http://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2012/s3541076.htm
Indonesia's Hizbullah Matt Brown reported this story on Sunday, July 8, 2012 07:11:00 Listen to MP3 of this story ( minutes) Alternate WMA version | MP3 download ELIZABETH JACKSON: Our Indonesia correspondent Matt Brown is packing his bags this weekend, and heading for the Middle East. It'll be his second posting to that part of the world. This is his last assignment from Jakarta, to write some reflections about his time there. But there's one story that has fascinated him since he read a few scant lines in a history book at the start of his posting two-and-a-half years ago. MATT BROWN: I'm almost packed and about to get on the plane for the Middle East, so I've been thinking a lot about Hizbullah. No, not the Shiite militia and political party that runs much of Lebanon; the Hizbullah here, in Indonesia. It was a Muslim militia created by the Japanese to fight the Allies in World War II. Now, you're probably familiar with the thread winding from al-Qaeda's attacks on America in 2001, back to the CIA's (Central Intelligence Agency) funding for the Mujahedeen who fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. But that's just part of a broader story about outsiders oppressing, fostering and flirting with local Muslim forces. And it stretches from the battle scarred streets of Beirut and Baghdad, across the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, all the way to Bali. The most important name in this Indonesian chapter of the story is Kartosuwiryo. He was an Islamist leader who first got involved in politics in the 1920s and, to this day, he's an inspiration for Islamist activists and terrorists alike. Like many others, Kartosuwiryo agitated against Dutch colonial rule. Just another nationalist at first, over time he became a hardliner fighting for an Islamic state. He established his own school in West Java in 1940, teaching a mixture of Islam and politics. In fact when I was interviewing the notorious cleric, Abu Bakar Ba'aysir, in his holding cell a couple of years ago, I didn't know it at the time, but I was talking with a modern day version of Kartosuwiryo. After the Japanese invaded in 1942 they set about marshalling the local population to the war effort. They also established a couple of secular and Muslim peak organisations, playing them off against their varying dreams of independence. Then, in 1944 the Japanese established the Muslim militia, Hizbullah. Kartosuwiryo was appointed to lead a local Hizbullah unit and in West Java. He was already an important political player and he took up a key political role to boot. He had a power base in the area and this turned out to be an important chance for him to build a regional network. When the Japanese lost World War II and withdrew from Java, Kartosuwiryo kept fighting the Dutch. But he also fought Indonesian nationalists who he thought were making too many concessions to the Dutch, and he pressed on towards his goal of an Islamic state. The Hizbullah militiamen under his command would become core members of a new group called Darul Islam, which grew strong enough to defy the new republic and establish a mini Islamic state in West Java. Obviously it didn't last. While Kartosuwiryo was captured in 1962 and then executed, his lieutenants were offered an easier path. They were co-opted by the Indonesian government and even offered support to help with the cost of living; which is exactly what the police do with terror convicts today. By 1965 the Darul Islam movement had been defeated but that same year, the Communist Party was accused of fomenting a coup and the military, and General Suharto began one of the biggest massacres in history. As it turned out, the army wasn't above arming a small hard core group of anti-Communist Darul Islam fighters and allowing them to play a small role in the mass murder. Suharto's regime even tried to use Darul Islam to bolster its political machine in the early 1970s. Almost inevitably, though, Darul Islam went covert once more. But along the way it picked up followers like Abdullah Sungkar, one of the founders of Jemaah Islamiyah and, you guessed it, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir. By 2002, Kartosuwiryo had been dead for 40 years but his legacy lived on. When a young radical named Iqbal wrote to his friends and family in his home town in west Java he urged them to remember, quote, "how our imam, SM Kartosuwiryo, built and upheld and proclaimed the independence of the Islamic State of Indonesia with the blood and lives of martyrs, not by relaxing and fooling around as we do today." He also urged those who want to see the Islamic State of Indonesia rise again to shed their own blood. And, after that Iqbal picked up a bomb. He walked into Paddy's bar and he and the other Bali bombers wrought terrible carnage in Kuta. So on Tuesday as I fly across Iraq, I'll note that the Iranians and Saudis are still at play and the sectarian death squads still on the prowl. And as the arms, money and intelligence flow from all sides into Syria, I'll be sure to remember Indonesia's Hizbullah, the power of ideas and the unpredictable path of rebellion and insurgency. This is Matt Brown in Jakarta for Correspondents Report. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
