CENTRAL SULAWESI: ON THE RUN SINCE 2005, SECT LEADER IS

UNCLAS SURABAYA 000044 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS, INR/EAP, DRL, S/CT E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ASEC KISL ID PGOV KIRF PREL SUBJECT: CENTRAL SULAWESI: ON THE RUN SINCE 2005, SECT LEADER IS KILLED DURING ARREST This message is sensitive but unclassified. Please protect accordingly. ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Arifin, (aka Madi),the fugitive leader of a so-called heretical Islamic sect, was killed while resisting arrest according to press reports and Congen Surabaya sources. After three years on the run, police received information that Madi had returned to his home village of Salena near Palu, Central Sulawesi. While the shooting took place in a region long prone to violence, the province remains otherwise calm. No one has suggested links between this incident and any recurrence of the inter-religious conflict that has plagued Central Sulawesi over the course of the past decade. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) Yoseph, Adjunct Police Commissioner and Secretary to Central Sulawesi Police Chief, Brigadier General Badrotin Haiti, told Congen Surabaya April 7 that General Haiti had instructed 10 members of the counterterror unit Detachment 88 to capture Madi on Saturday April 5, 2008. Officers decided to move in based on a tip that Madi had returned and was hiding out in his home village. Madi was shot while resisting arrest, said Yoseph. ¶3. (SBU) Darlis Muhammad, a Palu-based journalist for Tempo magazine, told Congen Surabaya on April 7 that members of Detachment 88 shot Madi dead after a chase in the hills near Salena village. According to the Surya Daily newspaper, three police bullets hit Madi, one each in the shoulder, chest and leg, respectively. Madi's family told Darlis that Madi was escaping his village home when officers of Detachment 88 chased him into the hills and reportedly shot him dead because Madi had threatened to use a machete. Madi's family and fellow villagers speculated to Darlis that Madi was shot in revenge for the 2005 killing of three policemen. Police are questioning three people, including two of Madi's followers arrested in Saturday's raid. Prelude to a Clash--Heresy and the Village Behind the Man -------------- -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Salena is a poor isolated village within the city limits of Palu but roughly 20 minutes by car from the Palu City center. Electricity only arrived in the village after the provincial government started efforts to improve the lot of villagers in the wake of the 2005 violence. On October 25, 2005, when Madi was reportedly conducting a traditional ritual gathering in the village, policemen descended and tried to arrest him. They had reportedly received complaints from observant Muslims about pressure by the sect to reject fundamental tenets of Islam. Madi and his followers fought the arrests, stabbing three policemen to death. Madi had been on the run ever since. ¶5. (SBU) The approximately 90 families who follow the 32-year old Madi consider themselves to be Muslims, but reject prayer and fasting, believing instead in the native and non-Islamic power of "adat" or tradition. This caused the Indonesian Muslim Council and Central Sulawesi Religious Department to formally declare Madi's teachings heresy. His followers prohibited others from praying or fasting and this caused some to report Madi to the police. The police went to the village in early October 2005 reportedly to attempt mediation, but Madi refused to go quietly to the police station, setting the stage for the clash to come, according to Congen Surabaya NGO contacts in Palu. ¶6. (SBU) On October 25, 2005, police again went to Salena to forcibly take Madi into custody. Madi refused and his followers attacked the police using knives and machetes. Three officers were stabbed to death and three others were taken hostage as Madi and his followers fled into the hills nearby. On October 26, 2005, police found the three hostages, alive but badly injured. Meanwhile, Madi's followers continued to surrender. At the time, some 230 villagers, (some of whom were Madi followers) were questioned by Central Sulawesi Police. In 2006, Palu District Court requested the death penalty for five followers of the Madi sect Madi himself (aka Arifin),Bambang, Nanga, Hasanuddin, and Olimin) all on charges of murder. All five were later convicted of killing the police officers and each sentenced to 9-12 years in prison. MCCLELLAND