Indonesia
Bush’s war causes instability
Indonesian police fired tear gas and water cannon into hundreds of anti-US Muslim protesters outside the national parliament buildings on 15 October. Eyewitnesses spoke of brutal police beatings, including against journalists. This marked the first significant protest in the capital, Jakarta, since the start of the attacks on Afghanistan. Previous protests have taken place in Yogyakarta, the second city, after calls for a jihad by groups such as the Laskar Hizbullah and Islamic Youth Movement.
Right wing Muslim groups, including the Islamic Defenders’ Front (FPI), threatened to storm the parliament unless the government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri clearly condemned the US-led war. Last week, the FPI threatened to target and drive out Americans and Britons from the country. Already, two Germans, mistaken for Americans, were attacked and beaten on the island of Lombok.
Initially, Megawati, desperate for foreign investment and aid following years of economic decline and instability, gave qualified backing to Bush’s war plans. But as the killing of civilians continues in Afghanistan, ‘moderate’ Muslim opinion has hardened against US policy (Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world). Islamic organisations have links to the powerful armed forces that proved critical in bringing Megawati to power recently. In a setback for Bush, the President recently softened her support for the war. On Sunday 14 October she told Jakarta’s main mosque that, "no individual, group or government has the right to look for terrorists by attacking another country’s territory." This follows calls from the Vice President, Hamzah Haz, for a halt to the bombings.
Megawati hopes that through repression and by making concessions to the popular mood she can contain the rise in Islamic opposition. The Laskar Jihad (Holy War Force) has fought a bloody war against local Christians on the Maluku islands for the last two years.
Meanwhile, thousands of Filipino Muslims have staged anti-US protests on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philipines. They are demanding President Gloria Arroyo withdraws an offer to the US to allow them to use former military bases.
Muslims make up around 5% of the 76 million population, and are largely concentrated in the south of the Philippines where the Abu Sayyaf paramilitary group fights for a separatist Islamic homeland. The US administration claims Abu Sayyaf is linked to Osama bin Ladin’s al-Qaida network, and is reportedly planning to send in military advisers and a number of troops to help the Philippino government crush the group. Such US involvement, in the Philippines, Indonesia or even Malaysia, will only aggravate religious, ethnic and national sores, which erupted after economic crisis hit the region in 199