Expert Commentators On Terrorism Challenged In PJR
SYDNEY (ABC/Pacific Media Watch): Some expert commentators on terrorism widely used by mainstream media have been
questioned by ABC's The Media Report, citing the latest edition of Pacific Journalism Review and other sources.
Host Mick O'Regan said the media's need for detailed commentary on terrorist groups has resulted in commentators such
Sri Lankan academic Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside Al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, as being seen as an "objective
commentator on terrorism".
"But his analysis of the situation in Indonesia gives cause for concern," O'Regan said.
For many people the real terrorism in Indonesia for the past 25 years has been state terrorism, conducted by its own
military and security forces.
"This sometimes seems to escape the newly-minuted experts on global terror, such as Rohan Gunaratna," O'Regan said.
"The linkages he poses are based on information from leaked intelligence documents, and as a forthcoming article in
Pacific Journalism Review notes:
"'His trust in Indonesian intelligence officers and in intelligence reports prepared by the very security forces who
have themselves been implicated in incitement and even direct involvement in violent conflict, is nothing short of
astounding.'
"Those linkages are also a problem for other researchers who focus on the historical contexts in which different groups
have emerged in Indonesia, and their disparate political goals."
Pacific Journalism Review article: Vol 9, September 2003, pp 201-207 (pdf file): http://www.aut.ac.nz/depts/commstud/journ/docs/reviewscronau.pdf
ABC: The Media Report: "Expert Commentary", 11 September 2003: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/stories/s942032.htm
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