JAKARTA - Citing "national security
interests" and noting that Indonesia plays a
strategic role in Southeast Asia and is a "voice
of moderation in the Islamic world", the US State
Department jumped the gun on Tuesday and lifted a
Congress-approved arms embargo against Indonesia.
With East Timor now independent and Aceh
no longer a theater of war, Indonesia's pressing
need is to upgrade its armed forces to cope with
internal security, fight terrorism, guard vital
sea lanes, protect the country's numerous oil and
gas platforms from terrorist strikes and enforce
its maritime boundaries to prevent foreign
trawlers from poaching its
resources.
Smuggling, illegal fishing and
maritime piracy are rife in Indonesian waters, and
the addition of more sophisticated vessels will go
a long way to curbing these threats.
A
week ago, Congress approved an appropriations bill
that gave Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice the
authority to waive remaining arms restrictions on
Indonesia, but it had been thought that the White
House would use the possibility of a waiver as
leverage to extract concessions from Indonesia,
such as on human rights.
But Washington
will resume full relations with the Indonesian
military and provide additional defense funding
and counter-terrorism assistance to Jakarta -
without strings.
"Indonesia is a voice of
moderation in the Islamic world," State Department
spokesman Sean McCormack said.
US military
ties were scaled back in 1992 after a massacre of
civilians in East Timor. They were further reduced
after pro-Jakarta militias and security forces
killed thousands of people during the August 1999
East Timor vote for independence.
The
move, which caught lawmakers and congressional
aides by surprise, comes only days after
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhyono met
the US and Russian presidents at the annual
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South
Korea.
After discussions with President
George W Bush, Yudhyono, an ex-general, told a
news conference, "I am not pleading for a
resumption. We deserve it because we have
undergone a reform in our military, with an
emphasis on respecting human rights and
democracy."
The bulk of Indonesia's
hardware is US-made and the TNI - as the army is
called - suffers shortages as it can't get
replacements and spares.
As a result,
Jakarta has increasingly turned to Moscow. After
Yudhyono's discussions with Russian President
Vladimir Putin, it was announced that both leaders
had agreed to start up intensive negotiations on
setting up a joint production facility for certain
sophisticated military equipment and to develop a
national defense industry in cash-strapped
Indonesia.
A deal struck by Yudhyono's
predecessor, Megawati Sukarnoputri, with the
former communist giant has proved to be the
stepping-stone for a far closer relationship with
Russia. The Megawati government agreed a US$192
million purchase of two Sukhoi-27 and two
Sukhoi-30 warplanes as well as two MI-35 assault
helicopters. At the time, the Indonesian Air Force
chief spoke of an intention to acquire a total of
48 Sukhoi aircraft over the next four years.
Under the deal, Indonesia paid 13.5% of
the cost in cash in advance, with the rest to be
settled under a counter trade scheme comprising
commodities such as rubber, palm oil, cocoa, tea,
coffee, textiles, bauxite, electronic equipment,
plastics, tin, fruit and fish products.
In
September, Air Force Vice Marshal Pieter
Wattimena, director general of procurement at
Indonesia's Ministry of Defense, led a delegation
of 16 defense officials to Moscow. The group
lobbied Russia to replace the US as Indonesia's
main weapons supplier.
The US's surprise
decision might have an impact on this.
Earlier this month, Defense Minister
Juwono Sudarsono, proposing a military budget
increase to deal with "heightened threats against
the country's sovereignty and unity", commented
that it was "a miracle that we are able to keep
this vast territory from breaking apart, should we
look at the condition of our military, whose
numbers and equipment are inadequate".
The
navy maintains that a large number of the 117
ships in its fleet are either obsolete, or are run
down because it does not have the resources needed
to keep them in working order. The fleet includes
two Type 209-class submarines and 13 frigates,
only six of which, the Ahmed Yani-class ships, are
reasonably modern (carrying Sea Cat surface-to-air
missiles and Harpoon anti-ship missiles).
The other seven frigates (three
Tribal-class and four Claude Jones-class), are
armed only with guns, and do not have modern
fire-control systems. There are also four light
frigates (armed with Exocet anti-ship missiles),
and 16 Parchim I-class corvettes, as well as
numerous patrol boats and support vessels.
The air force primarily operates the older
F-5 fighter and A-4 attack planes. Its modern
fighter force consists of 16 F-16As, the two
Su-27SKs and two Su-30MK fighters (an Su-27 that
has been souped up for naval warfare) plus 16 Hawk
209 light attack jets.
Two army elite
units - the army's Strategic Reserves Command
(Kostrad) and the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus)
- will eventually get global positioning satellite
devices.
Yudhyono has also pushed for
defense cooperation agreements with other nations
to reduce dependence on US and European weapons.
After his Korea trip, he flew with a 100-strong
entourage to India for a three-day visit. The
first stop was Bangalore, at India's sole military
aircraft manufacturer, Hindustan Aeronautics
Limited (HAL).
Indonesian Air Force Chief
of Staff Air Marshall Djoko Suyanto said the
government was seeking to buy spare parts and
missiles from HAL for the Sukhois.
On a
state visit to Beijing at the end of July,
Yudhyono and Chinese President Hu Jintao issued a
joint statement in which they agreed to intensify
bilateral cooperation in defense and military
fields.
A different kind of
battle The religious elite in Indonesia,
which is the world's largest Muslim country, have
issued a fatwa (edict) against jihadi
terrorism, reports Fabio Scarpello of Inter Press
Service (IPS).
Over the past three years,
Indonesia has been stained by a series of
terrorist attacks carried out by jihadis.
The fatwa revolves around the
interpretation of "jihad" (holy war) . "It is a
welcome development and will help clarify the
perception of those who associate terrorism with
jihad. But terrorism is not just the product of a
distorted ideology. Its roots lie also in the
social problems of our society," Masdar Farid
Mas'udi, director of the Indonesian Society for
Pesantren (religious schools) Development, told
IPS.
The new "task force against
terrorism", as the group of mainstream religious
leaders has been dubbed, includes individual
Muslim scholars as well as members of Indonesia's
two largest Islamic organizations, the Nahdlatul
Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah - which have a
combined membership of 70 million people - and
also representatives of Indonesia Ulema Council
(MUI), the country's highest religious body.
Their mission, as described by Indonesia's
Minister of Religious Affairs M Maftuh Basyuni, is
to explain what jihad is and to counter the
distorted ideology of radical Islam.
Jihad
literally means struggle and according to most
Muslim scholars it means both an inward struggle
to better oneself and the Muslim responsibility to
prevent injustice in the world. In certain
circumstances, it could also mean an active
struggle. However, the concept has been distorted
by terrorists, who have used it as a cover to
carry out attacks in the name of Islam.
To
counter misinterpretation, the task force has
announced plans to publish pamphlets, monitor
books and publications that promote wrong
interpretations of Islam and also talk to the
young and impressionable students that crowd the
country's pesantrens - private Islamic
schools.
The pesantrens (also known
as madrassas) in West and Central Java,
have proved to be the favorite recruiting ground
for the country's growing radical movement.
The involvement of mainstream Islamic
leaders breaks years of an almost total silence,
during which the ulemas (religious leaders)
stubbornly avoided comment on the link between
terrorism and religion, except for a whispered
fatwa against terrorism, issued by the MUI
in 2003.
Credit for the changed attitude
must go to a quiet evening the ulemas spent
at the residence of Indonesia's Vice President
Jusuf Kalla on November 16, when the group was
shown a video found after a recent police raid on
a house in Semarang, West Java, where Noordin M
Top, a wanted terrorist, was thought to be hiding.
Apart from tips on how to make bombs and
threaten Westerners, the video also showed three
young people, who later blew themselves up in Bali
on October 1, justifying their action in the name
of jihad. The attack left 20 people dead.
"My brother and wife, God willing, when
you see this recording, I will already be in
heaven," one of them, identified as bomber
Muhammad Salik Firdaus, said in Arabic. Firdaus is
one of nine home-grown suicide bombers so far
identified by the police.
Since watching
the video, the ulemas and other religious
leaders have spoken out unreservedly against the
suicide bombers.
Ma'aruf Amin, head of the
MUI's fatwa department as well as the
designated leader of the newly formed religious
task force, said that terrorism is haram (a
sin) and therefore, forbidden under Islam.
"What they do is suicidal acts and also
acts of terrorism. Since Indonesia is not in a war
zone, those acts are forbidden," he was quoted as
saying by Detik.com, an online news service.
Similar condemnations have been made by other top
Islamic leaders and recorded in the media
worldwide.
Din Syamsuddin, a senior member
of Muhammadiyah and one of those invited at
Kalla's home, said jihad as a means of outward
struggle is not acceptable in a context such as
Indonesia.
"The concept of jihad is only
acceptable in war-torn regions, where Muslims are
evicted from their homeland and their wealth is
confiscated, like in Palestine," he told the The
Jakarta Post daily.
Bill Guerin,
a Jakarta correspondent for Asia Times Online
since 2000, has been in Indonesia for 20 years,
mostly in journalism and editorial positions. He
has been published by the BBC on East Timor and
specializes in business/economic and political
analysis related to Indonesia. He can be reached
at softsell@prima.net.id
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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