The World Food Program and Abu Bakar Ba'asyir's MMI: The Need for Due Diligence

By Zachary Abuza

The World Food Program’s (WFP) relief efforts following the 27 May magnitude 6.2 earthquake in Central Java, Indonesia, is now mired in scandal. The WFP, active in Indonesia’s tsunami hit province of Aceh, moved in quickly to Central Java following earthquake that killed more than 6,000 people, wounded 78,000, and destroyed some 200,000 houses, leaving up to 1.5 million people homeless.

Yet one of the WFP’s eight partner organizations that was selected to distribute 95 tons of food on the ground, was no other than Abu Bakar Ba’asyir’s Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI). The MMI is an overt and legal organization, but many of its leaders were concurrently leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), and the MMI continues to push JI’s agenda. Indonesian courts identified Ba’asyir as being the spiritual head - or amir - of JI. Since the 26 December 2004 tsunami, JI has used charitable works as one of the key ways to revive their organizations hurt by the crackdown on terrorism. The MMI and JI-linked Laskar Jundullah were both active in tsunami relief.

The Australian government immediately protested the MMI’s contract with the WFP, but the WFP spokesman Barry Came said, "We don't pick groups to distribute aid based on their religious or political beliefs. We choose based on the ability to deliver, and so far they've performed up to standard. We have no complaints." According to a 14 June AP report, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir will personally deliver aid.

Under growing international pressure, the WFP canceled the MMI’s contract to deliver aid on 15 June. The MMI called the WFP's decision, "racist."

The 27 May earthquake was an enormous humanitarian catastrophe, and one that has received scant attention from the donor community. The UN appealed for a $103 million six-month emergency relief fund, but as of 1 June under $22 million had been pledged. The WFP’s $5.36 million program is important, but it should not go to organizations with clear and identifiable links to terrorist entities. International organizations and NGOs have a responsibility to do due diligence on their partners. Ba’asyir was designated by the US Department of the Treasury on 13 April 2006 and is also proscribed under the UN's 1267 list. Technically it is illegal for Ba’asyir or any organization connected to him to raise money.