Jihadists flock to Indonesian island of Sulawesi amid intensified fighting

Those poor jihadists were victims!, Victims, I tell ya! If only they had been left alone with their "large cache of bombs, weapons and ammunition" none of this would have ever happened - until they were ready to launch an attack themselves.

A flock of islamists? Tell me, is hunting season open yet? What is the limit? How do you clean and prepare them? Are they tasty on the BBQ? Just askin.

tgusa - Naaaa... The only thing the're good for is dog food, and even then I wouldn't want to get my dog sick!

To warm up an old saw:

"What if they gave a jihad and no one showed up?"

That would be a good thing. (Tip o' the hat to Martha Stewart)

Why?

Because that would mean that they already all are trying to wear out virgins (of both sexes) in "paradise."

Islam is the gift that just keeps on giving no matter where it is-jihad, death, poverty, misery.
We should thank Illah for this gift by wiping out as many of his jihadist minions as possible.

balticwaves,
I try to feed my dogs pizza spaghetti/with meatballs etc. First of all they love it, second it makes them extremely loyal, and third, but be careful, it brings out the Mussolini in them. You have to keep a really tight reign on that.

One effective tactic we should try in fighting the muslims in Indonesia is to cover the bodies in pig's blood and make sure the enemy is aware of this. This was used by American troops in combating muslim Filipino insurgents during the Spanish-American War and proved extremely effective as a psychological weapon in crushing resistance. These Islamic scumbags are so primitive in their stupidity.

tgusa,
no season, no bag limit, they're varmints, open to hunting or trapping; they're a lot like coyotes, and are not eaten; no bounty though

Does anyone have a link to a story a few years ago about Indonesian Muslims forcibly performing FGM (female genital mutilation, usually using sharp rocks or broken bottle glass) on Indonesian Christian girls, as part of a campaign of forcible conversion and/or domination?

It's an important story, because it shows the nexus between FGM and forcible conversion to Islam; not to mention it shows an example of forcible violent conversion, as well as the spread of FGM outside Africa (to where many people insist it is limited).

Don't they have buzzards there, they have to eat too!! Where the killers are found lets remember our Gods words, " an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", time to get down and dirty,the games have begun some time ago, lets play to win!!!!!

Just kidding. Actually in this country, they're a protected species, with all sorts of special privileges and needs. If a flock of them moves into your area, you have to make all kinds of special arrangements to suit their needs, of which they have many.

I have reserved a special place in my heart for these killers!!!

remote_control,
That has to be the most disgusting thing I have almost ever heard. Yes the Nazis preformed these operations as well. Darn it, no matter how hard I try to separate the Nazis from the islamists, it just keeps coming back and hitting me in the face. And that makes me wonder, where did Hitler learn his mad ideas? WWI German/Turk Alliance maybe? Possibly he spent some time as a runner, cut off during artillery bombardment, seeking shelter in an islamoTurk trench?

ebonystone,
They ate one of my cats, he had only one eye so they jumped him, so I return the favor whenever I can. Protect Animals that are preying on you? Only a leftard moron would make such a law. I am thinking of capturing and training them and then letting them go in their neighborhoods, right about dinnertime.
Don’t like it Mr. Animal rights loon? Tough. Coyotes will kill of every other species while you are allegedly protecting them. So who is the bigger environmental monster, me or them?

These killers have to keep opening up new fronts, technology keeps finding their unscientific asses, their supposed leader/leaders keep sending them out to kill/be killed . when do you suppose that the common muslim will figure this out and send an invitation to join the fun at the front!!!

Kamikaze is not the way to go, we have seen the self exploding bomb before. It only makes us angrier and more determined, not that these islamists resemble kamikaze’s whom had the guts to attack fully armored, guns blazing, loaded with angry men Warships. Lets face it they are attacking our women and children. At the same time they are brainwashing their 2 year olds to kill, kill, kill. The mother, most islamists have four wives, following the father is not a civillan. She is a War Factory, living walking, talking(when she is allowed) islamist producing War factory. No different than our Steel mills or Quarrys. Don’t attack me any of you pussyfoots out there, they determined and have stuck to the rules of engagement long before I first walked the Earth. I just think we should do unto them as they have and will do unto us or we will someday be wiped out. If there is a choice to be made about who survives, I vote for us.

from above:

Terrorism experts say dormant Java-based cells of the organisation appear to have been reactivated by US and Australian-trained anti-terror squad attacks on militant strongholds near the Sulawesi town of Poso, 1700 kilometres east of Jakarta.
...........................................................

Somehow this is the fault of the US and the Aussies? If these cells were so "dormant" then what were the anti-terror squads attacking? I guess these "strongholds" would have just existed benignly if not for the interference of those paranoid Westerners.

Isn't Poso also where those Indonesian schoolgirls were beheaded for going to Sunday school? I recall seeing their grizzly pictures on Shiva's blog.

Remote, good catch, since Mohammedan apologists are too good at denying that FGM has roots in Islam. Despite Arab supremacy over Africa, they have exported that practice from Yemen to Indonesia. It's bad enough that they do it to their own, but even worse that they do it to infidels.

Sulawesi unlike much of Indonesia may not yet be an Islamic-majority Sulawesi's tragic transformation into the Lebanon of Asia at the hands of the corrupt Indonesian government. So no we see Jakarta coming to the "rescue" of Islam in Sulawesi, employing the red-in-the--claw services of Red China's military, Hizbollah, bin Looney Tunes and other parties supposedly not having anything to do with the new "democracy" having taken root in Indonesia.

If there is a way to stop these people I regret I do not know what it would be--or I would propose it. I am not sure either that it is a good idea to evacuate Sulawesi's non-Muslim inhabitants from there (though maybe it is, particularly if the Sulawesians express the desire to leave) because I personally do not care to see the island Islamicized if we can avoid this. One drawback to evacuating non-Muslims from lands being subjected to Islam's cultural genocide as Sulawesi now is is that it transmits the message to Islamic jihadists that they can get away with this--and once the non-Muslims are gone they will HAVE succeeded.

Our "Infidel in Indonesia" posted awhile back that Sulawesians were considering secession from Indonesia. If possible, that may be the way for them to go. I hope the Balinese, Ambonese, and Papuans succeed too. Then we can drop a few nukes on ol' Junk-Jakarta and be rid of this blight.

I have been to Sulawesi myself and deeply regret these tragic events.

tgusa:

Hitler's connections to Islam and the Middle east are well-documented. I am actually surprised that you have not read about this by now. You actually should be aware of this as it is a historical fact of WW2.

In "THE SWORD OF THE PROPHET" author Serge Trifkovic provides some background between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj el-Husseini and Hitler. el-Husseini was a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and visited the Third Reich frequently. On one of the grand Mufti's visits to Auschwitz he told the Nazi staffers there they weren't killing the Jews fast enough. el-Husseini also read a fatwa against Great Britain the day before Hitler began his blizting of London with V-2 rockets (which was most likely a practice run for attacks on the United States with V-2 rockets loaded with nuclear explosives as the third reich was then working on building the first atomic bomb). And by the way, el-Husseini's fatwa against the UK was almost wred-for-word the same as the one Ousamah bin Laden read abiast the United States in 1996.

Palestianian Arabs were also present in Berlin during the 1930s and conspired with the Nazis to design the concenetration camps that were intended to be used to exterminate the Jews (and in fact were).

Read up, pal. You need to know all this. All of us do.

Following are links regarding forced conversions

in Indonesia. These happened in different parts of a cluster of islands called the Molluccas, which is east of the island of Sulawesi/Celebes where Poso is located.

http://www.cirp.org/news/morningherald01-27-01/

http://www.worthynews.com/news-features/indonesia-ethnic-cleansing-8.html

http://www.zenit.org/english/archive/0012/ZE001215.htm#1524

http://www.jubileecampaign.co.uk/world/ind12.htm

Some say that the jihadist are aiming the Christians in Central Sulawesi, because from there they wanted to overtake the most northern part of Sulawesi, called Minahasa, where the local ethnic group in Minahasa, the Menadonese/Minahasans have been Christians for a long time. They used to be the majority in Minahasa, their own home, not anymore.

The Christian majority in Minahasa has been systematically diluted by the government by among others using their 'tgransmigration' program, which is a program where they relocate people from the most populous island in the world, Java, and also Madura, who are Muslims, to other parts of Indonesia that are not as crowded.

Even though there are other islands in west Indonesia which are still 'empty', like Sumatra, the population of which are Muslims also, yet, the government had relocated these Javanese/Madurese moslems to Minahasa in north Sulawesi, even though Minahasa is already pretty crowded!!!

Another way of diluting the Christian majority is by filling government positions, especially the top ones with people from Java, who bring their families, and lots of them stay on in Minahasa.

This is how Muslims take over an area, by slowly but surely using whatever means to bring their people in and after they have grown in numbers, they take control and if the original inhabitants protested, then they use force.

That is what had happened in Central Sulawesi. There are areas/villages that used to be majority Christians, but no more, or the Christians have left because of the violence against them.

I had read Brigitte Gabriele's book about life in Lebanon, and I saw a lot of similarities in her book. One of them is the time where she told about how the militias would stop a vhicle and check for people's ID to see what religion the ID holder belongs to (it is stated in the ID). This has happened in Indonesia also.

pythagoras,

it is true that some of the indigenous Minahasans who are Christians are talking about secession. If it happened it for sure is going to be one bloody affair.

People still remember when they tried to secede in the fifties if I'm not mistaken, Initially they had covert help from the US, but when Pope who was piloting one of the planes that helped the Minahasans was shot down, it came out in the open, the US turned around and the Minahasans were left to themselves.

The Indonesian army then had a free hand to ferociously and cruelly clamp down on the rebellion. I think even though this happened 50 some years ago, people still remember this.

Over the years the Indonesian army has not improved at all, remember how cruel they were even as they were leaving East Timor.

Dear Lame Cherry ,
I love your humor and wit.
But seriously!
IS GOD IN CONTROL? OR IS'NT HE?

pythagoras,
I’m talking way back in WWI when he was a corporal in the Kaisers Army, long before the stuff you mentioned. Sometime between 1914-1918 during his yout, years before mien crap or fuhrerdom. And Hitler, while he did contemplate combination sub/aviation attacks against America and he dreamed of a NY bomber he started the war 7 years before his military advisors, Carnaris, Donitz and others had recommended. Otherwise we would both be speaking German right now. Ask me a question and you will find, I have read up.

WWI jihad

So, in another words, diplomacy won't work ?

Posted by: jasmine

People still remember when they tried to secede in the fifties if I'm not mistaken, Initially they had covert help from the US, but when Pope who was piloting one of the planes that helped the Minahasans was shot down, it came out in the open, the US turned around and the Minahasans were left to themselves.

Pope was not helping the Minahasans,if you read the article below you will find out that the situation was quite the reverse.

It is not well known in the United States that the 1958 rebellion led to a major Indonesian civil war. The CIA-inspired uprising in Indonesia, unlike the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, was a full-scale military operation. The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 was made by a thin brigade of about 1,500 Cuban exiles trained by the CIA in Guatemala. But the 1958 Indonesian action involved no less than 42,000 CIA-armed rebels supported by a fleet of bombers and vast numbers of four-engine transport aircraft as well as submarine assistance from the U.S. Navy. It also involved a major training and logistical supporting effort on the part of the Philippines, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Singapore. But despite this massive armed force, the 1958 rebellion, like the Bay of Pigs invasion, was a total failure. Sukarno's army drove the rebels on Sumatra and Celebes into the sea.

There are some who might call the 1965 uprising a success. At least the rebels were not driven into the sea. However, for the United States it was a fantastically costly endeavor. The rebellion ended in the most massive and ruthless bloodbath since World War II. While the headlines in the United States dealt with the slaughter in Vietnam, the press of the rest of the world heaped blame on the United States for the barbaric massacre in Indonesia. The victorious new government of General Suharto proceeded to assassinate nearly one million people.

Prior to this Indonesia was the third largest communist nation after China,But Thanks to the USA helping Suharto the door was opened for the Islamists to take over.So screwing up in favour of the islamist is nothing new for the Americans

Below is an article from my files,I am sorry but I do not have a link,

The Indonesian campaign began rather casually as so many CIA ventures do. Few if any ever originate at the top.

During an unguarded conversation in Washington the Indonesian military attache mentioned earlier made it known to certain U.S. military acquaintances that there were many prominent and strong people in Indonesia who would be ready to rise against Sukarno if they were given a little support and encouragement from the United States. It happened that one of those U.S. military friends he talked to was not a military man at all, but a member of the CIA. The provocative words got back to Frank Wisner, then the Deputy Director of Plans. He was in charge of the CIA's clandestine activity and he authorized agents to follow up on that first conversation.

The Indonesian attache was wined and dined and encouraged to talk more. Reasons for the attache's return to Indonesia on official business were successfully arranged. He was accompanied by CIA agents traveling under the cover of "U.S. military" personnel. During this visit they spoke with rebel leaders. They learned enough about the potential strength of this opposition to encourage the CIA to set in motion its biggest operation up to that date.

In the Philippines there was a strong nucleus of military men, chief among them a Colonel Valeriano, who had been President Magsaysay's military assistant. He had also worked on paramilitary exercises with the CIA during the Magsaysay campaign against the leftist rebel Huk movement. This military group had gained considerable power during the Magsaysay tenure. Many of these special warfare experts from the Philippines had volunteered for duty in South Vietnam in 1955 when the CIA was deeply involved in providing undercover support for the new and uncertain regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem.

By early 1958 these Filipinos and their CIA counterparts were prepared to involve the Philippines in the rebellion against Sukarno by setting up special warfare "Green Beret" training bases and by providing the Indonesian revolutionary council with clandestine air bases. One of those bases was on Palawan, the most western island of the Philippine archipelago, in the vicinity of the airfield at Puerto Princessa on Honda Bay. The other base was on the big southern island of Mindanao, near Davao Gulf.

The agents outlined the Indonesian Plan, the Philippine support and training program, and told me about their own special operations staff that had been put together specifically for this vast project. Then they urgently requested light bombardment aircraft and long-range transport aircraft. We decided to take a number of twin engine B-26 aircraft out of mothball storage, put them through a retrofit line, and modify them so that they could be armed with a special 50-caliber machine gun package of eight guns, in the nose of the plane. This would give the B-26 more firepower than it ever had during the Korean War or World War II. The project was given top priority and covered in deep secrecy. Programs for pilot training and the recruitment of "mercenaries" were established.

Rebel Indonesians, trained and equipped in the Philippines, were returned to Sumatra. Some were air-dropped and others landed on the beach from submarines that the U.S. Navy was operating, in support of the CIA, in the oceans south of Indonesia near the Christmas Islands.

The war was on.

On Feb. 9, 1958, rebel Colonel Maluddin Simbolon issued an ultimatum in the name of a provincial government, the Central Sumatran Revolutionary Council, calling for the formation of a new central government. Sukarno refused and called upon his loyal army commander, General Abdul Haris Nasution, to destroy the rebel forces. By Feb. 21 loyal forces had been airlifted to Sumatra and had begun the attack. The rebel headquarters was in the southern coastal city of Padang. Rebel strongholds stretched all the way to Medan, near the northern end of the island and not far from Malaysia.

The rebellion flared sporadically from one end of Indonesia to the other.

While the CIA was supporting up to 100,000 rebels, the State Department professed innocence. The U.S. ambassador, Howard P. Jones, maintained that the United States had nothing to do with the rebellion and he protested the capture of the American oil properties. On the other hand, Sukarno had asked for more arms aid from the United States. He must have had strong suspicions about the source of rebel support. The vast number of guns, the bombers and heavy air transport aircraft dropping hundreds of tons of arms and equipment, as well as submarines supporting beach operations were just too sophisticated to be anything but major power ploys. Thus, his appeal for U.S. arms aid had the ring of gamesmanship.

Playing along with the game, John Foster Dulles issued a statement saying that the United States would not provide arms to either side. And while he was publishing that falsehood, the United States furnished and piloted B-26 bombers, and these were bombing shipping in the Makassar Straits. Some had even flown as far south as the Java Sea. Almost immediately all insurance rates on shipping to and from Indonesia went on a wartime scale and costs became so prohibitive that most shipping actually ceased. The bombing attacks, kept so quiet in the United States that they hardly made the news, were being viewed with great alarm by the rest of the world. What was "Top Secret" in Washington was barroom gossip in the capitals of the world.

The CIA was demanding so much support for its far-flung operations that a top-level committee was established in the Pentagon. Its purpose was to keep track of how much war equipment was being requested and sent to Indonesia. Not unlike the Lemnitzer-Shoup rifle problem, there were problems in the Pentagon because of the way the CIA requested equipment through phony "military" cover channels.

Early in this operation I had put some men from my office into the air-combat section in the Philippines, and the Air Force was reasonably well aware of what was going on. But that was not so for the other services. At the time, Admiral Arleigh Burke was the Chief of Naval Operations. He went one step further than we did. At the height of the rebel operations, Burke sent his Chief of Naval Intelligence, Admiral Luther Frost, to Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, where he stayed for several months carrying on a delicate relationship with the American ambassador and with the Indonesian naval chiefs. This, while U.S. Navy submarines were aiding the rebels south of Sumatra. It turned out to have been a masterful gambit because later, when the rebellion collapsed, the U.S. Navy was able to declare innocence. The Air Force was not so fortunate.

The pretense that the U.S. Government was in no way involved in this massive civil war against Sukarno was wearing thin. It was a reasonable cover as long as the United States could plausibly deny its role in the action. But one day, a lone B-26 out of the rebel CIA base at Menado, flying low over the Straits of Makassar, came upon an Indonesian ship -- an ideal target. The pilot banked to take a good run at the ship and began strafing it with those eight lethal .50-caliber machine guns. He was committed to the attack before he found out that the freighter was armed. The B-26 was hit and it ditched near the ship. The pilot, an American named Allan Lawrence Pope, was picked up. Pope was identified as a former U.S. Air Force pilot. The cork was out of the bottle. Sukarno had his proof of U.S. involvement and he played his ace card for an international audience. That one plane and that one pilot cost the U.S. Government tens of millions of dollars in ransom and tribute during the next several years.

After the capture of Pope the rebellion rapidly fell apart. Loyal forces captured Donggala in central Celebes. And on far away Halmahera, government forces captured Jailolo. That ended all opposition except for the CIA-rebel air base at Menado. With the rebellion all but crushed, except for the continued existence of the main CIA force, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ended the embargo of arms to Sukarno and agreed to send aid to the government of Indonesia! What wondrous duplicity! And Sukarno was not fooled. His forces had been fighting a major civil war inspired and clandestinely supported by the United States, while concurrently the overt branches of the U.S. Government acted as though nothing at all had happened.

By the end of June 1958 it was all over.

Actually, the 1958 civil war was child's play compared to the brutal bloodbath of 1965. Sukarno was in control after the 1958 disaster and he wrung a heavy tribute from the U.S. Government for its indiscretions. But in 1965 his game ended, like Allende's in Chile, with defeat. An attempted communist coup d'etat was defeated by General Suharto. Sukarno never made the great public statement that was to assure the success of the coup, and after its defeat and the ensuing bloodbath, he was stripped of his power. After a few years of ignominious house arrest the hero of all Indonesia died in 1970.

It is said that when the great volcanic mountain of Krakatoa in Indonesia blew up causing the greatest explosion the world had ever known, the dust of Indonesia was spread all over the world. The holocausts of 1958 and 1965 may have done the same thing.

Its no problem for Jakarta to kill a few Jihadis
so as to enable millions in aid to keep flowing,and the rest of Indonesia goes from Meccan Islam to Medinian Islam.

Last week, 102 Black African slaves were liberated from Baggara Arab masters and returned to their homeland in Southern Sudan in an action supported by Christian Solidarity International (CSI).

Most of the liberated slaves - mainly boys and young men - had been captured by Sudanese government-sponsored Arab militias during two decades of civil war, pitting the Arab-Muslim dominated Government of Sudan against the predominantly Black African Sudan People’s Liberation Front (SPLA).

Interviews reveal a strong pattern of physical and psychological abuse. The overwhelming majority of the liberated slaves had been subjected to beatings, racial and religious insults, forced labor and denial of the freedom to practice any religion other than Islam. Most of the girls and women had been subjected to sexual abuse. Among the slaves were:
16-year-old Agor Deng: Agor was repeatedly raped by her master, Adam Abakir and his associates. Adam Abakir and his wife excised her finger nails with a knife after she failed to obey an order to grind grain. They also forced her, using death threats, to pray like a Muslim.

30-year-old Garang Akot Wiir: Garang’s right arm and leg were partially paralyzed after having been beaten and tied up tightly for 24 hours as punishment for attempting to escape. He was renamed Abdelrazik Ezzadin by his master.

45-year-old Achol Loc Wiel: Achol was shot in her leg during a slave raid. She also lost her husband and three children during the slave raid and forced march to Northern Sudan. Achol was gang raped by her master’s friends. She was also forced to abandon the practice of her Christian faith and pray like a Muslim.

Horrific and totally ignored by teh MSM.

jasmine, thanks for the links.

Regarding Indonesia: Hey, Just like buzzards, gators and crocs got to eat too you know!!

If you want to throw one on the barby, make sure you bacon wrap him first.

REMOTE::::

"Forced Conversions, Circumcision in Moluccas

January 19, 2001

Conflict in the Moluccas is set to enter a third year with no end to the
violence in sight. Disturbing new reports suggest Christian communities are
facing forcible conversion and circumcision, adding a new dimension to a
conflict that has already caused untold suffering. By conservative
estimates at least 5000 have been killed and a further 500,000 displaced.
Whilst the majority of Moluccans wish to see the conflict resolved, Islamist
extremists and elements in the government and armed forces are widely
believed to be behind the continuing violence.

FORCED CONVERSIONS
In a disturbing new development, hundreds of Christian families are being
forced to convert to Islam or face death. Entire Christians villages are
currently held captive by militants in East Seram, Keswui and Teor Islands
facing the daily threat of violence.

A disturbing pattern is emerging. Christian villagers receive an ultimatum
to convert to Islam or face being killed. The Christians are told that they
will be safe as long as they convert to Islam. Men are often separated from
their families and kept under guard, whilst women and children are taken in
by local Muslims. On a number of occasions, they have been taken to the
local mosque, given 'religious training', and forced to adopt a Muslim name.
Muslim militants have also targeted survivors of previous attacks who were
hiding in the jungle.

CIRCUMCISION OF NEW CONVERTS
Eyewitness reports tell of men and children forcibly circumcised without
painkillers and using dirty instruments. Refugees from Keswui report that
many of the Christians there were circumcised with the same razor blade
causing heavy bleeding. The Christians were then told to wash in the sea to
disinfect their wounds.

Particularly disquieting are reports of women forced to undergo female
genital mutilation (FGM), a barbaric practice that has been condemned
worldwide.

According to the Crisis Centre Diocese of Amboina, a human rights
information centre, many of the circumcised Christians need urgent medical
attention. As many as 473, out of a total of 692 Catholics in Keswui, have
been forced to convert to Islam. The fate of the remaining 219 Catholics is
unknown.

The information CSW has received suggests that the predominantly Protestant
Christian population of Seram is the current target of the Jihad militants.

Whilst the Indonesian government has acknowledged these forced conversions
and has sent investigation teams to Keswui and Teor, it has yet to take
sufficient measures to successfully evacuate the Christian captives.

In the meantime, hundreds of Christians and their families are being forced
to deny their faith and are being held against their will, facing the threat
of violence.

LASKAR JIHAD (Jihad Force)
Laskar Jihad, claiming over 10,000 members, has sent thousands of jihad
'warriors' into the Moluccas. According to Government officials, up to 2000
members of this Muslim militant group still remain in the Moluccas. Despite
repeated government statements that these militants will not be allowed
access to the islands, members appear to be able to travel freely into the
area and act with impunity. Over 400 Jihad warriors arrived in the Moluccas
on November 11 alone.

Of particular concern is the freedom with which the leader of the Jihad
force, Abdul Jaffar Umar Thalib, is able to travel to and from the Moluccas.
His inflammatory speech at a mosque in Ambon during his September visit
re-ignited the violence after a slight lull in August. Laskar Jihad has
threatened to bring the violence to the streets of Jakarta should the
government take action to curtail its activities.

Evidence suggests that Laskar Jihad receives assistance from elements in the
government and the armed forces as well as from international Islamist
movements.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Stuart Windsor, National Director of CSW, spoke of his concern for those
caught up in the violence. "Our thoughts and prayers are with all those
suffering, whether through the loss of a loved one or the confusion and pain
of displacement. It is imperative that the international community acts
decisively and compassionately to help bring this conflict and suffering to
an end. Whilst the Indonesian government has tried to resolve the conflict
peacefully, it is clearly evident that peace and reconciliation efforts have
little chance of success unless the members of the militant organisation,
Laskar Jihad, and other outside provocateurs, are removed from the area".

CSW is calling for Western governments to provide assistance for the
immediate evacuation to safety of those threatened with forced conversion.

CSW also calls on the Western government to urge the Indonesian Government
to allow for international assistance in the Moluccas; and to facilitate the
sending of human rights monitors to the area as a matter of urgency.

A representative of the Moluccan Christian community in the UK concurs
stating: "After 2 years of fighting, despite mediation and reconciliation
efforts, surely there is a role now for the international community to step
in and assist the Indonesian government to maintain peace in Moluccas and to
investigate the large-scale human rights violations being committed there."

For further information, photos, video footage and a campaign sheet, please
contact CSW offices on tel.+44 208 942 8810/fax. +44 208 942 8821.

Source: CSW sources, Masariku Network, Crisis Centre Diocese of Amboina"

SE-Asia is considered as a relatively easy target for Muslims and the Jihad, according to a Pakistani's remarks.

Even the Thai interims prime minister is nearly half way to the truth, read what he said today.
http://www.civoc.com/society/?p=158

THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO UNITY!
AT LEAST WE MUST THAT THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD?

???? WHAT IF -GOD NEVER SPOKE???

"Terrorism experts say dormant Java-based cells of the organisation seem to have been reactivated by US and Australian-trained anti-terrorist squad attacks on militant strongholds near the Sulawesi town of Poso, 1700 kilometres east of Jakarta."

This is almost too perfect.

Terrorism, apparently, is caused by fighting it.

It's like one of those drawings where bridges cross gaps go over stairs that go over the bridge, which is actually under the gap.

exsgtbrown, thanks for that story.

On a broader note, a question to anybody here -- I've always wondered why it was historically that Islam was able to conquer South Asia (Persia, India), great parts of Central Asia, great parts of the fringes of SE Asia, but never seemed to have successfully penetrated up through to take all of what is now known as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and further on to Japan and China. (Perhaps the Muslim inability to take China is another one of those large chunks of history that few Western historians have written about -- perhaps there were many centuries of attempts of the Islamicized Central Asiatic Khans to conquer China, which all failed, but which had a great effect on the formation of China?)

The fact that the Christian church has adopted Javanese dress and customs is a good, and possibly important in the long term, sign that Christianity is a real living faith in Java. The contrast with Islam is clear. While originally Islam in Indonesia was highly syncretic and accomodating of earlier traditions it is progressively becoming Arabised, a barren desert cult of meaningless ritual piled on meaningless ritual, and losing touch with the ancient Javanese traditions.

Indonesia is indeed Muslim dominated. The proportion of Muslims in the population is figured anywhere from 80 to 95% although I incline to the lower number. The question which occupies us is to what extent are these some 200 millions of people truly Muslim, to what extent do they have any idea of what their religion means, even broadly, and what that religion says about politics and freedom.

The reality is that most Indonesian Muslims are quite ignorant of their faith. The former President of Indonesia, and a Muslim cleric, Gus Dur, put it more bluntly: “most Indonesians know nothing of their religion”. What they in fact do know are the rituals, the meaningless, archaic movements of the hands and other silliness.

The percentage of Muslims in Indonesia who have read the Quran in any detail is very small. What they understand about their faith can only be very limited and I believe it is limited mostly to a sense of belonging to a wider group, the umma, and that this belonging will entitle them to reward in the afterlife. As long as they follow the rituals they are Muslims.

The actual details of the religion, and specifically what it says about how societies should be governed are little known. The Quran leaves much open and it has fallen to scholars throughout the ages to interpret it, and make Islamic provisions for matters which are not dealt with in the holy book. Of the writings of this classical Islamic canon Indonesians are even more ignorant.

When Islam penetrated Indonesia it did so in a relatively gentle way. Existing faiths were accommodated and this resulted in a uniquely syncretic faith, particularly in the villages of east and central Java, and in inland areas generally. Many of the “Muslims” concerned here were, and some still are, essentially “pagans” with Islamic ritual grafted onto their indigineous Javanese beliefs.

However on coastal areas, and in Aceh, a purer form of Islam took hold, one which entirely rejected the earlier traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. As an old time communist would say, it is no accident that one of these regions, Aceh, became the first part of Indonesia to institute sharia law.

As time has moved on the syncretic form of Islam has gradually been losing out to the stricter kind, as reformists seek to harmonise Indonesian Islam with the “true”, authentic middle eastern form. Indonesia is thus in the (perhaps early) stages of Arabisation and it is our view that in time the moderate Islam that Indonesia is so famous for will be a memory only, a memory cherished by those useful idiots in the West who are so desperate to avert their eyes from the true nature of the Islamic cult.

Also the Muslims certainly do seem to have a “grievance with the modern world” and many among them would no doubt like to obliterate it and return to the slavery of the golden age of medieval Islam. A fossil like Islam will never be comfortable in the modern world and will only survive it by radically changing.

Copyright Indonesia Matters 2005-06

"When Islam penetrated Indonesia it did so in a relatively gentle way."

I have heard this a lot over the past 25 years (ever since I first took a class on comparative religions in a major American university back in the early 1980s), but I am suspicious of its veracity. First of all, I have never seen any evidence for this claim.

Secondly, we Jihad Watchers over the past few years, as we have been matriculating our Learning Curve about Islam, have seen one after another "fact" about the history of Islam demonstrated cogently to be myths (the Myth of Andalus, the Myth of the Crusades, the Myth of Islam as the Font of all (or most) Science & Philosophy, the Myth of the Tolerant Ottoman Empire, etc.).

Apparently, the Islamic takeover of Indonesia (and other archipelagos of Insulindia) did not involve massive military assaults along the lines of the Islamic takeovers of the Middle East, North Africa, Spain, SE Europe, Persia and India -- but that is easy to explain: Societies of Indonesia (and other archipelagos of Insulindia) were, in the 10th century, extremely simple and primitive, and so they would be a pushover to a takoever that was not officially and massively military.

But just because the takevoers were not officially and massively military, that does not mean that violence was not involved. Knowing Muslims as we do, it is highly unlikely that they took over "gently" -- but rather integrated low-level violence (threats, assassinations, intimidations, lynchings here and there, "forced conversions" as we are even seeing now in certain islands, etc.) as part of their general Islamicization of the Islands.

Shiva:

Suharto was definitely a butcher. But referring to him as an 'Islamist' is inaccurate.

For example, Suharto reportedly during the 1970s used the Indonesian Armed Forces to chase the notoriously militant Islamic terrorist abu Baker Bashir out of Indonesia all the way to Malaysia, and repeatedly used the Armed Forces cracked down on Islamist uprisings across Java throughout the 1980s. In 1988, the Suharto regime killed more than 300 Islamists at a madrassa located in the Sunatran province of Lampung; that madrassa I have read had been set up by al-Qaeda and was intended to be a headquarters for turning Indonesia into a base for the global jihad that is now in progress. Suharto did stop that (only temporarily).

One thing to note about the Suharto dictatorship: poor as its human rights record was (about a 30% out of 100% on the Amnesty International scale; most Islamic countries score below 25%) it was considerably worse in
most Islamic and Communist-bloc states. Admittedly that is not saying much. But that may have been the best Indonesians were going to get given the political climate they inhabited. That is the curse any state pays for being tethered to the Kuran.

The United States DID intervene in Indonesian politics during the 1950s and most likely that was to help keep pro-Soviet Indonesian politicians from ensuring the Soviets gained a toehold in the archipelago (some indonesians may have wnated the US to do this, believe it or not). Communism is not much of an improvement over Islam and in the twentieth century is responsible for the massacre of over 100 million people and kept millions in dire impoverishment (ask anyone form poland's agenda to keep Indonesia from falling behind the Iron Curtain was not necessarily an evil. And Suharto, whatever else aned however he managed it, at least did keep Indonesia from becoming an Islamist state and/or a Communist state.

I might agree with your points, except that it is not clear that the Indonesian political landscape offered anything else to work with besides Islam and Communism at that time. Sukarno, let it be known, had been long playing the Communist card and was ready to turn the archipelago into a Soviet base like Castro was to do with Cuba. Do you think this wold have ben a good development in international affairs? What in Soviet ideology do you suppose did humanity any good in the twentieth century??By the way, i have also read that Sukarno had been pro-Imperial Japan during WW2. So it may have been good that he turned out NOT to be the "dictator for life" heopenly was aspiring to be!!!

Whatever. Aat least Indonesia did not become a long-term hotbed of Communism and Islamism under Suharto. Neither was much of an option. Suharto wasn't either, but Indonesia didn't manage to provide itself with alternatives. Also, had indonesia become a Communist have like Cuba there may have trouble in store for neighboring Australia--a Capitalist, democratic state which would have been at loggerheads with a Communist-Islamic dictatorship in Indonesia.

Indonesia's losing battle against jihadist Islam in the late 1990s, according to Abu Baker Bashir has been one waged against Indonesia by the Middle East for over 1000 years (those are HIS words incidentally). All this was emerging under Suharto's iron-fisted reign and as far as I can see Suharto was trying to suppress Islamism in Indonesia and in this he ultimately failed--probably because of Middle Eastern elements that had begun entering the archipelago in starting in the late 1980s, and had underestimated them I think.

PS-I have never bought the idea that Islam penetrated Indonesia peacefully. I think it started with an Arab invasion of the Central portion of Java in the late 900s AD, a period for which no information is available (which in itself I find suspicious, epsecially when it was Islam that replaced these kingdoms). To the best of my knowledgethere is no place on earth that Islamicized of its own accord; Islam seems inherently something that is forced on people!
Whenever Islam takes over ANYWHERE there is always reason to suspect JIHAD!!!!!!!!-- Indonesia included).

There are several things that do NOT add up which indicates that your version of Islam's history in indonesia may not be correct.

First, there is the troubling demise of the great Hindu-Buddhist Javanese Kingdoms. There were no great temples built there after 966 AD. The volcanic eruption of Merapi that COULD have destroyed the Srivijayas and Sailendras occurred in approximately 1006 AD decades later than the last temple of which these kingdoms were do fond of erecting. There was also a matter of Central Java having experienced a population collapse sometime during this period; this too is unaccounted for. An Arab jihadist invasion could very well explain all this. Merapi's humongous eruption in 1006 AD would have eliminated any evidence of this having happened.

Then later, with the East Javanese Mojopahit Empire around 1300 AD, there was the troubling presence of Arabs who supposedly were not in the archipelago until at least 75 years later (according to most historical accounts). How did these people get to East Java? Why is there nothing written about them either? Suppose they had been in Java since the 900s and expunged accounts of how Islam REALLY entered the archipelago from all records (which I am sure is what really took place).

Shiva: The second sentence of the fourth paragraph in my post should have read as follows:

"Ask anyone from Poland about that. Thus the CIA's agenda to keep Indonesia from falling behind the Iron Curtain may not have been an evil."

I still stand by that.

My apologies however for the poor editing (I do not always have sufficient time to edit my posts properly, which is frustrating).

Sincerely,

Pythagoras.

Sorry to join this late but I live in Manado and there are still more Buddhists in North Sulawesi than Muslims. Most Muslims here are from Gorontalo and not from Java as Soeharto's transmigration policy did not work here. The Muslims that are from Java usually work for the government or belong to the military (TNI). We have anti-jihad watches here and we are prepared to expel the Muslims back to Gorontalo. They know this as well. This is Christian territory and anyone telling you otherwise is full of shit.

99.99% of Christians and Muslims in the Poso/Palu region want peace. It's the Islamic militants leftover from before combined with JI and other Indonesian terrorist/militant groups sending idiots to continue the fighting. Hopefully Densus 88 will clean out the scum. The problem is every uneducated jihadi wannabe is going to probably head to Sulawesi Tengah now. They couldn't get to Lebanon to fight against Israel so now they will try to fight against the police in Poso. Islamotard Abu Bakr Ba'asyir has basically called for a jihad against the police. It would be interesting to hear what he preached today. I blame Soeharto for not catching Ba'asyir before and executing him. Just one more reason I hate Soeharto.

Sulawesi Utara is 95% Christian, 3% Buddhist, and 2% Muslim. That is the true local census and not the bullshit one that the government spews. Minahasa is not diluted by Muslims and never will be. This is Christian territory. Our news on the radio comes from BBC Indonesia. We support America and Australia first before Indonesia.