influence, let alone competition. (Filipino newspapers rarely carry or reprint international articles or columnists). Does this matter? Yes it does. Many Filipinos might be happy to drift through economic stagnation, isolationist anarchy and recurrent outbreaks of irrational turbulence as long as there is tomorrow another fiesta or local political bunfight or juicy conspiracy to entertain them, but the region expects the country to pull its weight in ASEAN, APEC, AFR and other fora and to take effective action against Islamist extremism and terrorism especially in Mindanao where many regional terrorist organisations are based. | |
| 4. IRAQ: The bombings of the UN Headquarters and the Najaf Shi'ite Shrine | ||
| It is now known that al Qa'ida has formed an alliance called Jaish Mohammed with the remnants of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party to fight the Americans and other enemies in Iraq. This is not at all surprising. Before the war there were undoubted links between the Ba'ath Party, al Qa'ida and other terrorist organisations, whether or not they had to same ultimate objectives. And as before the war, it is intriguing to note that their rhetoric about their common enemies remains almost indistinguishable, despite their differing philosophical and ideological origins. | ||
| It must surely now be clear, following the bombings of the Jordanian embassy and the UN headquarters in Baghdad, the Shiite Shrine at Najaf and the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that Al Qa'ida and its associated Islamist organisations around the world, including Jemaah Islamiah and parts of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party are not simply targeting Americans, but anyone who does not agree with their fundamentalist and intolerant strictures. For them, infidels include mainstream, moderate Muslims as much as George Bush and Ariel Sharon. | ||
| In the meantime, despite what one hears constantly from the BBC and The Guardian in London, some observers report steady coalition successes in Iraq. For example, William Shawcross, writing in the Daily Telegraph, London2 said: "Behind the horrible headlines the coalition has actually had important successes in Iraq. It set up the Iraqi Governing Council, which is far more representative than anything before in Iraq, and to which powers are gradually being handed over. It is beginning to set up a constitutional convention. The coalition has started legal reforms to implement international human rights law. At least half of Baghdad's schools have now been reopened. Of Baghdad's 60 police stations, 34 are now operating. There is widespread support around the country... Seventy per cent of Iraqi people recently polled said they welcomed the coalition's efforts to throw out Saddam and rebuild the country." | 2 Daily Telegraph, 26/8/2003 | |
| Other observers have said similar things. We understand that apart from the Central Governing Council, which is expected to evolve into the new central government, there are new governing councils in most cities and towns and that the demand for electricity is much higher than it was before the war, indicating that many more factories, shops, and so on are trying to open up than under Saddam. That demand is not being met, but we are told the coalition is getting there. | ||
| Thomas Friedman, writing in the New York Times, reminded us of the remarkable absence, so far, of violence between the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites - and between the Shiites themselves which everyone had been expecting. Some observers think this might now change after the Najaf bombing, depending on who was responsible. But it hasn't happened yet. Generally, however, things are said to be going better for the moderate Iraqis and the Americans than the international press indicates, which is still smarting from having been consistently wrong about the war. Nevertheless, there will be all sorts of difficulties along the way. Members of the Governing Council might start fighting each other. One Council or government might replace another. Inter-tribal fighting might break out. | ||
| But eventually Iraqi democracy will prevail, it is said. It took six to seven years to rebuild Eastern Europe and get democratic systems working. Iraq will need a similar period. It took even longer in Taiwan and South Korea where democracy was said to be impossible. | ||
| Most importantly, say to the strategic experts, if Iraq establishes a democratic system or even looks to be in the process of doing so, it could reshape the Middle East, leading to profound political changes in Saudi Arabia, Iran and elsewhere. Some observers claim to see these signs of these changes already beginning to occur. | ||
| 5. BRIEFS: | ||
| Despite claims that the US is facing another Vietnam in Iraq with the Iraqi equivalent of Vietcong guerrillas bogging down US, British and other foreign troops in a "quagmire", there are simply no similarities between the two places. For one thing, the Vietcong guerrillas were destroyed in the 1968 Tet Offensive and never recovered. It was the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) that marched to victory in South Vietnam and it could not have done so without the constant support of China and the USSR. The guerrillas in Iraq, who seem to comprise both Ba’ath Party remnants and al Qa'ida foreigners from Saud Arabia and other nations, have no such support and depend on the protection of local minority Sunnis. If foreign al Qa'ida terrorists want to flock into the Sunni triangle in order to attack Americans, let them come. This will be a protracted global war and those foreigners will be much more easily identified and destroyed in Iraq than in their home territories. | ||
| Very briefly, given the circumstances surrounding the case and the nature of Jemaah Islamiah which has little formal structure, the outcome was not surprising. Whatever Bashir's sentence the fact is that he is now well known and he and his associates and radical Islamists in general will, as far as possible, be closely watched by the authorities. This is a considerable change from the situation twelve months ago. Much the same comment can be made about the hardline Islamist boarding schools (pesantren). Many would like to see them closed down for they have been breeding grounds and sanctuaries for terrorists. However, they are now under surveillance and It should be left to the Indonesians to work out how best to handle the situation. | ||
| As we have said earlier, ultimately, the problem of radical Islamism and its terrorism will not be solved by legal and police action, but by political action and religious education within Islam and Islam's accommodation with the modern world. | ||