Corby, Bio-Attacks and the War on Terror

By Zachary Abuza

The biological agent, a relative of the anthrax bacteria that was mailed to the Indonesian Ambassador to Australia on Monday was an outrageous act beyond all norms of civil society. The perpetrators must be punished to the fullest extent of the law. This incident is a serious act and one that will have significant diplomatic and political reverberations between the two states for a long time to come. It is a very difficult relationship to begin with. The incident says a lot about the complexity of the bilateral relationship, but it also says something about Indonesia�s own handling of terrorism.

Indonesians see Australia as an arrogant and patronizing nation. They resent a nation of mainly European stock, with clearly western values and norms, is by victim of geography, an Asian state. Many Indonesians resent Australia�s role as East Timor�s midwife in 1999 when Australian forces led the UN-sponsored intervention force. More recently, Australia has been condemned for its military intervention in Iraq. A prominent Muslim leader called Australia�s role in Iraq as �state terrorism.�

Clearly public opinion in Australia is hostile towards Indonesia. A country of some 20 million people, it views Indonesia, with is 220 million people, as an arc of instability. Australians fear the spread of militant Islam, especially following the Bali bomb attack that killed 88 of their citizens. In September 2004, JI detonated a truck bomb in front of the Australian embassy. Though no Australians were killed, it was a direct attack on Australia.

More recently Australians have been media saturated by the court case of Schapelle Corby, a 27-year old holiday-maker who was allegedly found with 9lbs of cannabis in her luggage. An Indonesian court recently sentenced Ms. Corby to 20 years. Ms. Corby has pleaded her innocence and most Australians in public opinion surveys believe she was innocent and call the decision a tragedy of justice. The point to the fact that there was no jury, merely a panel of three judges; though there was no Australian outcry when a similar court (Indonesia has no trial by jury) was used on the Bali bombers.

It is the sovereign right of Indonesia to apply its laws regarding drug smuggling. But this case calls into question the larger issue of Indonesia�s political and legal will to continue prosecuting the war on terror. It is hard to justify a 20-year sentence for a drug smuggler when Abu Bakar Ba�asyir, JI�s spiritual leader, was sentenced to under four years in jail. His case is not unusual.

One of JI�s top leaders, Abu Jibril, was arrested by Malaysian authorities in mid-2001. In October 2004 they turned him over to Indonesian authorities. Despite his role in leading the one of JI�s paramilitary arms, the Laskar Mujiheddin that was responsible for fomenting sectarian violence in the Malukus in 1999-2001, which led to the death of thousands, the Indonesian government only jailed him for five months on immigration violations. He is now a free man, preaching jihad and vitriolic anti-Semitism and ant-Americanism. He reconstituted the Laskar Mujiheddin and established a new organization.

With the exception of a few key plotters, sentences for most JI members arrested, have been relatively light. For example, the three individuals most recently sentenced for their role in the August 2003 bombing of the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta received between three and six years each. None expressed any remorse. Other JI members already tried, have had their sentences reduced. Others have been freed in government amnesties.

What is all the more galling about this is that Indonesian authorities are bracing for more terrorist attacks. A recently intercepted letter suggested that a 12-man suicide cell was in the final stages of planning an attack. While Indonesian security forces deserve some credit for the arrest of over 120 JI members, the courts have failed to deal with the issue in a meaningful way.

Were an Australian citizen arrested in Vietnam, for example, to be caught smuggling drugs, tried and executed, there would be far less of a public outcry. But the Corby case, in the context of recent rulings on JI by Indonesian courts, has touched a raw nerve.

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