Govt must eradicate underground militia movement in Poso
Jkt Post, January 27, 2007

Tension has returned to Poso, Central Sulawesi, which was torn by sectarian conflicts from 1999 through 2001. Monday's police raid on alleged militants was proof the region remains unstable and is at risk of heightened conflicts in the future. Former chief of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) A.M. Hendropriyono gave his own account of Poso's prolonged conflict to The Jakarta Post's Ridwan Max Sijabat in Jakarta on Thursday.
Question: Why has Poso remained volatile, despite the peace agreement and continuing security operations?
Answer: The government has not yet settled the core issue thoroughly. Despite the December 2001 Malino peace agreement and police security operations, enmity still exists in the people's hearts.
The core problem in the remote regency is not the sectarian conflict between Muslims and Christians, but the presence of an underground movement using Poso as its base. This movement has orchestrated the sectarian conflicts.
Poso will remain tense and security disturbances will continue to occur from one site to another until the underground movement is thoroughly exterminated.
Q: How do you know about the clandestine movement?
A: Intelligence agents and I are familiar with the 29 alleged perpetrators on the police's most wanted list.
Prior to the crackdown on Monday, the police shot dead two men identified as Santoso and Mahmud. Both were sought by police for their alleged involvement in the shooting of a female church minister in Palu as well as the mutilation of two Christian students in the regency last year.
Santoso, whose his real name was Ryan, was a graduate of the "military academy" in Afghanistan in 1987, while Mahmud, whose real name was Uday, graduated from the same academy in the 1990s.
The police's most wanted list consists of locals and migrants who received military training to support Muslims during the conflicts. But their main mission is to establish a Taliban-style government in the country.
Malaysia's Mohammad Nasir Abbas, a former Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) regional chief who later turned police informant against Abu Bakar Bashir over the 2002 Bali bombings, knew of the militiamen and their trainers as well.
Q: Who trained the militiamen?
A: They were trained by 11 suspected foreigners linked to JI and al-Qaeda. They entered Indonesia in 2000 through Denpasar, Makassar, Palu and then Poso. Three of them were identified as Abu Dagdag, Umar Bandul and Seamreda, a German citizen. Later, Omar Faroukh arrived from South Mindanao, the Philippines.
I have classified documents showing how these foreigners recruited local youths whose parents and relatives had been killed during the region's sectarian conflicts.
When I was heading BIN we nabbed Seamreda, from whom we confiscated a video cassette showing how military training was conducted in Poso's jungles, and how Omar Faroukh distributed guns and rifles to militiamen.
After Seamreda was jailed and Omar Faroukh deported, the remaining foreigners escaped. We do not know where they are now.
Q: What have the militiamen been doing in Poso?
A: They are staging a war against the government and non-Muslims. They are not merely armed civilians in Poso, but members of JI. Poso has been declared Mantiqi III, JI's third territory. The first and second are in Malaysia and southern Philippines.
The underground movement in Poso has become stronger following the crackdown on terrorism in Malaysia and Singapore.
Indonesia has been a fertile ground for terrorists because we don't have an internal security act like Malaysia and Singapore, which both take a tough stance on terrorism. And also because of the review of the harsh anti-terrorist law.
Q: Why didn't you inform relevant authorities of this movement?
A: This has frustrated me. In 2001, I gave the information on the clandestine movement to security authorities and asked the people to heighten their alertness, but the government and the police did not believe me. As a result, security authorities have had difficulties in handling the movement.
Q: Why is it so difficult for the government to impose security and order in Poso?
A: First, the government considered the militiamen to be armed civilians or criminals during the time security personnel have been involved in gun battles with them. Second, there have been demands the government withdraw its security personnel, including the Detachment 88 anti-terror squad. Lastly, the government has decided to continue law enforcement missions, rather than conduct anti-terror operations against the underground movement.
Q: Why have law enforcement operations been less than effective?
A: With such an operation, the police will only settle problems that appear on the surface. It is not enough to just nab the criminals. The police must investigate the underground movement thoroughly.
In Poso, JI has both military and political wings. The military wing has launched the underground operation while the political wing has been fighting alongside certain hard-line groups, mass organizations and individual politicians in the executive body, the legislative body and the judiciary system.
It's not surprising to see that many organizations and politicians have asked the government to pull security personnel from Poso and to promote a persuasive approach to catching the perpetrators.
Q: What should the government do to restore security and order in Poso?
A: The government should detain the remaining perpetrators and carry out a thorough investigation of the underground movement. All elements supporting the movement should be targets of an operation conducted by intelligence agents. Unless this happens, Indonesia could be ruled by a Taliban-style regime, as happened in Afghanistan.
Following the investigation, police will be able to identify those who are behind the underground movement, its top leaders, the movement's link with those involved in the 2002 and 2003 Bali bombings and Malaysian terrorist Noordin M. Top.
The close link between Poso's clandestine movement and JI has been highlighted by the arrest of Mahmud's father-in-law, who was later jailed in East Jakarta's Cipinang penitentiary for harboring Nurdin's colleague, Dr. Azahari, who was killed in a police raid in Malang, East Java, in 2005.