Jakarta prominent mass organization and ethnic groups
also known as Today Jakarta's gangsters!
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The Jakarta Post
Fri, 08/28/2009 1:21 PM | Special Report
Jakarta prominent mass organization and ethnic groups
Lutfi Hakim: JP/R. Berto Wedhatama
Lutfi Hakim
Betawi Brotherhood Forum (FBR)
Leader: Lutfi Hakim (33)
Members: 300,000 in Greater Jakarta.
Membership
requirement: Betawi (native Jakartan) and Muslim. For other
ethnicities, must have lived in Jakarta for at least three years.
Funding: Donations from members and businesses.
Activities:
Provides "unofficial" security services to companies engaged in
entertainment businesses, property, construction projects and business
centers. FBR members can also be seen guarding disputed property,
providing debt-collection services and clearing out land. Its top brass
also run small-scale printing business. The group is often used to
provide political support for the Jakarta bureaucracy and certain
Islamic parties, as evidenced when it condemned opponents of the
controversial pornography bill.
History: Founded on July 29,
2001, the FBR was charged by its recently deceased chief patron
Fadhloly El Muhir to create jobs for the Betawi ethnic group. However,
it was mired in allegations of receiving backing from the military, the
Jakarta administration and opponents of former president Abdurrahman
"Gus Dur" Wahid. The groups were used as proxies to deal with Gus Dur's
grassroots Nadhlatul Ulama (NU) supporters from East Java, who
threatened to flock to the capital to help keep Gus Dur in power. Lutfi
denies the allegations, saying the FBR was set up merely to advocate
for the revival of the long-marginalized Betawi.
Notes: In
March 2003, seven members of the group were jailed for attacking the
head of the Urban Poor Consortium (an NGO focusing on urban development
issues), Wardah Hafidz, near the office of the National Commission for
Human Rights. Lutfi strongly opposes the stigma.
Muhammad Rizieq: JP/Arief Suhardiman
Muhammad Rizieq
Islam Defenders Front (FPI)
Leader: Al-Habib Muhammad Rizieq bin Husein Syihab (71)
Members: Less than 10,000 in Greater Jakarta.
Membership requirement: Muslims who can read the Koran.
Funding: Mostly donations from members, business activities of the group's top
brass.
Activities:
Mostly an ideological and political movement claiming to uphold Islamic
law, implemented in the field through crackdowns on nightclubs,
brothels and gambling dens, and leading more often than not to clashes
and violence. Their targets include roadside vendors who stay open
during the fasting month of Ramadan. Chairman of the Jakarta
Association of Tourism, Recreation and Entertainment Adrian Maulete
claims the association regularly pays the FPI to not raid its members'
clubs while operating.
History: Founded on Aug. 17, 1998, the
FPI is a splinter group of the Pamswakarsa civil guard formed by the
military to support the Habibie regime. Through promoting violence, the
FPI has earned the respect of hard-line Muslims, but often become
disdained by society at large.
Notes: The FPI's litany of
violence includes a bloody attack on members of the Alliance for the
Freedom of Religion and Faith (AKKBB) in the National Monument park,
Central Jakarta, on June 1, 2008. Group leader Habib Rizieq was
sentenced to 18 months in prison for inciting the violence. He was
released this July. FPI secretary-general Sobri Lubis says the FPI
remains a force to be reckoned with, despite the recent police
crackdown on its leaders, adding it will continue to "wipe out immoral
practices" no matter how long it takes. "We have nothing against the
food or water these nightclubs offer, but if they start selling women,
provide gambling venues or drugs, then we will have to stand against
them."
Oding Djunaidi: JP/Nurhayati
Oding Djunaidi
Laskar Jayakarta (Jayakarta Warriors)
Leader: Adj. Sr. Comr. Susilowadi, aka Bang Ilo (47)
Members: 30,000 in Greater Jakarta.
Membership requirement: All-inclusive, preference to native Jakartans.
Funding: Mostly donations from members' and leaders' businesses.
Activities:
Laskar Jayakarta assists Jakarta residents, especially of Betawi
ethnicity, get jobs. Nurturing close ties with the police, the group
provides unofficial security services primarily to nightclubs,
retailers, hotels and boarding houses in the Tamansari district of West
Jakarta. The district, which covers the vicinity of Jl. Mangga Besar,
Jl. Hayam Wuruk, Jl. Gadjah Mada and the Glodok business center, is
Jakarta's largest night entertainment center and accounts for 60
percent of the business. Laskar's top officials are former members of
Pemuda Pancasila youth organization, the military's family forum
(Forkabi) and the FBR.
History: As a newcomer in the industry,
it was not until 2007 that Laskar Jayakarta became widely known, when
it supported Comr. Gen. (ret) Adang Daradjatun, the former National
Police deputy chief, in his 2007 bid to be Jakarta governor. Laskar
split from the Betawi Community Union (PMB) in 2004.
Notes: The
group's structure is loosely reminiscent of many of today's
Jakarta-based groups. Laskar Jayakarta is a proxy nurtured by the
police to help maintain order in Jakarta's night entertainment hub and
prevent ethnic clashes. "Bang Ilo himself ordered us to control our
members' behavior to keep in line with the law," says Oding, the head
of the group's Tamansari branch in Central Jakarta.
Japto Soerjosoemarno: JP/Ricky Yudhistira
Japto Soerjosoemarno
Pancasila Youth
Leader: Japto Soelistyo Soerjosoemarno (59)
Members: Less than 100,000 in Greater Jakarta.
Membership requirement: All ethnicities and religions.
Funding: Mostly donations from members, business activities of the group's top
brass. Activities:
Security services and debt collection are the major income earner of
the group, as well as land clearing for businesses.
History:
Pancasila Youth was established on Oct. 28, 1959, by former legendary
military commander Abdul Haris Nasution, with the sole aim of
confronting the communist threat. However, after 1978, it evolved with
the backing of the Soeharto regime and the Golkar Party, which used it
to mobilize youth support during general elections. The Pancasila Youth
was allegedly involved in the July 27, 1996, riot and the bloody
sectarian violence in Ambon, Maluku, in 2000.
Notes: Along with
the Soeharto downfall in 1998, Pancasila Youth lost its political and
security clout, which finally led in late 2003 to Yorris Raweyai, its
most influential figure and financier, falling out with Japto over the
latter's decision to set up the Patriot Party, the political wing of
the Pancasila Youth. Yorris remains with Golkar and became legislator
for the party, while the Patriot Party failed to get any legislative
seat. With funding, notably from Yorris, drying up, most of the group's
members now moonlight with other mass organizations, including the FBR,
the FPI and Laskar Jayakarta. According to Yorris, Pancasila Youth is
now focusing on recruiting university students, intellectuals and the
middle class to help keep the group afloat. Japto's youngest son,
Jedidiah Shenazar, is being groomed to take over his father's work.
John Kei: Media Indonesia/Faishol Taselan
John Kei
Eastern Indonesia factions
Leaders:
Herkules (East Timor group), John Kei (Kei Island group in Maluku),
Rony Syauta and Umar Kei (Indonesian Mollucans Youth Union, or PMB) and
Ongen Sangaji (Ambon group in Maluku)
Members: Each group is believed to have less than 1,000 members in Greater
Jakarta, except the PMB, which has around 20,000.
Membership requirement: Exclusive to ethnicity.
Activities:
Groups are engaged in intense rivalry with one another. In the case of
the Maluku groups, not a single leader has united them. Both the East
Timor and Maluku groups are competing to win orders for security
services for disputed parties, business centers and properties. They
are also the most efficient debt collectors employed by banks,
financing companies and individuals, primarily through intimidation.
They earn between 15 percent and 50 percent of the debt collected.
Notes:
- Herkules has since 2006 lost his lucrative empire in the Tanah Abang
business center to Betawi native Haji Lulung. Herkules followers still
maitain a loose grip on several small pockets in the Kota area of North
Jakarta. Herkules is now engaged in the coal business, and spends time
mostly in Kalimantan and Sumatra.
- John Kei, a notorious gang leader, is serving a jail term in Surabaya for
cutting the fingers of two of his cousins.
- Ongen Sangaji is now an executive with the Hanura Party, founded by former
military commander Gen. (ret) Wiranto.
- Rony Syauta and Umar Kei are emerging as key players in the business.
The group controls the largest Maluku group in East Jakarta. The PMB is
now trying to unite all Maluku gangs, but to no avail thus far.
Haji Lulung: JP/J. Adiguna
Haji Lulung
Haji Lulung group
Leader: Abraham Lunggana, aka Haji Lulung (48)
Members: More than 2,000 in Tanah Abang alone.
Membership requirement: Preference for native Jakartans. Other ethnic groups
also welcome.
Funding: Companies under Haji Lulung, donations from outsourced workers.
Activities:
Haji Lulung has a vast line of businesses, including security services,
parking and waste management. Around 90 percent of such businesses in
Tanah Abang, Southeast Asia's largest textile and garment distribution
area, is organized by Haji Lulung. Through his newly established law
firm, Haji Lulung & Associates, a debt-collection business is now
in the pipeline. Haji Lulung's tentacles also take in security services
for shopping centers in the vicinity of Hotel Indonesia in Central
Jakarta, Senayan in South Jakarta, Taman Ismail Marzuki in Central
Jakarta, the Aldira shopping center in East Jakarta, Tarakan Hospital,
Cengkareng Hospital, Fatmawati Hospital and the Bogor Mental Hospital.
History:
Assisted primarily by law enforcers and the Jakarta administration,
Haji Lulung's luck started to turn in 2000 when he supplied workers for
the construction of the Metro bridge in the Tanah Abang shopping
compound. His rise is also attributed to the need for opposition
against former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid in creating a
proxy Betawi-based group to confront the threat of Gus Dur's incoming
grass-roots supporters from East Java in 2001. Since then, without
spilling much blood, Haji Lulung has gradually expelled the notorious
godfather Herkules from Tanah Abang for good in 2006.
Notes: Haji Lulung is now a city councilor for the United Development Party
(PPP).
- JP/Rendi A. Witular and Andra Wisnu
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