COUNTERTERRORISM -- EXPLORING DERADICALIZATION

1. (U) This message is Sensitive but Unclassified -- Please
handle accordingly..



2. (SBU) SUMMARY: CT experts from Indonesia led a recent
training workshop which focused on strategies for
deradicalizing terrorists in prison. Mission was one of four
co-sponsors of the workshop, which included police,
prosecutors, judges and prison officials from areas where
significant numbers of terrorists are currently held.
Workshop participants also came up with a series of
recommendations--from hardened facilities to outreach to the
home communities of convicted terrorists--which Mission will
pursue. END SUMMARY.

SEMINAR IN SEMARANG



3. (SBU) The latest USG-supported CT training workshop
brought together over 40 law enforcement and judicial
officials on March 11-13. The event was held at the Jakarta
Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation (JCLEC) in Semarang,
Central Java, and was jointly sponsored by the Embassies of
Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Mission Jakarta through an
INL-funded grant provided by the DOJ Office of Overseas
Prosecutor Development and Assistance Training (OPDAT).



4. (SBU) Participants included police, prosecutors, judges
and prison officials from the provinces of Central Sulawesi,
Maluku, Central Java and Jakarta--all of which have been the
site of significant terrorist activity in the past.
Presenters included Indonesian CT experts from the Indonesian
National Police (INP), the Attorney General's Office (AGO),
the Supreme Court, and the Department of Corrections at the
Ministry of Law and Human Rights (MLHR), and two foreign
experts.



5. (SBU) The course was the latest in a series of training
courses held over the past several years (ref B) aimed
primarily at improving knowledge of CT issues and
strengthening interagency coordination in investigations and
prosecutions. The current program partly followed this
format but with a key additional element: the presence of
corrections officials, specifically, the heads of six prisons
with significant terrorist populations. This yielded intense
discussions on the handling of terrorists in custody and the
development of recommended actions.

PITCH FOR "SOFT POWER" APPROACH



6. (SBU) INP Brig. Gen. (ret.) Ansyaad Mbai, head of the
GOI's CT Coordination Desk, set the tone for the workshop in
opening remarks that "soft power" was "the key" to defeating
terrorism in Indonesia. Noting the long history of Islamic
radicalism in Indonesia, he asserted that many of the leaders
of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) were direct descendants of
participants in earlier Islamist movements. Acknowledging
the importance of law enforcement activity in the short term,
Mbai suggested any long-term solution to terrorism required
the elimination of the underlying ideology that supports
terror.



7. (SBU) Brig. Gen. Surya Dharma, who heads the INP's elite
Detachment 88 CT sqad (SD-88), and Prof. Dr. Sarlito Wirawan
Sarwon, from the Department of Psychology at the Universty
of Indonesia, described the INP's informal deadicalization
program. Sarlito said deradicalization was based on the
premise that terrorists were not mentally ill, but rather
rational actors motivated by a genuine desire to change
society. As a result, the key to reforming them was not

JAKARTA 00000545 002.2 OF 003


ultimately through punishment but through moral suasion.
Surya Dharma echoed these comments, explaining that winning
terrorists' hearts and minds required demonstrating that
their INP captors were also devout Muslims. Doing so
required that the INP treat prisoners humanely, invite them
to pray together with police and meet with prisoners'
families. Once terrorists accepted that their captors were
devout Muslims, they became more susceptible to alternate
interpretations of jihad.

MANAGING TERRORISTS IN PRISON



8. (SBU) While SD-88 has been experimenting with
deradicalization for terrorists in police custody,
participants readily acknowledged that the situation for
terrorists in prison was far from optimal. Several prison
heads stated that prisons lacked the resources to provide
adequate physical security and that terrorists were not only
maintaining their connections but in some cases actively
recruiting other prisoners and even prison staff. The head
of a prison in Central Sulawesi stated repeatedly that the
best solution for terrorists was to try to imprison them in
provinces other than their own. (Note: This has in fact
already been done for several terrorists who were involved in
particularly heinous crimes.)



9. (SBU) Dr. H. Mochamad Sueb, Director of Registrations for
the Director General of Prisons at MLHR, said rehabilitation
was a necessary component of corrections for all prisoners,
including terrorists. The main element was humane treatment,
which included reducing overcrowding, providing adequate
health care and allowing opportunities for vocational
training. Given limited resources and a rapidly growing
prison population, these had become very difficult to
provide, and many prisons were looking towards early release
as a short-term solution. Regarding terrorists, Sueb
emphasized the need to work with the INP to monitor the
activities of terrorist prisoners, particularly visits from
family and others. He described a new effort led by Mbai to
create a deradicalization guidebook for use in prisons.

IMPROVING COORDINATION AMONG LAW ENFORCERS



10. (SBU) While much of the program focused on "soft power,"
the workshop also addressed the need to foster improved
coordination between law enforcement practitioners in the CT
field. In a joint presentation, Senior Superintendent
Hamidin from SD-88 and Narendra Jatna from the AGO Task Force
on Terrorism and Transnational Crime described how
cooperation in recent cases related to violence in Central
Sulawesi resulted in better prosecutions and longer
sentences. Explaining that successful prosecutions began
with thorough investigations, the presenters made clear that
police and prosecutors had a responsibility to work together
to make sure that CT cases are handled properly from
beginning to end. These comments were echoed by two foreign
experts, Deputy Superintendent Doug McKenna, the British CT
liaison officer based in Malaysia, and John Shipley,
Assistant US Attorney from the southern district of Florida.

NEXT STEPS



11. (SBU) The workshop included small group sessions where
participants brainstormed ideas, yielding several
recommendations. First, participants agreed that physical
security in prisons holding terrorists needed to be improved,
including higher walls, installation of CCTV and better
control over visitations. Participants also called for the
drafting of standard operating procedures to standardize the
treatment of terrorist prisoners. Second, participants

JAKARTA 00000545 003.2 OF 003


agreed that prisons needed to encourage deradicalization and
to prevent further radicalization among prison populations.
Some recommended that the Ministry of Religion play a role in
this effort. Deradicalization was seen as especially
important given that many terrorists convicted after the 2002
Bali bombing were already nearing the end of their terms and
would be released over the next few years.



12. (SBU) Third, participants agreed on the need to engage
terrorists' home communities to reduce communal tensions and
the attractiveness of violent ideologies. Participants from
Maluku and Central Sulawesi underscored the importance of
outreach to community leaders and schools to reduce the
likelihood of retaliation against prosecutors and judges
trying terror cases.



13. (SBU) Participants' assessments of the workshop were
overwhelmingly positive, particularly from the prison
officials, many of whom were attending a seminar of this
nature for the first time. Post intends to follow up on the
contacts made at the workshop and look for ways to support
GOI efforts to deradicalize terrorist prisoners.

HUME