RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: NO END TO AHMADIYAH PLIGHT IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 JAKARTA 007719

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

SECSTATE FOR EAP/IET AND DRL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/19/2016
TAGS: PHUM PGOV KIRF KJUS KISL ID
SUBJECT: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: NO END TO AHMADIYAH PLIGHT IN
SIGHT

REF: A. JAKARTA 09913 (MOB BUSTS UP AHMADIYAH HQ)

B. JAKARTA 13535 (LOCAL GOVT BANS AHMADIYAH)

C. JAKARTA 07345 (YUDHOYONO ORDERS CRACKDOWN ON
MILITANT ACTIVITIES

Classified By: Political Officer Lissa McAtee, reasons 1.4 (b),(d).


SUMMARY
--------------


1. (SBU) Ahmadiyah followers continue to face difficulties in
Indonesia, where many mainstream Muslims consider their sect
heretical. Most recently, in West and Central Lombok, mobs
from local communities in February and March burned or
otherwise destroyed dozens of Ahmadiyah homes in two separate
attacks. Police were unable to stop the destruction but did
evacuate Ahmadiyah residents to safety. The West and Central
Lombok Regency governments established camps to house the
resulting 182 internally displaced persons (IDPs),where they
remain. In meetings with Embassy and CG Surabaya officers in
May, local officials and religious leaders explained the
attacks were rooted in a long history of resentment and
intolerance of Ahmadiyah within Lombok's mainstream Muslim
communities, which view the sect's followers as insular and
unfriendly. Unlike the attack that shut down Ahmadiyah
headquarters in West Java following a renewed fatwa in 2005
by the Indonesian Ulamas Council (MUI),which had declared
Ahmadiyah heretical (ref A),the attacks in Lombok did not
appear to be perpetrated by outside extremist groups but,
rather, members of the local community. Local leaders gave
little hope that a change in attitudes was likely. End
Summary.

MOB ATTACKS RESULT IN 182 IDPs
--------------


2. (SBU) On February 4 and March 17, 2006, local residents
attacked two separate Ahmadiyah communities on the highly
conservative, Muslim-dominated island of Lombok, west of
Bali, using rocks, fire and rudimentary weapons such as
knives and sticks. During a late May visit to Lombok,
Embassy and CG Surabaya officers met with local officials,
religious leaders, and Ahmadiyah community leaders, including
the National Head of Ahmadiyah, Abdul Basid, prominent
Ahmadiyah missionary, Syamsir Ali, and nearly one hundred
Ahmadiyah adherents in an IDP barracks to review the current
situation and assess the status of religious freedom issues.


3. (SBU) Witnesses reported that during the February 4 attack
in West Lombok, residents of a nearby village marched on an
Ahmadiyah neighborhood and burned or otherwise destroyed all
27 of their residences, leaving 137 Ahmadiyah followers
homeless. The local village head, Gegerung Maskum,
sympathetic to Ahmadiyah, reported rumors of the impending
attack to the police a day before it occurred. Accounts of
the number of attackers varied between 500 and 1,000. Maskum
said that attackers were from his village of about 4,000
residents and neighboring villages. According to Ahmadiyah
leaders and witnesses, some 400-500 onlookers watched while a
small number of the group destroyed their homes. Local
leaders, the police and Ahmadiyah all agreed that mob leaders
were locals and unaffiliated with the Islam Defender's Front
(FPI),which was responsible for leading the attack against
Ahmadiyah headquarters and Christian churches in West Lombok
during the summer of 2005 (ref A). Maskum reported that on
the day of th
e attack against Ahmadiyah residents, three of the attackers
verbally threatened him, warning that they had enough gas to
burn his home as well.


4. (U) During the March 17 attack in Central Lombok, the
Anti-Ahmadiyah Alliance (AMANAH),a local organization formed
to expel Ahmadiyah from Central Lombok, led hundreds in the
destruction of the homes of 45 Ahmadiyah members. The attack
followed AMANAH's public warning to Ahmadiyah that if sect
members did not leave their homes within one month they would
be forcibly removed. These two attacks were the seventh and
eight such incidents against Ahmadiyah in Lombok since 1998,
when an estimated 2,000 Ahmadiyah members lived on Lombok.
Ahmadiyah leaders told us that fewer than 400 members now
remain on the Island.


5. (SBU) Although both the recent Lombok and West Java

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incidents resulted in the destruction of property and the
displacement of Ahmadiyah followers, the events had a
different catalyst. The Lombok attackers came from the local
community and apparently motivated by dislike, suspicion and
the usually petty jealousies, whereas political factors
likely motivated the attacks on Ahmadiyah headquarters in
West Java (ref. A) and involved outside provocateurs. Since
the renewal of the fatwa declaring Ahmadiyah heretical in
2005, some local governments have banned Ahmadiyah activities
through local bylaws (ref. B),but with the exception of West
Java, there were no reports of violence in any of those
districts. Ahmadiyah continues to fight the
constitutionality of those bans through local administrative
courts, with limited success.

POLICE INACTION
--------------


6. (U) In contrast to other incidents in eastern Indonesia
(e.g., Central Sulawesi, Moluku) security officials from the
Indonesian National Police (INP) Indonesian Armed Forces
(TNI) failed to respond to warnings that violent attacks were
imminent. Ahmadiyah followers complained that despite police
promises to protect their property once evacuated, the police
did little to stop the destruction of their homes or to hold
perpetrators accountable. Although officials had a one-day
warning before the February 4 attack and a one-month notice
before the March 17 attack, the hundreds of police, TNI and
INP officials focused on evacuating Ahmadiyah followers
rather than making arrests or preventing property destruction.


7. (SBU) West Lombok's Chief of Police, Adjunct Senior
Commissioner I Gusti Bagus Sujeto, told us that police could
not prevent large groups from attacking Ahmadiyah residences.
Sujeto, a local Hindu resident who appeared sympathetic to
Ahmadiyah's predicament, said the police did not confront mob
members for fear of angering them and creating a more violent
situation the security personnel could not control. He
claimed that police focused on evacuating Ahmadiyah members,
some of them forcibly, to prevent deaths or injuries, since
they had neither the equipment nor the training to control
such a riot (as is common in Indonesia).


8. (SBU) Intimidation of police by local communities,
politicians or mobs also added to the police's inability to
arrest and prosecute suspects. Ahmadiyah's opponents
reportedly forced the police to release all suspects. During
the February 4 attack, police reportedly arrested three
persons for property destruction, only to release them at the
request of the Deputy Mayor. Days after the attack, police
made another arrest, this time of a suspected provocateur,
but released him before they completed questioning when
truckloads of people arrived at the police station to demand
the suspect's release. There were no arrests made in the
subsequent attack on March 14.


9. (C) Sujeto told us that the conflict between local
residents and Ahmadiyah was for the local government to fix,
not the police, which was preoccupied with recurring communal
and religious conflicts. He said that the government had to
address the root causes by "socializing tolerance" and
educating the people. Deputy Chief of Police for West
Lombok, Radjo Harahap, told us that the fundamental problem
was Ahmadiyah's "exclusiveness" and "arrogance," a
perspective we found prevalent among local government
officials and non-Ahmadiyah Muslim religious leaders.

GOVERNMENT HOUSES IDPs INDEFINENTLY
--------------


10. (SBU) All 187 Ahmadiyah IDPs remain housed in barren,
government-provided barracks, dependent on the government for
food, security -- and a plan. Many of these individuals have
been IDPs previously; one told us he had fled his home seven
times. Local government officials of West Lombok promised to
compensate the 137 IDP's in West Lombok for the loss of their
homes but reportedly have not taken any steps to do so. No
such promise was made to the 45 IDPs in Praya, Central
Lombok, and both IDP communities wait for the government to
plan a safe return for them into the community. They told us
their only other hope is a bid for political asylum in
Australia or Canada, for which Ahmadiyah actively campaigns
by publicizing their plight and intentions. (Note: Ahmadiyah
leaders admitted slim chances for gaining political asylum in

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either of these countries, but see the attempt as an
opportunity to internationalize their cause even if the
asylum claims ultimately prove unsuccessful. End Note.)


11. (SBU) May 23 and 24 we met with nearly 100 IDPs in the
West Lombok and Central Lombok IDP camps. They reported that
depression and hopelessness had become widespread in their
community, and children suffered from lingering trauma.
Ahmadiyah members from the IDP camps complained of employment
discrimination based on their religious affiliation thereby
limiting employment prospects and their ability to live
independently. The women in Central Lombok especially
complained of the lack of security at the government provided
barracks and reported break-ins and molestation at night by
unknown assailants.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT NOT LEADING
--------------


12. (C) West Lombok Regency government representatives
described to us three ways to solve tensions between
Ahmadiyah and other Muslims in Lombok: (1) Ahmadiyah could
create a new religion and stop calling itself "Muslim" (a
suggestion that was first floated by the GOI Minister of
Religion); (2) Ahmadiyah could return to the fold of
mainstream Islam; or (3) Ahmadiyah could disperse (two
persons per regency) and thereby be "absorbed" into
mainstream religious communities. Local government
representatives did not have a plan that would accommodate
Ahmadiyah members living and worshiping in the same village,
nor did they refer to compensation that Ahmadiyah IDPs in
West Lombok claimed the local government promised them.
(Note: Lombok remains a poor province with little
independent resources; it is not clear where funding for such
compensation would come.)


13. (SBU) Dr. H. Lalu Sernata, Head of Development for West
Lombok, told us that the root of the problem was that
Ahmadiyah was too exclusive because its followers will not
pray with other Muslims and this was offensive. He said that
teaching religious tolerance was not a viable option because
many Lombok residents are "uneducated" and therefore easily
influenced by Islamic religious leaders with intolerant views
of Ahmadiyah and its teachings.


14. (C) Ahmadiyah leaders complained to us privately that the
West Lombok Regent showed no interest in their plight and
failed to fulfill promises to meet with them to hear their
grievances. They described the Central Lombok Regent as more
sympathetic but still unable to control mobs wanting to
terrorize Ahmadiyah followers. Ahmadiyah leaders speculated
that President Yudhoyono did not have the political will to
help them obtain recognition of their religious rights, and
their best hope lay with former President and longstanding
ardent religious freedom advocate, Abdurrahman Wahid,
popularly known as Gus Dur.

MUI PROMOTES INTOLERANCE
--------------


15. (C) The police, West Lombok government officials and
Ahmadiyah followers told us that the Lombok branch of Majelis
Ulama Indonesia (MUI) was by far the most influential
institution on the island. Known as "Tuanku Gurus," these
MUI members have a moral authority substantially higher than
that of the police and local governments. Ahmadiyah leaders
told us that if MUI supported Ahmadiyah, their problems would
be largely solved. However, although MUI has publicly stated
that it does not support violence as a method of dealing with
the Ahmadiyah problem, it is unlikely that MUI will take
steps to end discrimination against Ahmadiyah, since it was
MUI at the national level that in 2006 renewed the 1980 fatwa
(a non-legally binding religious edict) declaring Ahmadiyah
heretical (ref. A).


16. (C) West Lombok's leading Tuanku Guru, H. Sofwan Hakim,
explained to us that he saw MUI as a principal arbiter
between the government and the people, between religions and
within Islam, including Ahmadiyah. Hakim said that he
recently met with Ahmadiyah representatives, the police and
local government officials to find a solution for Ahmadiyah's
problems. At that meeting, Hakim proposed that the
government compensate Ahmadiyah by purchasing homes in
Mataram, the capital of Lombok, for the IDPs. In exchange,

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Ahmadiyah would have to stop "bothering" neighbors by
building mosques exclusively for Ahmadiyah and refusing to
pray with other Muslims. Hakim said the alternative was for
Ahmadiyah members to return to their homes but to "suppress
Ahmadiyah characteristics." Otherwise, he said, he could not
guarantee their safety. Hakim told us the best solution
would be if Ahmadiyah followers would rejoin mainstream
Islam.


17. (C) Hakim and the other Tuanku Gurus present told us they
found Ahmadiyah teachings deeply offensive. They said that
Ahmadiyah was too exclusive, that its followers built mosques
next to mosques already established by other Muslims, and
they should not call themselves Muslims if they will not pray
with other Muslims. Hakim said he was not surprised most
violence against Ahmadiyah takes place in Lombok, attributing
this to the widespread low level of education there. (Note:
Significant Ahmadiyah populations live peacefully in Sumatra
and other locations in Indonesia. End Note.)

COMMENT
--------------


18. (C) Mainstream Muslim groups have decided that Ahmadiyah
is an illegitimate form of Islam; the question now is whether
less tolerant Muslims will continue to feel this absolves
them of responsibility to live in harmony with Ahmadiyah.
The prevailing view that Ahmadiyah's beliefs and practices
lie at the root of the problem provides a classic example of
"blaming the victim" and will preclude a peaceful resolution
for Ahmadiyah in Lombok in the near term. Although most of
our contacts said that the low level of education on the
island was a key factor in the attacks, a lack of leadership
willing to educate the population also clearly contributed to
the conflict. In our discussions with government and
religious leaders, the concept that religious freedom was not
a negotiable right seemed to elude many of Ahmadiyah's
opponents. It does not help that the national government
appears to condone hostility to Ahmadiyah. The recent public
statement of Minister of Religious Affairs M. Maftuh Basyuni
that Ahmad
iyah should either create a new religion or come back into
the fold of mainstream Islam expresses a sentiment we heard
echoed repeatedly on Lombok. While President Yudhoyono's
government has spoken recently on plans to take action
against militants (ref. C),he has remained silent on the
status of Ahmadiyah. Gus Dur is the only public figure to
speak out repeatedly on behalf of Ahmadiyah, though former
President Megawati Soekarnoputri also voiced concern after
the recent attacks on Lombok. Despite occasional sympathetic
statements, Ahmadiyah appears to command little support from
the political class.
AMSELEM