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Indonesia tries rehabilitation to wipe out extremism
Anuj Chopra
* Last Updated: January 30. 2010 12:26AM UAE / January 29. 2010 8:26PM
GMT
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Indonesia launched a de-radicalisation programme after the Bali bombings in
2002, above, which killed 202 people, most of whom were tourists. AP Photo
JAKARTA // Imagine, for a moment, a possible headline in the future: "Osama
bin Laden denounces terrorism and renounces jihad."
What are the odds? Is it even possible to wean an extremist like bin Laden
off his violent ideology? The likelihood is hard to envisage.
But the Obama administration is keen to attempt something very close to
that. This week, it agreed to give US$11 million (Dh40m) to Yemen to build a
militant rehabilitation centre in the Arab state within the next three
months for released Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The centre would treat terrorists in much the same way as drug addicts:
seeing Islamic radicalism as an anomalous behavioural pattern and treating
it with a mix of psychotherapy, counselling and religious re-education,
coupled with economic incentives to slowly steer them back into society.
This move, analysts say, underscores the realisation that punitive detention
or torture in a dank prison does not necessarily reform extremists. Some
militants continue to espouse a virulent hatred for the West even after
serving time in prison. Killing them can be counterproductive - many of them
seek martyrdom.
The future of fighting extremism around the world may lie in terrorism
rehabilitation.
"At best, the use of force only temporarily cripples the terrorists'
capabilities,
Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. "With the ideology intact,
capabilities will be replenished and dangerously reinvented. Hence, the only
way to stem the current global wave of terrorism is to effectively dismantle
the terrorists' ideological beliefs."
About 100,000 suspected Islamic terrorists are currently in custody around
the world, in large parts in the Middle East, and Central and South East
Asia. In recent years, many countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq,
Algeria, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia have launched their own
de-radicalisation programmes.
But to what degree is this soft approach of mollycoddling militants
successful?
In Indonesia, for example, the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation,
and known for its more moderate brand of Islam, a South East Asian militant
network called Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), believed to be an offshoot of al
Qa'eda, has been responsible for string of bombings since 2002, most
recently in July.
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Farihin Ibnu Ahmad went through extremist rehabilitation in prison, but
maintains a Bali nightclub bombing was justified. Anuj Chopra for The
National
In the past seven years, Indonesia has captured or killed around 300
suspected members of JI, which grew out of religious schools in Java in the
1990s.
The archipelago'
after its first bout of international terrorism - the Bali bombings in 2002
which claimed 202 lives.
The programme primarily uses former militants, not clerics, to quell jihadi
rage. The inmates are treated with kindness instead of brutality. For some,
conjugal visits in prison are permitted.
Upon release, they receive economic assistance for their needs such as
starting a new business or paying for their children's education.
As a measure of success, at least two dozen former members of JI have agreed
to co-operate with the government.
But despite this, rehabilitation counsellors say it is almost impossible to
alter the mindset and entirely expunge the spirit of jihad.
"Bombing Bali was the right thing to do," said Farihin Ibnu Ahmad, hunching
over a bowl of chips in a restaurant in downtown Jakarta. "It was necessary
to cleanse the place of immoral, lewd foreigners bringing their sins to our
country. They spread Aids in our country. Our jihad was against them, the
infidels."
Mr Ahmad, 43, a former member of JI, uttered these words with numb
insouciance. He received weapons training in Pakistan and Afghanistan and
spent a year in prison for leading a raid on a Christian village in central
Sulawesi in 2000. But for a man who underwent rehabilitation in prison, he
shows little remorse for his crime.
Although he insisted that he no longer condones violence against civilians,
he admitted that several former JI members, including himself, are eager to
go to Afghanistan to fight US forces alongside his "Muslim brothers".
And while he was thankful for the government's financial support to help him
start a plastic recycling business after prison, he had only derision for
some counsellors in the rehabilitation process who tried to make inmates
feel "they are right and we are wrong".
"The inmates don't think they are radical," said Sarlito Wirawan Sarwono, a
professor of psychology from the University of Persada Indonesia, who began
working as a counsellor with the de-radicalisation programme in 2005. "It is
difficult to change their minds."
At the heart of the tension is the thought that all violence is linked to
Islam.
Through his counselling sessions, group discussions and one-on-one
interactions, Prof Sarwono attacks the attitudes of inmates toward numerous
Islamic notions, including jihad (struggle), takfir (blasphemy) and shahada
(martyrdom), encouraging them to embrace a different, non-violent meaning.
But many of those in the programme are resistant to change and increasingly
testy.
In group interactions, Prof Sarwono said the top leaders dominate the
debate, justifying violence for jihad, while the junior members nod along,
choosing to remain silent out of both reverence and fear.
"They won't budge an inch," he said, "but when you approach them
individually, one-on-one, face-to-face, they are much softer."
Prof Sarwono cited the example of Abu Dujana, 42, the military leader of JI
from 2005 until June 2007, who played key roles in several terrorist
bombings in South East Asia. In the group, he was staunchly in favour of
jihad, but privately, expressed self doubt over notions of violence.
"'Why are we trying to fight the West? It's not like the Americans are
invading Java,"Prof Sarwono recalled Abu Dujana saying to him.
Even if such rehabilitation programmes succeed, there is the worry of
recidivism. The most striking example is Said Ali al Shihri, who after
spending six years at Guantanamo Bay and passing through a Saudi
rehabilitation programme for religious extremists, emerged as the deputy
leader of al Qa'eda's Yemeni branch. He claims to have masterminded the
failed plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit on Christmas
Day.
In Indonesia, too, there have been cases of "reformed" militants who are
recruited back into the folds of JI. Some while undergoing rehabilitation
have even indoctrinated prison guards, recruited from inside prison and
directed extremist rhetoric through internet chat rooms accessed on smuggled
laptops.
It takes just a handful of recidivists to wipe out any gains made in the
rehabilitation programme, said Noor Huda Ismail, the executive director of
Indonesia's Institute for International Peace Building.
Last year, as many of JI's leaders were jailed, and with no attacks for four
years, it was widely believed the group had lost its edge. But then Mr
Ismail started hearing uncomfortable whispers in internet chat rooms.
Just days later, on July 17, Jakarta's JW Marriot and Ritz-Carlton were hit
by two separate bombs, both five minutes apart, killing seven people. The
bombing had all the hallmarks of a JI-style attack.
Mr Ismail, as a teenager, went to the same school as some of Indonesia's
most high-profile terrorists - the Al Mukmin Islamic boarding school in
Central Java - described by some analysts as a "militant Ivy League" - and
was roommates with Fadlullah Hassan, one of the Bali bombers convicted in
the first terrorist attack in 2002.
Surprised to find his friend as a terrorist, Mr Ismail became interested in
meeting with militants and trying to understand what led them towards
violence.
"I tell them, 'I am not trying to discourage you from doing jihad,'" he
said. "But I try and alter the way they interpret jihad."
He also regularly counsels militants in prison. He shows them a photograph
on his BlackBerry of a veiled Muslim woman and her baby. The woman's husband
was killed in the 2002 Bali bombings.
"'See, you are killing Muslims too,' I show them the picture and tell them,
'Of what use is such a jihad? Islam is not so myopic.'"
Not all JI prisoners - whom he prefers to call high-risk prisoners instead
of terrorists - are responsive. "Some view me as a tentacle of the West," he
said. "But they understand that I won't harm them.
"We are racing against time," he said. "We must engage in active
reconciliation and rehabilitation to end terrorism."
Ken Ward, an analyst who has closely monitored terrorist networks in South
East Asia, said rehabilitation would not work until schools that preach
violent jihad were shut down or their teachings curtailed.
"It's almost as though the Indonesians are willing to allow people to
acquire radical Islamic beliefs and then later try to de-radicalise them,
rather than try to de-radicalise the education system."
achopra@thenational
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