Most of the sectarian violence in Central Sulawesi, both during the Moluccan conflict and at the present time, has been concentrated on the coastal town of Poso and its surrounding district. What marks Central Sulawesi as special is that it is more or less divided equally between Muslims and Christians. On Poso, there is an imbalance weighted in favor of Muslims. Muslims number 44.99% of the total population in Poso regency, Christians are 39.10%, Catholics 2.5% while the rest are Hindu and Buddhist.
The protagonists of violence on Poso were not only members of Lashkar Jihad, according to The International Crisis Group's Asia Report No 43 of December 11, 2002 (full pdf document can be obtained from
HERE, with registration required).
The terror group Jemaah Islamiyah was behind some of the Islamic militia groups active on Poso. These had names such as Laskar Jundullah (army of Allah). There were several groups of this name, but one was formed in September 2000 as the military wing of KPPSI, the
Preparatory Committee for Upholding Islamic Law. This was headed by Agus Dwikarna, later imprisoned as a JI member in the Philippines. Though officially based in Makasar, it had its military headquarters at Poso. It recruited members of another Islamic 'army", Laskar Mujahidin, and also the group
Darul Islam.
Darul Islam, founded in the 1940s with the aim of establishing a Caliphate in southeast Asia, had provided Jemaah Islamiyah with many of its core members. From 1953 to 1962, Darul Islam launched a rebellion on Aceh in northwestern Indonesia. It also had rebellions in West Java and South Sulawesi in the 1950s. It still exists, and a cell on West Java has links with
Noordin Top, the JI financier and recruiter.
Link on:
Darul-Islam: Kartosuwirjos Kampf um einen islamischen Staat Indonesien (Beitrage zur Sudasienforschung) (German Edition)
Traditional Authority, Islam, and Rebellion: A Study of Indonesian Political Behavior
Gerakan Islam tradisional di Malaysia: Jamat Tabligh & Darul Arqum
Islam in Indonesia: A survey of events and developments from 1988 to March 1993 (Seri INIS)
M. Natsir dan Darul Islam: Studi kasus Aceh dan Sulawesi Selatan tahun 1953-1958
JI was founded in Malaysia around 1995 by Abdullah Sungkar. Sungkar in the 1970s also founded the Pondok Ngruki (also called Al Mukmin), the Islamic pesantren in Solo, about 250 miles east of Jakarta. He had co-founded this school with the "spiritual leader" of Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Bakar Bashir. About 30 known or suspected Islamic terrorists have attended this pesantren.
Bashir was arrested and jailed for "giving his consent" to the 2002 Bali bombings. Currently there are three conspirators involved in the 2003 bombings, who are awaiting imminent execution. One of these, Amrozi, had attended the Pondok Ngruki school, led by Bashir, and said that it was a "JI institution". Another of those awaiting death by firing squad is Imam Samudra. The Laskar Mujahidin was linked to the Ngruki school and the MMI, the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI), which had been founded by Bashir and others in August 2000.
According to the International Crisis Group, Samudra was directly involved with recruiting for the "jihad" on Poso and the Moluccas.
From his base in a training camp in Cimalati, Pandeglang regency in Banten province (West Java), Samudra would send JI operatives who were to recruit people for jihadist operations in Poso and Ambon. These would approach students, and would invite them to meetings, where they would be shown video CDs of the wars in Ambon and Poso. These videos would be produced by
Mujahideen KOMPAK, an affiliate of JI, and would document atrocities supposedly carried out by Christians. After this, there followed about four months of study and discussion about the impending darkness that would come unless they fought for jihad. When the recruits were considered ready, they would be sent to fight in Poso and Ambon.
Other groups involved in the fighting on Poso included Adnan Arsal's Komite Perjuangan Muslim Poso ( KPMP). By the time Lashkar Jihad disbanded in early October, 2002, it had chased out the fighters of the smaller group Laskar Mujahidin from Poso.
Link on:
Tafsir - Ul - Qur'an, Translation and Commentary of the Holy Qur'an, 4 Vols.
Kebangkitan Islam Di kalangan pelajar
The Message of Al-Quran
The initial trigger for the violence in Poso and the Moluccas began in 1998, when the dictator Haji Mohamed Suharto was finally forced to resign in 1998. During his rule of twenty-one years' duration, he had forcefully suppressed Islamist groups in Indonesia. Under his rule, the tradition on Poso was to have the regional governor or
bupati alternate from a Muslim, then to a Christian and back, to keep some sense of impartiality and equilibrium. In 1998, the Muslim
bupati, Arief Patanga, announced that his successor was to be a member of his family, rather than a Christian, breaking the tradition.
In the Christmas period of 1998, a minor fight broke out in Poso, outside a small mosque. As a result, Poso erupted into violence. The city was left a smoldering wreck as a result of the first conflict (below).
The fighting which took place led to churches being burned, such as the Oikumene Iradat Puri Church in Palu. The Reverend Irianto Kongkoli, who was shot dead on October 16, placed the blame for the Poso violence on the regent or bupati, Arief Patanga, who officially held his post from 1992 to 1997. As we noted
earlier, he said: "The one who should be severely punished is Arief Patanga. "Christian homes and churches continued to be destroyed sporadically until April 2000 when the Muslim on Christian violence reached another peak. Then, there was mounted a retaliation.
A group called the Black Bat was involved in the Christian attacks, as was another called the Red Group. As jihadists had either voluntarily come to Poso to engage in the violence or had been sent by JI and Lashkar Jihad, an influx of Christians had also come to take part in the reprisals.
Among the individuals who had come to Poso in April-May to join the counter-attack against Muslims were Christians from East Nusa Tenggara province, which lies south of Sulawesi island. Three individuals who came to Poso at this time were Catholics, Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marinus Riwu.
Their alleged involvement, and their subsequent fate, are instrumental in understanding some of the excesses of the Poso conflicts from the time of the Moluccan war, and also in understanding the violence which is currently engulfing Poso.
Link On:
De Oorsprong van de Priestertaal in Poso
Jihad in Paradise: Islam and Politics in Southeast Asia
Religion, Civil Society and Conflict in Indonesia (Nijmegen Studies in Development and Cultural Change (NICCOS))
Between Cross and Crescent: Christian and Muslim Perspectives on Malcolm and Martin (History of African-American Religions)
Dutch Colonialism and Indonesian Islam: Contacts and Conflicts 1596-1950. Translated by Jan Steenbrink and Henry Jansen. Second Revised Edition. ... Encounter 7) (Currents of Encounter Series)
The three men are said to have gone into an area where violence was raging to evacuate children from a church-led school in the village of Moengko, Poso City. A Muslim mob came to the church on May 23, 2000 and burned the church down. The children and the three men escaped before the building was razed.
These three men were, however, accused of inciting murders of Muslims, and orchestrating the violence which happened in the phase of the conflict during May 2000.
The Christian on Muslim violence was as horrific as anything mounted by the Muslims. In one village, Sintuwulemba, an estimated 300 Muslims were massacred. Their bodies were thrown in the Poso river, where they floated out to sea.
A peace accord was signed in August 2000, and though the conflict did not cease, it subsided substantially. However, in April 2001, Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marinus Riwu were sentenced to death in a court case that was marked by crowds of Muslims calling for their death. It has been argued that the three men received an unfair trial, and that the judges ordered their deaths to appease the baying Muslim mob surrounding the Palu courthouse.
The death sentence caused a resurgence of the conflict, and in August 2001, Lashkar Jihad arrived in force to wage their war, burning Christian villages around Poso. Other Islamist groups had already been operating for some time by then. Many of the Christians took refuge in the highland lakeside town of Tentena, which is predominantly Christian.
The government intervened and the Malino Accord was brokered in December of that year. In January and February large stockpiles of weapons grew as fighters surrendered them to provincial authorities, but soon, the terms of the Accord were being
breached by both sides. The Christians of the region were now without weapons, even though killings of Christians continued.
One individual who had signed the Malino Accord in December 2001 became a victim of its "justice" in August 2002. In mid August, two Muslim attacks took place upon villages near Poso. Three Christians were killed in Peleru, and Mayumba came under siege shortly after. Reverend Rinaldy Damanik, the head of the Protestant Church in the Central Sulawesi region, had helped to evacuate Christians from both villages. He was arrested on
August 17 as his lorry was being besieged by jihadists. Police arrested him, and claimed that he was transporting 14 rifles and explosives. Under the terms of Malino, trafficking in weapons carried a sentence of either 12 years' jail or death by firing squad.
While in prison in Palu, awaiting trial, an attempt was made to poison Rev. Damanik on December 26, 2002, the fourth anniversary of the start of the Poso conflict. He was hospitalized as a result. He was placed on trial on February 3, 2003 and on 16 June, 2003, he was given a three year jail term. He was finally released in
November 2004.
The main conflict only came to end in October 2002, when Lashkar Jihad
announced that its main fighting wing in Poso, the Zabir, would leave the region of conflict. It was at this time that Laskar Jihad was voluntarily dissolving itself. It has been suggested that this had happened because Jafar Umar Thalib, who had been arrested in April 2002 for a speech made at Ambon mosque, in which he threatened not only Christians, but the government, was awaiting his trial. It was suggested that the group dissolved itself as a measure to stop Thalib becoming jailed. Whether the group is really inactive, or merely dormant, is not so clear.
Source: http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/003258.html
Link:
Religious Diversity in Southeast Asia and the Pacific: National Case Studies
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