Southeast Asia: News, Culture, Voices
Sri Lanka: US State Dept. Reports on Possible War Crimes
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Human rights groups have been calling for an investigation into possible war crimes committed in Sri Lanka during the fighting between the government and Tamil Tigers earlier this year. Now the US State Department has issued a report that details a series of alleged crimes – including the killing of children and the use of cluster bombs on civilians.
The displaced in Sri Lanka remain in government camps - five months after fighting has ended. (Photo: HRW)
I spoke to James Ross, legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch, for Free Speech Radio News. He says the report should send “a clear message” to the Sri Lankan government that the US will take these allegations seriously.
Listen to our conversation here.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan government is keeping hundreds of thousands of displaced people in camps. They have remained there since the fighting ended in May.
FSRN’s reporter in Sri Lanka, Ponniah Manikavasagam, filed a great story this week that has the voices of refugees on the ground. As one woman says, “We’ve had enough…we don’t want to suffer anymore.” You can hear it here.
Sign up for podcasts of Free Speech Radio News here or listen daily on your local station.
The Jakarta Bombings: What’s Next for Indonesia?
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This week, I spoke on WBAI’s Asia Pacific Forum about the recent attacks on the Marriot Hotel and the Ritz-Carlton in south Jakarta and what the country faces in the days ahead.
(Photo source: washingtonpost.com)
Listen to the segment below:
Asia Pacific Forum, WBAI 99.5fm, July 21, 2009, New York City. Hosts: Leyla Mei and Irene Tung.
On the morning of the bombings, I received an email from a friend in the city. “I’m so angry,” he said. “We’ve been working so hard to make things better for our country.” It’s a sentiment of frustration that I think is shared by many in the country. But questions linger: Who is responsible? Will the violence of the recent past return? How will the country’s neighbors – the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore – react?
A new briefing, released by the International Crisis Group today, concludes that after last week’s bombings “The easiest step and the most unwise would be to turn the anti-terrorism law into an internal security act that allowed for lengthy preventive detention.”
The ICG has long pressed the government on one item in particular: prison reform. Without it, the country’s deradicalization program – which so far has received praise for its work – could be undermined. When I spoke with Sydney Jones, project director of the Southeast Asia region, in her Jakarta office last year, she emphasized this point.
Indonesian media and the Wall Street Journal have identified one of the suspects of the recent bombings as a graduate of the Al-Mukmin school in Central Java. (The school responded to the Jakarta Globe here.) I visited the school last October and spoke with the leader, Ustadz Wayhuddin. I filed a report for World Politics Review in November 2008. Also, you can see a blog post and listen to a radio report from February here.
Radio Reports: Indonesia and Clinton’s Visit
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Public Radio International’s The World, Feb 18, 2009:
After the bombings in Bali that killed more than 200 people, the Indonesian government cracked down hard on Islamic militants. It also developed a program to de-radicalize militants in prison. As Dorian Merina reports, officials are hoping to expand it to the country’s religious boarding schools.
Free Speech Radio News, Feb 18, 2009:
Anti-American protesters in Jakarta demonstrated against Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s visits to Indonesia today – part of her East Asian tour this week. Clinton met with her counterpart, Hassan Wirajuda, and talked about constructing a wide-ranging alliance with the Muslim-majority nation. Clinton’s visit is being touted as a new step in the U.S.’s relationship with Indonesia: during the Bush administration’s so-called “war on terror”, the nation’s Islamic schools were often characterized as the breeding grounds of terrorism and violence.
But most schools and institutions provide an important place of education for the country’s poor and rural communities, while offering an ideological challenge to fundamentalist groups. FSRN’S Dorian Merina takes us to West Java, where a group of scholars and educators are promoting a progressive agenda of religious pluralism and gender equality – all within the schools themselves.
Ustadz Wahyuddin, current director of the Pondok Ngruki school in Central Java.
Conflict in Gaza Angers Indonesians
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When I visited with religious leaders in Indonesia last November, many of them – even those from the most remote villages – spoke at length about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Although the leaders had diverse interpretations of Islam, there was one point nearly all of them agreed on: the occupation of Palestine and the embargo on the territories was an affront to Muslims everywhere – and the U.S. support for Israel was always cited as a sore point.
Now, as the current incursion into Gaza stretches into its second week, Indonesians are expressing their outrage.
Indonesian boys at a rally in Jakarta earlier this week. Tarko Sudiarno / JP
The conservative Islamic groups, including the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), have called for Indonesia to send jihadists to Gaza to support the population there. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has resisted the call while condemning the attacks and pushing for humanitarian aid instead. He’s called the current conflict a territorial issue in an attempt to de-emphasize the religious aspect of the violence.
In West Java, hundreds of Muslim students rallied outside a McDonald’s, promising to boycott American products unless the Indonesian government sends humanitarian assistance immediately.
And in the port city of Surabaya, protestors sealed off a Jewish synagogue and hundreds more rallied in front of the U.S. embassy.
“If Israel doesn’t stop its attacks on the Palestinian people immediately, we will conduct raids on sympathizers, supporters and Israeli agents in the province,” a rally organizer warned.
Indonesians are also looking to Obama to speak out on the issue. There are some indications that his silence is straining the close bond that many Indonesians feel for the president-elect. See an opinion piece by Bramantyo Prijosusilo here in which he makes the case for Obama to come up with a concrete peace plan for the region soon.
Radio Report: Religious Schools in West Java Push Progressive Islam
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When I spoke with Ansyaad Mbai, Indonesia’s top counter terrorism official, he pointed to the country’s Islamic boarding schools as places where the future of Indonesia’s Islam could be decided. U.S. officials have called the schools, or pesantrens, breeding grounds for terrorism. Yet, while a few of the schools have been connected to radical Islam, most provide an important system of education for the country’s poor and rural communities.
Indonesia's top counter-terrorism official, Ansyaad Mbai, in his Jakarta office. October 2008.
I visited a number of pesantrens in West Java and spoke with students, teachers and religious leaders. Listen to the radio report, broadcast this week on WBAI’s Asia Pacific Forum (99.5 FM, New York City).
Read more about the Fahmina Institute here: http://fahmina.or.id/en/
Wearing Jilbab While Reporting: A video interview with my interpreter
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“I would describe myself as a student, as a learner,” said Mita, 25, who accompanied me as an interpreter as I visited pesantrens in Central Java. “I’m open-minded.”
When I asked her to compare her experience of wearing jilbab while reporting with not wearing it during her regular life, she thought about it for a second.
“Yes, of course I feel different,” she said.
Watch our short video interview below.
Bali Bombers: A Visit to the Ngruki School in Central Java
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Ustadz Wahyuddin, current director of the Pondok Ngruki school in Central Java.
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Early Sunday morning, the Indonesian government executed three men convicted of the 2002 Bali Bombings, ending a controversial period of postponements, court appeals and international media attention. The three all have ties to an Islamic boarding school, called Pondok Ngruki, located in Central Java. The school is one of the most notorious in the country for espousing a fundamentalist version of Islam and for producing particularly fervent alumni. I visited the school three days before the executions took place and spoke with the current director, Ustadz Wahyuddin.
Indonesians See Hope in Obama’s Win
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Read the full post of my experience before, during and after the election as I traveled through West and Central Java.
Nine-year-old Barack Obama, seated at far right, during his stay in Jakarta. His Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, sits at the far left.
The Future of Indonesia’s Islamic Parties?
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Despite nearly 90 percent of Indonesia’s population identifying as Muslim, the country’s Islamic political parties have charted an uneven path since independence. In the first democratic elections in 1955, Islamic parties garnered 43.93 percent of the total vote – but so far, that figure still remains the best showing.
A Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) rally.
In a column in today’s Jakarta Post, Bahtiar Effendy, a professor at State Islamic University (UIN) in Jakarta, writes that the Democratic europhia after Suharto’s fall encouraged fragmentation. In 1998, for instance, there were 42 Islamic parties.
Bahtiar continues:
“The inability of [the parties'] thinkers and activists to put Islam into a context of a not-so-ideological political partnership, and more in line with public interests, has only served to spice up the negative perceptions of political Islam.”
National elections are coming in early 2009 and may be an important test for the continued relevancy of the parties. Read Bahtiar’s full article here.
In related news, Yogyakarta Governor Sultan Hamengkubuwono X said yesterday that he would enter the presidential race. Antara reports the sultan stating: ”I am indeed a sultan but not a noble person like 100 years ago and Yogyakarta is now also part of the republic.” Hamengkubuwono also said he sees himself as “an agent of change.” This sets up an interesting dynamic, as the governor is also the leader of the Yogyakarta branch of the Golkar Party, Indonesians leading political party – whose chairman, Joseph Kalla, is the current VP.
Weekly Radio Report: News from Southeast Asia
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In Southern Thailand, Muslim militants clash with authorities…In Malaysia, the foreign minister retracts from barring Nobel-prize winner Shirin Ebadi from visit to a local university…Prominent journalist Saw Myint Than released from one-month detention in Burma…and Indonesians prepare for the executions of the three Bali bombers.
Listen to the 3-minute news round up, broadcast on WBAI’s Asia Pacific Forum (99.5 FM, New York City) this week.
