Terrorists Are Also Humans: Bali
Bombers And Brute Of Cowardly
Execution
Posted By Umar Abduh
November 11, 2008
For the sentenced to death trio Bali I
bombers, Amrozi, Ali Ghufron and Imam Samudra,
being called terrorists by the local and
international mass media or by anybody else
for that matter did not make them angry or
offended. They are confident that what they
have done is Jihad, that they even believed
Allah SWT would award them the title 'Mujahid'.
In fact they do not feel burdened at all by
what the government has gone through in
convicting them with the death sentence.
Gunned with the rifles, rockets or even
missiles, beheaded, electrocuted or any other
methods, to them they are all the same. All
aimed at dying as Shaheed. How do we rank
Amrozi, Ali Ghufron and Imam Samudra? Mujahid
or Terrorist? What’s certain is that, they are
also humans. As humans they are amongst those
who have full obedience towards their
religion, who have seriousness in fathoming
the teaching of their religion and who have
possessed penchant towards the Islamic ummah.
If there are people who judge them as having
distortion in understanding and practicing
Jihad, that’s their business with Allah. For
those who agreed with their ‘ijtihad’, then
Amrozi, Ali Ghufron and Imam Samudra are
Mujahids. On the other hand, for those who did
not agree, the three of them are called
Terrorist.
Amrozi and Friends are Afghan Alumni
Two of the trio prosecuted Bali Bombers I are
Afghan graduates. Ali Ghufron alias Mukhlas is
an Afghan graduate from the second batch
(joined at the end of 1987), the same batch as
Abu Rushdan and Mustapha alias Pranata Yudha.
Whereas Imam Samudra was from the ninth batch
(joined in 1991), the same batch as Ali Imran
(brother of Ali Ghufran alias Mukhlas, who
were also involved in the Bali Bombing I case,
but was not given a death sentence)
The first group from Indonesia who took part
in the Afghan jihad came about at around the
end of 1984 to early 1985, in amongst the
first groups was Sa’ad alias Ahmad Roihan, who
was also involved in the Bali Bombing I case,
in fact in a number of other bombing incidents
before that. Abu Dujana closed off the group
of Indonesians who were militarily trained in
Afghanistan to take part in the Jihad. Abu
Dujana, like Ahmad Roihan was also arrested by
the governmental apparatus.
Sidney Jones, the Director of the
International Crisis Group (ICG) Jakarta
Bureau, in one of the opportunities had said
that if only people like Imam Samudra had
known that the Afghan ‘project’ was a CIA
plan, they would have certainly never wanted
to go to Afghanistan to train militarily and
conduct in Jihad. Is that so?
No! Even if they knew that the CIA was behind
the Afghan ‘project’, their jihad spirit and
determination to liberate the Afghan Muslims
from the Soviet communist regime invasion,
would have beaten that reality (the CIA plan).
As a superpower, the US should have been
capable of sending a number of its forces to
drive out the Communist Soviet from
Afghanistan. However, at that time the US had
not yet recovered from the trauma caused by
the significant defeat they suffered during
the Vietnam war which had taken place from
1961 to 30th April 1975. The US lost more than
58,000 of its troops and wasted more than 15
million US dollars.
The elected US president then, Kennedy, sent
400 troops to Vietnam in 1961. The following
year, Kennedy increased its forces in Vietnam
to 11,000 troops. In 1968, the US sent 500,000
of its troops to Vietnam, this number was not
including the various forces sent by
Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, The
Philippines and Thailand which numbered 90,000
troops.
The Afghan war itself happened in the early
1980’s to early 1990’s. The US did not want to
sacrifice its troops just like what had
happened in Vietnam. Therefore, the choice
fell on the Muslim youths from the various
corners of the world who were well known for
their jihad spirit, including those from
Indonesia. Sheikh Osama bin laden became a
very important figure, besides other figures,
in recruiting and facilitating the Islamic
youths who wanted to conduct jihad in
Afghanistan.
Arousing The Resting Tiger
Since 1990 until 1995, the Afghan jihad
graduates of the Indonesian origin gradually
came back to their homeland. Some of them
continued their Jihad in Moro (Philippines),
reviving the Hudaibiyah camp until the end of
1990’s.
Before conducting Jihad in Afghanistan, they
equipped themselves with a variety of skills
in the Training Camps, such as the use of
weaponry, courses on different types of
chemicals and constructing explosive materials
(bombs), courses on the use of battle tanks,
combat trainings in different conditions of
battle fields. However, upon returning home,
these skills were not used to do acts of
terrorism, because they did not aspire to
become terrorists at all, much less in their
own country.
Do Not Forget Poso
However, since the tragedy of the 25th
December 1998, when the Islamic ummah were in
the midst performing the ibadah of shaum in
Ramadhan, and the Christians were still in the
atmosphere of Christmas, which was supposed to
be peaceful and full of love.
Suddenly the peace was ripped apart by the
Christian youths who in their drunkenness
entered a Masjid and then stabbed a Muslim
youth, Ridwan.
This was the first case of Poso, which started
up the other cases of Poso.
Around three weeks later, on 19th January 1999
the case of Ambon also broke out, which was
sparked off by the bullying of two Muslim
youths committed by the Christian youths.
The conflict continued and spread extensively
and bloodily. Until the climax occurred on the
24th December 1999 until 7th January 2000,
which was named as the case of Tobelo-Galela,
with the majority number of deaths were from
amongst the Muslims. Sources had counted the
number of victims as 3000 deaths, and 2800 of
those were from the Muslims.
Later on, it was discovered that in the
tragedy of this Tobelo-Galela massacres, there
was an involvement of the Sinode GMIH (Messiah
Bible Church Council of Halmahera), who
coordinated the resettlement of the Christian
community into Tobelo, numbering around 30,000
people. The resettlement was done in stages
since mid November until early December 1999.
In fact, on Friday, the 24th December 1999
using the pretext of 'church’s security', they
transported hundreds of Christian populations
from Desa (Village) Leloto, Desa Paso and Desa
Tobe to Tobelo. They came in trucks filled
with attributes of war such as red colored
head bands, spears, machetes, axes and arrows.
In May 2000, the case of Poso broke out again
for the third time. Hundreds of Muslims
students from the Walisongo pesantren (madrasa)
was slaughtered by Fabianus Tibo and gangs.
Later on, it was discovered that there was an
involvement from the Sinode GKST (Christian
Church Council of Central Sulawesi) which was
based in Tentena. Also a number of notable
figures (16 people), as later revealed by Tibo,
were executed to death.
Those events were like arousing a resting
tiger. Then, the first act of “terror” by the
Afghan graduates erupted for the first time,
namely the Bombing of the Embassy of the
Philippines. The bombing occurred on the 01st
August 2000. The reason, the bombers suspected
that the Philippines were illegally taking
parts in supplying weapons to Ambon (Moluccus
Island) which at that time was in conflicts,
and it had certainly provided an advantage to
one party, ie. the red camp (Christians).
Then, on the Christmas eve of the 24th
December 2000, a series of bombings in a
number of churches occurred in different towns
of Indonesia, such as at the front of the
Cathedral Church (Central Jakarta), Church of
Santo Yosef, and bus station of catholic
school of Marsudi Rini at Matraman Raya Road
(East Jakarta), Koinonia Church (in Jatinegara,
East Jakarta), as well as Kanisius school and
church at Menteng Raya Road (Central Jakarta).
Bombings were also launched near the churches
in Medan, North Sumatera, Mojokerto East Java,
Mataram NTB and Pekanbaru and Batam Riau, as
well as Bekasi. The message was loud and
clear, it was as a stern warning to the
Christian community especially their notable
churchmen, where a number of their churches’
leaders had become the intellectual actors
(masterminds) in the slaughtering of the
Muslims in Ambon (Moluccus) and Poso.
February 2001, another expulsion and
slaughtering of the Muslims community from
Madura broke out in Sampit, which was
unleashed by the Christian Dayak and animists.
The tragedy of the mass beheadings of the
Madurese people by the Dayak tribe was
demonstratively done in broad daylights and in
front of the local and international TV’s who
wanted to make the reports.
Two months later, April 2001, the fourth case
of Poso broke out again.
Though unrelated to the cases of Sampit, Ambon
and Poso, what’s clear was that on the 11th
September 2001, the tragedy of WTC 911 struck
in the country of Bush. The accusation and
labeling of Islam as ‘terrorism’ started to be
formally proclaimed by Bush. Bush’s worry for
the acts of terrorism which was made
synonymous to Islam was, akin to ‘a gun
shooting its own master’. The ‘war on terror’
was declared, because the US (CIA) knew fully
well the quality of the Afghan graduate
Mujahids. Like a master who knows fully well
the quality of his students.
A year later, on 12th October 2002, only then
the Bali Bombing I case erupted, killing 202
people and 350 others were both lightly and
heavily wounded. Over all, the total number of
victims from the cases of Ambon, Poso and
Sampit, especially on the side of the Muslims,
was tens or even hundreds time more compared
to the number of victims from the Bali
Bombings I and II.
Less than a year since the Bali Bombing I
case, another bomb exploded in the front lobby
of the JW Marriott Hotel, on the 5th of August
2003 at around 12.40 hours, causing 10 people
dead, and 152 others wounded. A year later,
the Kuningan Bombing occurred (9th September
2004), in front of the Australian Embassy at
HR Rasuna Said Road, Jakarta. The next year,
the Bali Bombing II occurred (01st Oktober
2005). Around a month later, Dr. Azhari who
all these while had become the ‘ghost
terrorist’ was eventually shot to death in
Batu, Malang, on the 09th November 2005.
Objective and Fair
Post-the killing of Azahari, the bombing cases
did actually stop to these days. However the
potential for “terror” is awlays there. When
referring to the arrest in Palembang (01st
July 2008) and Kelapa Gading (21st Oktober
2008), which would have made the Pertamina
Plumpang Depot (State oil Company) in North
Jakarta as its target.
Though Azahari had been shot dead, and 300
plus from the “terrorist” network had been
arrested, including their important figures
such as Abu Dujana, and that observers had
also predicted that the destructive potential
of the "terrorist" movement, the Jama’ah
Islamiyah is only 10% remaining, however the
potential for “terror” is still there, in fact
the new Police chief mentioned that terrorism
now is everywhere. With the reason that,
Noordin M Top who all these while was
pronounced as doing recruitment, is still not
captured. Meaning, though Amrozi and friends
would be shot to death, the potential for
terror is still high.
Then, how to eliminate the potential for such
“terror”? All parties thereby, especially the
government should be objectively and fairly
looking at the root cause of the problem. This
is the recipe. The root cause firstly, is the
slaughtering of the Muslims by the Christian
community, be it in Ambon (Moluccus) or Poso.
It was not an ordinary horizontal conflict.
This is a fact which was ignored, in fact it
was forced to become a normal horizontal
conflict, started by existence of conflicts
between gangsters from both sides, however the
reality is not simply like that!
Thursday, 25th January 2007, Ustadz Ahmad
accompanied by a number of figures from the
Islamic Ummah Forum, including Ustadz Abu
Bakar Ba’asyir from the MMI (Indonesian
Mujahideen Council) and Habib Rizieq from the
FPI (Islamic Defenders Front), visited Komnas
HAM (Basic Human Rights National Commision) to
present the very sickening facts in the form
of a Video Recording of the Poso incidents.
What actually happened was that, the
non-Muslim (Catholic-Christian) community was
the one who started all the conflicts, which
were believed to contain the involvement of
the churches as well as the notable figures of
the Catholic-Christian society as the
intellectual actors (masterminds). They
initiated the attacks and killings, whereas
the Muslim community was only retaliating,
which simultaneously was also an act of self
defense. Assistance from outside the point of
conflict came because the Islamic ummah
realized that the position of the governmental
apparatus, whether local or central, was bias
in handling the cases, they are not protecting
the Muslim community at all.
The second root cause is the arrogance and
disloyal attitude of the Catholic-Christian
(and followed by the Hindu). This arrogance
attitude could be found mainly in certain
areas where the majority of the populations
are non-Muslim. Expulsions and slaughtering of
the Muslims (Muslim cleansing) occurred in
some of these districts. Whereas in the areas
where the majority of the populations are
Muslims, there was never any expulsion of the
Catholic-Christian and Hindu community, much
less their slaughtering. Instead, threats and
intimidation to break away from NKRI (United
Republic Indonesian Nation ) could always be
heard in these areas. This shows that the
non-Muslim (except the Buddhist community) are
consistently sowing the seed of discords and
certainly treacherous to the NKRI.
The government and the security apparatus
should have encouraged those
Catholic-Christian figures with big hearts to
acknowledge the confusion by a section of its
community, ie. notable figures of the church
who deliberately became the intellectual
actors of the killings of the Muslims.
Declaration of apologies should have been
given openly, it might be that when the Afghan
graduates read it, insha Allah, it could have
cooled down their hearts.
Other than that, the governmental apparatus
should also be fair in handling the case of
Poso which had prolonged for quite a while.
For example, in their operations for the
restoration of security which targeted the
instigators of the acts of terror and
slaughtering by the Christians, the
governmental apparatus used the code;
Operation Peaceful Love. Whereas when the same
thing was addressed to the Muslim community,
the apparatus used the buzzword; Operation
Raid which means - attack or eradicate, it
reminded us of the mosquito eradicator poison
(insect aerosol). This is obviously unfair and
very provocative. At least it triggered
indignation.
I am confident that the trio Bali bombers did
not aspire to become terrorists. They are just
ordinary human beings. However when hundreds
(or thousands) of their brothers in faith were
slaughtered by others of different faith,
clearly and surely, they of course could not
just watch in silence. If to the far away
Afghanistan they were prepared to sacrifice
their lives, what is only Ambon or Poso? Thus
how bravery in Jihad was portrayed, I am sure
that the Islamic ummah in Indonesia have many
other Muslim youths who are braver and smarter
than Azahari or Amrozi, if only placing a bomb
or a series of bombs in places with no risk,
it is nothing. But those of the Muslims with
better potential still have ‘awareness and
restraint’ in them and what is more important
is that, does the government has any political
view to solve the issue at hand or not?
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