Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Thursday October 17, 2002
The Guardian

Terrorist camps run by al-Qaida related Islamist groups in Indonesia started being used to train foreign "armed jihad" recruits from Europe two years ago, according to documents lodged at Madrid's national court.

The Spanish court documents reveal that at least one militant Islamist group which normally sent members for training at al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan had started diverting recruits to camps in Indonesia.

The documents, part of an investigation into an alleged al-Qaida recruitment and support unit based in Madrid, point to an unnamed training camp in Indonesia that started welcoming foreign "jihad" fighters in 2000.

Two of the people allegedly involved in sending people to the camp were Indonesian militant Islamist Parlindugan Siregar, alias Parlin, and a Madrid-based Syrian, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, alias Abu Dadah.

Abu Dadah, alleged to be the Madrid group's leader, is suspected of "recruiting mojahedin in Spain so they can be sent to training camps in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Indonesia", according to the documents obtained by the Guardian and signed by investigating magistrate Baltasar Garzon.

Abu Dadah, who was arrested by Spanish police last November, is also formally suspected of involvement with the September 11 plotters.

Parlin, who had lived in Madrid, is an alleged member of Indonesia's Laskar Jihad movement. Laskar Jihad is a Java-based paramilitary organisation whose leader, Jaffar Umar Thalib, is thought to have close ties to the former regime of Indonesian dictator General Suharto.

Police believe that photographs they found of Abu Dadah firing a revolver at a shooting range were taken at the Indonesian camp, whose location is not revealed in the court documents.

Yusuf Galan, a Spanish convert to Islam and alleged member of Abu Dahdah's group, travelled to Indonesia for training in July 2001. "He was sent to Indonesia to carry out a military-terrorist training course," the court documents allege.

When police arrested Galan in November they also seized a .22 pistol, a .22 rifle, a pump-action shotgun and a bulletproof vest from his Madrid home.

"There are photos which seems to be taken in Indonesia where Yusuf Galan is seen together with some oriental people in a (training) camp," the documents state.

Laskar Jihad is known to have run a training camp for local recruits at a village called Munjul, near the town of Bogor on Java, but that camp was reportedly closed down in April 2000.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/indonesia/Story/0,2763,813362,00.html

The Jakarta Post

October 15, 2002

TNI accused of prolonging regional conflicts

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Military personnel in conflict areas have worked to escalate violence there in order to maintain their control over business activities, experts said on Monday.

They said military personnel in conflict areas were often involved in weapon smuggling, illegal logging, and car smuggling.

Sri Yanuarti of the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI), Ichsan Malik of Conflict Resolution Baku Bae Maluku and analyst Otto Syamsuddin urged military personnel to stop their business activities and concentrate on their duties.

"The trend is that when clashes ease, unidentified military officers always try to escalate the conflict again to ensure they can continue their business activities," Sri Yanuarti said.

She said as an institution the military didn't directly promote such an escalation of conflict but it took no measures to prevent or stop it.

"High-ranking military officers in Jakarta know that their subordinates in Maluku have control over various business activities, but they don't stop them," Ichsan said at a seminar on military business interests in conflict areas.

"This makes conflict resolution very difficult to achieve," Ichsan said.

Major businesses in Maluku controlled by the military are security services, weapon smuggling, illegal logging, spice trading, and the trade of endangered animals, according to Ichsan.

Military personnel generally market their services to business firms or to people traveling to Ambon's Pattimura Airport, said Ichsan, adding that they charge between Rp 400,000 and Rp 80,000 per person.

"The rate can double if you want to go to the airport by boat," he said.

Regarding gun smuggling, weapons like AK-47 rifles, Ruger rifles, SS1, SKS and M-16 rifles can be bought from the military for between Rp 15 million (US$1,660) and Rp 30 million, according to Ichsan.

Pistols, he said, could be bought for between Rp 1 million and Rp 2 million.

Military officers also brought endangered animals as gifts when they returned to their hometowns, he said.

The military had also forced coffee and spice producers to sell their produce to military personnel at low prices, Ichsan said.

"They are enjoying the business, so there is no reason to pull out of the conflict areas," he said.

Meanwhile, Otto said military officers in Southeast Aceh were involved in illegal logging, which often sparked gun fights between the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Police.

Military officers were also involved in automobile smuggling, he said, with smugglers charged between Rp 2 million and Rp 15 million to ensure the cars reach their buyers in Aceh.

Military officers also collect fees from vehicles passing by security posts, the amount of which could reach Rp 18 billion a year, according to Otto.

"Even dead bodies also have a price. If your family member is missing or dead, you must pay at least Rp 2 million to military officers to get the body," he said.

Sri urged the government to audit military foundations and cooperatives to find out the source of their funds.

According to Sri, military business entities should be put under the auspices of the Office of the State Minister for State Enterprises, and the profit should be distributed to the military through the state budget.

The Jakarta Post

October 16, 2002

Fifteen provinces prone to conflict

Moch. H. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia has 15 provinces that are the most vulnerable to religious and ethnic conflicts, the Ministry of Defense revealed on Tuesday.

"Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, Maluku, Central Sulawesi, South Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara are among the regions prone to conflict," Col. (ret) Tri Wahyu Wibowo, head of the defense research team at the ministry, was quoted by Antara as saying after a discussion in Palu, Central Sulawesi.

According to him, the mapping of conflict areas was a result of research conducted by a number of experts.

Wibowo said the team members had traveled to the areas that had the potential for conflict to find out the basic problems there.

"All input from the public in the regions with the potential for conflict will be formulated to find the best solution in handling problems there," he said.

Last week, Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) issued a warning that communal conflict, military-police rivalry and corruption could turn Flores island in East Nusa Tenggara province into another hot spot in the Indonesian archipelago.

"Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, Papua, Maluku and Poso (in Central Sulawesi) may be the hot spots now, but some of the factors fueling those conflicts have the potential to cause violence elsewhere in Indonesia," Sidney Jones, director of ICG's Indonesia projects, was quoted by Deutsche Presse-Agentur as saying.

Decades-old separatist movements have plagued Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and Papua provinces, whereas sectarian clashes have been rife in Maluku and Poso since 1999.

All four hot spots are rich in natural resources, and are the bases for large detachments of Indonesian Military and police forces, ostensibly there to keep the peace but in fact, according to the ICG analysis, forming a major source of the insecurity.

Activists and experts have accused military and police officers of trying to maintain the conflicts as they have controlled businesses in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, Maluku, Poso and Papua.

They urged both the police and the military to concentrate on their duties to safeguard the people and abandon their businesses.

At the discussion, participants stressed that reform of the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Police was imperative because both institutions had been causing problems in the conflict areas, rather than protecting the people.

SMH 17/10/02

Jakarta has played with fire of Islamic extremism

By Hamish McDonald

Although the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has dismissed the line of suspicion as "silly", some officials in his entourage must have wondered as they did the rounds of Indonesian military and police chiefs in Jakarta yesterday how clean were some of the hands they were shaking. There is a long history of political manipulators within the Indonesian armed forces, or TNI, playing with the fire of Islamic extremism and staging incidents of terrorism.

There is also the institution itself carrying out state terror as in Aceh, Ambon and East Timor - either directly or through militia proxies. David Jenkins, a journalist, recalled the Machiavellian use of former Darul Islam fanatics by the intelligence chief Ali Murtopo during ex-president Soeharto's New Order, leading to acts of terror, such as the 1980 hijacking of a Garuda Airlines jet, that were used to justify political crackdowns.

The bombings that hit Jakarta in the second half of 2000 included a car-bomb explosion outside the home of the Philippines ambassador, which killed two people, and a huge car-bomb blast in the underground car park of the Jakarta Stock Exchange, which killed 15 people and for which two members of the army special forces or Kopassus received jail terms. The explosive used in at least one of these bombings was C-4, the charge used in the Sari nightclub bombing. It is widely used by armies and terror groups, such as in the al-Qaeda boat attack on the destroyer USS Cole.

If the Bali explosive is traced by some chemical signature to stocks held by the TNI, the possibility still remains it could have been obtained by al-Qaeda or the South-East Asian network of Jemaah Islamiah from sympathisers or corrupt elements within the military. Once obtained, getting a large amount of C-4 into a parked car in Kuta would not have required any special logistical or security assistance.

President, Megawati Soekarnoputri's 14 months in office have seen several blows at entrenched New Order or "status-quo" forces. The heaviest was the four-year jail term recently given to the parliamentary speaker and Golkar party chief, Akbar Tanjung, who remains in his posts while his case is under appeal. Another has been the constitutional changes which will end the TNI's special representation in the legislature in a couple of years.

Jakarta's failure of accountability for the atrocities in Timor remains a huge obstacle to resumed military ties with the Americans. The TNI's image is also tarnished by the evident backing of its Strategic Reserve Command and other elements for the Laskar Jihad, a force of several thousand young Islamic fanatics set against the Christian communities in the Moluccan islands and in the coastal towns of Papua.

What is emerging as the deliberate staging by Kopassus soldiers of a freedom fighter "ambush" last month near the Freeport mine at Timika, Papua, seems to have been the first deliberate targeting of foreigners. Three schoolteachers, two American and one Indonesian, were murdered.

The upsurge in Laskar Jihad activity and the Timika murders follow the posting as Papuan regional military commander of Major-General Mahidin Simbolon, who was a key figure in orchestrating the East Timor violence in 1999. The promptness with which the Laskar Jihad announced on Tuesday  it was disbanding and withdrawing from Ambon only serves to illustrate the degree to which it was inspired from above. The Bali bombing may well have been solely the work of Islamic extremists, rather than an effort by the "status-quo" forces to undermine Megawati or bring US support back to the TNI. If foreign support is directed not just to the hunt for terrorists, but behind a decisive cleaning-up of the TNI, Indonesia and our region will be made more secure.

Asia Pulse/Antara

October  16, 2002

Security at oil, gas fields to be tightend: Indonesian minister 

JAKARTA,

   The Indonesian government will tighten security at oil and gas fields although there has yet to be any indication of an imminent threat to the fields, Energy and Mineral Resource Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said.

   "We have oil and gas, mining and power projects. All will be protected but some of them may be given extra security," Purnomo said here Tuesday.

   He said none of the installations had so far received a threat to its security from any particualr group. "We believe our security personnel will do their best to protect the projects."

   At a cabinet session here Monday, the government had decided to take the necessary measures to anticipate terror attacks on energy projects.

   "We realize that energy projects are most vulnerable to terrorist threats considering that they are mostly located in relatively isolated spots," Purnomo said.

   Meanwhile an expert staff of the minister, Kardaya Warnika, said investors in the mining industry had yet to withdraw their funds from  Indonesia following the bombing in Bali that killed more than 180 people.

   He predicted that the Bali incident would not have a significant effect on the mining industry because investment in this sector was usually long-term.

   "Because of the long-term nature of the projects, investors could not directly switch their assets to otuside Indonesia. In other words, the impact of the Bali incident would not be directly felt," Kardaya said.

Related:

INTEL POLDA PAPUA SEDANG INCAR TIGA ORANG PENTOLAN BLACK PARADISE ASLI MERAUKE, OntItServ, 20 April 2003