Indonesian Jihad Trainers Beat Up Reporters Visiting Camp
JAKARTA, April 9 (AFP) - Three Indonesian journalists, including an AFP reporter, were beaten up by youths taking jihad
(holy war) training at a camp 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of here Sunday.
The three journalists -- the AFP correspondent, a reporter of the BBC's Indonesian service and a freelance photographer
-- were beaten and kicked after they had entered the training camp from the back gate, the AFP reporter said.
"We were asking our way to the main post to seek permission to look around in the camp when several youths fell on us
and started beating us up," the reporter said.
The journalists were then interrogated for hours before finally being taken to the local police station.
The camp, in a valley in the Kayumanis village in Tanah Sareal sub-district of West Java, is a site for training Muslim
volunteers fighting in the strife-torn Maluku islands where clashes with Christians have been going on since January
last year.
Other journalists trying to approach the site from the main entrance were threatened with machetes and told to go away,
an AFP photographer said.
The camp, set up on seven hectares (17.2 acres) of land belonging to a Muslim foundation, is only accessible by foot
three kilometers from the hill town of Bogor.
Witnesses watching the activities of the camp from the outside in the morning said the participants were practising
martial arts using machetes and swords.
The Jakarta Post daily on Saturday quoted a member of the camp's "special guard" as saying 3,150 people were taking part
in the first phase of the
program which started April 6.
The guard said phase one will end on April 16 and the group will leave on April 23 for Ambon, capital of Maluku province
where Muslim-Christian violence has claimed more than 3,000 lives in the past year.
The Jihad training camp is organized by a radical Muslim group, which calls itself the Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama'ah Forum.
Group commander Jaffar Umar Thalib announced the jihad plan in a mass rally attended by some 10,000 people in the
capital on Thursday.
He was quoted by the Post as saying some of the trainers in the Kayumanis camp had "experience in Afghanistan, Bosnia
and Moro" in the southern Philippines.
Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, a moderate Muslim scholar, reportedly lost his temper when the group visited him
after the rally on Thursday.
Wahid told journalists that should the group go ahead with their plans, they would face "stern action" by the country's
security forces.
In Thursday's rally, Forum speakers in fiery speeches said the number of
youths who had signed up for the jihad had reached 10,000.
Their aim was to break what they called the "Christian rebellion" in the
islands.
The sectarian violence originated in Ambon, the capital of the Malukus, in January 1999, and was sparked by a trivial
dispute between a local Christian driver and a Muslim.
The brawl quickly degenerated into open clashes between Christians and Muslims and within weeks had spread to the other
islands in the Malukus.
More than 80 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people follow Islam, making it one of the world's largest
Muslim-populated nations
+++niuswire
PACIFIC MEDIA WATCH is an independent, non-profit, non-government organisation comprising journalists, lawyers, editors
and other media workers, dedicated to examining issues of ethics, accountability, censorship, media freedom and media
ownership in the Pacific region. Launched in October 1996, it has links with the Journalism Program at the University of
the South Pacific, Bushfire Media, the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, and Pactok Communications, in
Sydney and Port Moresby.
(c)1996-2000 Copyright - All rights reserved.
Items are provided solely for review purposes as a non-profit educational service. Copyright remains the property of the
original producers as indicated. Recipients should seek permission from the copyright owner for any publishing.
Copyright owners not wishing their materials to be posted by PMW please contact us. The views expressed in material
listed by PMW are not necessarily the views of PMW or its members.
Recipients should rely on their own inquiries before making decisions based on material listed in PMW. Please copy
appeals to PMW and acknowledge source.
For further information, inquiries about joining the Pacific Media Watch
listserve, articles for publication, and giving feedback contact Pacific
Media Watch at: E-mail: niusedita@pactok.net.au or: bfmedia@mpx.com.au Fax: (+679) 30 5779 or (+612) 9660 1804 Mail: PO
Box 9, Annandale, NSW 2038, Australia or, c/o Journalism, PO Box 1168, Suva, Fiji Website:
http://www.pactok.net/docs/pmw/