[Kabar-indonesia] Ba'asyir Banned from Traveling [+2 JP Op-Eds]

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

also: JP Letter to the Editor: Release of Ba'asyir and 2 JP Op-Eds: 
Australia and RI: Facing off on the the flip side [incl: Bashir]; and 
Will the release of Ba'asyir renew the terror threat in Indonesia?
 
The Jakarta Post
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Ba'asyir Banned from Traveling 

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

JAKARTA: The government will slap a travel ban on radical Muslim cleric 
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and freeze his bank account, an antiterror squad chief 
says.

Insp. Gen. (ret) Ansjaad Mbai, head of the anti-terror desk at the office of 
Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, said Monday 
the move was aimed at showing the world the country's strong commitment 
to combating terrorism. 

Following the 2002 Bali bombing, the United Nations issued a list of 27 
people, mostly residing in Southeast Asia, believed to have been involved in terror 
networks. About 20 out of the 27 are Indonesians, including Ba'asyir, Ansjaad 
said. 

"At the same time, the UN also issued Convention 1267 on antiterror laws, 
urging 
all states to impose travel bans and to freeze the bank accounts of their 
citizens involved in terror acts," he said. 

Ba'asyir, who completed his 26-month-jail term this month after being 
convicted 
for giving his blessing to the 2002 bombing, is chairman of the 
Surakarta-based Indonesian Mujahiddin Council. He is also believed to be the former 
spiritual leader 
of regional terror network Jamaah Islamiyah. 

Ansjaad said Indonesian radicals were also known to be in cooperation with 
Muslim militants group in southern Thailand. 

"Before we signed a peace accord with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in 
Helsinki in August last year, GAM purchased military weapons illegally from 
their compatriots in that area," Ansjaad said. 

An Indonesian identified as Sabri Amiroeddin was arrested last week during 
a Thai police raid on a terror network in the area. 

A preliminary investigation indicates Sabri comes from Sumatra and is 
connected with a secessionist group there. -- JP 

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The Jakarta Post
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Letter to the Editor

Release of Ba'asyir 

The recent protests by the Australian and United States governments about the 
release of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir after serving 26 months in jail for immigration 
and other relatively minor offenses are somewhat misconceived.

On the basis that Ba'asyir completed his jail sentence, after a reduction in 
the same for good behavior while in jail, he is clearly entitled to be 
released. This is so, regardless of what legitimate concerns people may have in 
respect of his possible future activities now that he has been released. 

It would obviously be contrary to Indonesia's new found values as a 
democratic society, which respect personal freedoms and individual rights, for Ba'asyir 
to be held in preventive detention for the indefinite future merely because 
of concerns about what he might do if released. This would represent a return 
to the worst excesses of the New Order regime. 

What the Australian and United States governments should really be protesting 
about is the fact that Ba'asyir was not, in the first place, convicted of 
more serious terrorism charges and sentenced to an appropriately long prison term 
for the same. Assuming that the available evidence should have guaranteed 
Ba'asyir's conviction on more serious terrorism charges, it would only be 
reasonable for Australia and the United States to protest about this latest failure 
of the Indonesian court and legal systems to deliver an acceptable and just 
outcome. 

Australia and the United States might also be right to question whether the 
Indonesian government showed appropriate determination and enthusiasm in the 
prosecution of Ba'asyir on terrorism charges. Finally, Australia and the United 
States could, with some justification, speculate that the mere slap on the 
wrist which Ba'asyir received for his crimes really reflects the unwillingness of 
the Indonesian government to take on the hard-line Islamic militants in 
Indonesian society. 

No one could reasonably take issue with these alternative protests given the 
Indonesian government's continuing refusal to outlaw the terrorist group 
Jamaah Islamiyah, of which Ba'asyir is said to be the spiritual leader. 

The Australian and United States' governments, however, need to make sure 
that they are protesting about the right thing and in the right way. Otherwise 
they run the risk of being accused of not really being serious about supporting 
the tentative growth of the democratic process in Indonesia. 

WILLIAM A. SULLIVAN 
Jakarta

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The Jakarta Post
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Op-Ed

Australia and RI: Facing off on the the flip side 

Dewi Anggraeni, Melbourne

If anything can go wrong, it will. This is popularly known as Murphy's Law, 
an expression the self-deprecating Irish use to "celebrate" the preponderance 
for messing things up. I, however, am referring to the relationship between 
Indonesia and Australia. It is a long distance, tenuous friendship reliant on 
selectively sent news -- and, unfortunately, it is not necessarily the best sort 
that reaches the other side.

In fact, events which have gone wonderfully hardly rate a mention in the 
news, and are rarely held up as paradigms of good will, yet as soon as something 
turns pear-shaped it quickly becomes headline news. And then it becomes a 
source of resentment before escalating into anger and a flurry of mutual 
accusations. 

Curiously, Indonesia and Australia seem to have developed something of an art 
of walking into each other's lives at precisely the wrong time, and then 
reading the worst into any given situation. By the time the accused party has 
recovered its breath, pleading "It's not what you think!" has little effect. 

In addition to this, Indonesians are masters of conspiracy theory, and 
Australians aren't far behind in this craft. 

Look no further back than the beginning of this year, when 43 Papuans arrived 
on Australia's shores seeking asylum. They were taken to Christmas Island, an 
Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, and amid a great deal of publicity 
and visits by politicians who may have been genuinely concerned about the 
asylum seekers, or seen an opportunity to win votes, their applications were 
processed by the department of immigration. Before long, 42 were granted temporary 
protection visas. 

This was immediately seen by many in Indonesia as Australia's bad faith, 
harking back to its prominent role in Timor Leste's separating from Indonesia. 
These people believe Australia delights in seeing Indonesia disintegrating, 
because it does not like having a strong nation immediately to its north. They saw 
the granting of visas to the 42 Papuans as further evidence. Australia, they 
were sure now, was encouraging more Papuans to leave and come to Australia. 
Otherwise, why were so many asylum seekers from Afghanistan and the Middle East 
left languishing in offshore Manus Island in PNG and Nauru while the Papuans 
were accepted pronto? 

While I have no ready answer for that question, one aspect may be interesting 
to note. The 43rd Papuan who was refused a visa was Herman Wainggai. It was 
not because he was a well-known activist, but because the authorities 
discovered he had a Japanese mother, the logic being that he should be able to seek 
asylum in Japan. In other words, Australia would not give anyone temporary 
protection if any other avenue were still available. This is certainly not a sign of 
eagerness to have a large number of Papuans coming to its shore. 

The angry reaction from Jakarta, which recalled Ambassador Hamzah Thayeb, was 
much noted in Australia, causing concern in the government circles and 
bemusement in the community. These two different responses have played out further 
in the domestic political arena. 

On the one hand, the government immediately tried to explain to Indonesia 
that it had no role in the decision taken by the department of immigration in 
granting the temporary protection visas to 42 asylum seekers from Papua, and that 
Australia would always support the integrity of the Indonesian nation. 

On the other, the opposition and some minor parties played a different tune. 
They used this as evidence of the government's weakness, in this case 
pandering to Indonesia. As if on cue, the government proposed an amendment to the 
immigration laws which would send "unwanted" arrivals to Nauru, thus taking them 
off Australian shores. Unfortunately this would have the dreadful effect of 
locking women and children in detention centers outside Australia, and outside 
Australia's jurisdiction. 

The spirit of the immigration amendment bill is not new. Over the last decade 
Australia, while having generously accepted a large number of refugees in 
proportion to its population, has indicated it is not keen on taking any more. In 
2003 it excised its own islands as points of entry for immigrants, so 
"unwanted" arrivals who landed on those outlying islands would not be entitled to 
seek asylum from Australia. And if they became wise and headed straight for the 
mainland, if intercepted they would be "taken" to one of those islands. 

This was long before the arrivals of the 43 Papuans. 

Keen to play domestic politics however, the opposition and some minor parties 
portrayed the proposed immigration amendment bill as "Indonesia dictating our 
law and policy". One shadow opposition spokesperson has even repeatedly 
stated that the government is not listening to its own backbenchers -- a number of 
whom indeed opposed the bill --, but "kowtowing" to Indonesian 
parliamentarians. 

Are the opposition and the other parties really against Indonesia? I do not 
believe so. Expedient, rather. If the opposition ever made to government, they 
would most likely say that relationship with Indonesia was very important to 
Australia. But for the time being, Indonesia is a convenient anvil for their 
domestic politics. 

The game of bad timing has not come to an end. Last week Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, 
known in Australia as the "mastermind" of the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 
88 mostly young Australian holiday-makers, was released after barely two 
years' imprisonment. The news of his release has brought painful memories to the 
victims' families. This time, the government plays populist politics, expressing 
"anger" at such a lenient prison term meted out to Ba'asyir and Prime 
Minister John Howard has promised to convey this sentiment when he meets with 
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in his visit to Indonesia. 

Is he unaware that Ba'asyir was convicted by the Indonesian court despite the 
flimsy evidence brought against him, the main witnesses being held in the 
United States and not produced at the trials, while the main perpetrators of the 
2002 Bali bombings have been sentenced to death? Most likely he is. But it is 
expedient to have, and maintain, this public rage. 

While the politicians play domestic politics, there is no doubt that mutual 
suspicions fester in both communities. Thank God for small mercies that there 
are still people who single-mindedly work on spreading the existing goodwill, 
on both sides. 

The writer is a journalist. 

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The Jakarta Post
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Op-Ed

Will the release of Ba'asyir renew the terror threat in Indonesia? 

Ahmad Qisa'i, Aligargh, India

n 14 June Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the leader of the Ngruki Islamic boarding 
school in Sukoharjo, Central Java, was freed from Cipinang jail in Jakarta after 
completing a 30-month jail term for criminal conspiracy. 

His supporters gave him a hero's welcome, although he has long been linked 
with the shadowy terror network Jamaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda-supported 
terrorist group in Southeast Asia. Most of the leaders of this group have either been 
arrested or killed by the Indonesian authorities in the drive to eradicate 
terror threats in the past few years. The most recent success was the ambush on 
Dr. Azhari bin Husin's hideout in East Java, which led to his death. 

Even though the court cleared Ba'asyir of all terror related charges in 2003 
and 2005, his radical Islamic views have worried many quarters in society and 
the world. His hard-line stance has also branded him the spiritual leader of 
JI, which has been responsible for several deadly bombings in Indonesia since 
the Bali attack in 2002. Moreover, his vow to continue the fight for the 
implementation of sharia in Indonesia upon his release from jail is likely to 
influence the dormant terror attacks in Indonesia by radical Muslim groups. 

The U.S. and Australia have expressed their concern over Ba'asyir's release 
from jail. The two countries were disappointed with the fact that Ba'asyir only 
served a short period of his term for alleged "sinister conspiracy" in 
connection with terror activities in Indonesia. They believe his radical views on 
Islam might have encouraged perpetrators of terrorism in Indonesia. 

How much will the release of Ba'asyir influence terror activities in 
Indonesia? Should his release be cause for concern for possible new waves of terror 
attacks? How should the Indonesian authorities react to these possibilities? 

To answer all those questions, we should start with the assumption that 
Ba'asyir is just a clergyman who has strong views on Islam and how Islam should be 
implemented in Indonesia. He was not put in jail because his involvement in 
the terror activities of JI in Indonesia was proven. The judges found Ba'asyir 
"knew the perpetrators" and that his words "might have encouraged" them to 
conduct suicide bombings. 

>From these two statements, we can see the doubt in the minds of the judges 
about any direct involvement of Ba'asyir in the terror activities of JI. In my 
opinion, knowing a person who commits a crime does not necessarily imply that 
we are a part of any crime committed by him. Our views on certain matters that 
might influence the minds of perpetrators to commit a crime should not make us 
a party of the crime either. Unless there is any proven direct link between 
the two parties, we cannot be held responsible for the crime. The perpetrators 
commit the crime based on their own understanding and capability of conducting 
such an action. 

The public opinion that connects Ba'asyir and the JI terror network, in my 
opinion, is the result of the continuing pressure the U.S. and Australia are 
placing on the Indonesian authorities to find a perfect scapegoat for the terror 
attacks in Indonesia. It is like accusing Saddam Hussein of masterminding the 
terror attacks by the al-Qaeda in the U.S. Ba'asyir's radical views on Islam 
are the perfect pretext on which implicate him in the acts of terrorism in 
Indonesia. 

Regarding any possible renewal of terror attacks in Indonesia after 
Ba'asyir's release, the likelihood has been exaggerated. With or without Ba'asyir's 
presence any terror groups could possibly strike here. But Ba'asyir is a figure 
to watch closely. His radical views on Islam and his vow to fight for the 
implementation of sharia in Indonesia can be interpreted as a possible danger to 
the unity of a plural Indonesia. 

However, there should be no exaggeration in taking care of his presence. His 
radical Islamic views are not solely his privilege but are shared by many 
different radical Muslim groups in Indonesia. He is just a variant and a part of a 
bigger radical minority in the Muslim community in Indonesia. 

It is the government's work to contain any possible terror attacks in 
Indonesia. The current anti-terror department has so far done quite a good job 
fighting terrorism. The arrest of the perpetrators of terror attacks like Amrozi, 
the killing of Azhari and the recent, nearly successful, effort to capture 
Noordin M. Top have proven the serious attitude of the government to eradicating 
terrorism and ensuring the safety and security of the Indonesian people. 

Terrorism does not have a religion. With or without Ba'asyir, terror threats 
are very much present in any society. Only a vigilant authority with a 
cooperative society can defeat the threat of terrorism. 

At the same time, moderation of views on certain subject, for example on 
Islam, should be of better benefit to ensure unity and pluralism in a democratic 
and plural society like Indonesia. Finally, even though we live in a globalized 
world in which everything is interconnected, Indonesia as a sovereign nation 
should not budge under the pressures and demands of foreign powers. Indonesia 
has a life and a system of its own and must be confident of its capability to 
uphold the law and maintain order. 

The writer is a PhD student at the Department of Political Science, 
Aligarh Muslim University, India. 

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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