Dare to Speak: Islam vs Free Democracy and Free Enterprise (I)
Section 7.
The House of Islam’s Relationships with non-Islamic Nations
East Timor
While East Timor’s struggle to repel an invasion by Indonesia appears to be victorious at the moment, it had suffered overt Islamic aggression from Indonesia for 24 years. Its story is summarized by the following report:
Last Indonesian Ship Leaves E. Timor
By Laura King, Associated Press, Washington Post, October 30, 1999
DILI, East Timor –– …Indonesian troops [in] a gray troop-transport ship slowly pulled away from the harbor early Sunday, quietly ending the 24-year occupation of this former Portuguese colony that left thousands dead.
Their departure from East Timor marks the end of a long and fruitless struggle by the world’s most populous Muslim nation to subdue a small, stubbornly separatist Roman Catholic province on its eastern fringe.
The story of East Timor’s struggle against Islamic aggression began almost immediately after it expelled its Portuguese colonizers on December 7, 1975. Just weeks later, Indonesia smashed East Timor’s new freedom with a bloody invasion, followed by a violent occupation, which was summarized in the United Nations’ Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on East Timor.[1] The following are excerpts from the UN report:
7. On November 12, 1991, Indonesian forces shot into a crowd of people who had gathered at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili for a memorial service for a youth shot dead by the Indonesian National Army (TNI) in an incident on 28 October 1991. The number of mourners killed at the Santa Cruz cemetery is not clear…
8. For the last several years, the Commission on Human Rights…had been concerned with the serious human rights violations in East Timor, relating to continuing allegations of extrajudicial killings, torture, “disappearances” and acts of sexual violence attributed to members of the TNI and pro-government militias…
9. …in late 1998 and early 1999, new militia groups were established in East Timor by the Indonesian authorities who reportedly portrayed the emergence of new militia groups as a spontaneous reaction against the activities of supporters of independence.
10. In January 1999, President Habibie offered East Timor substantial autonomy, or independence if the offer of autonomy was rejected…
During the months between President Habibie’s offer and the actual vote on August 30, 1999, the situation became extremely violent. According to the UN report:
34. The members of the International Commission of Inquiry were confronted with testimonies surpassing their imagination.
…
37. …President Habibie’s proposal in January 1999 for greater autonomy or independence for the Territory coincides with an increase in militia activity there.
38. Intimidation by the militia groups was often in the form of burning houses, destruction of property and beatings. The men fled to the hills and the women who remained behind were harassed and in some instances sexually abused.
…
41. In April, several hundred internally displaced people had sought refuge in the church in Liquicia. There is evidence that on 5 April a person was killed in the church and that militia and TNI were jointly responsible for this killing.
On 6 April…, militia and Indonesian army personnel went on a shooting spree at the church resulting in several deaths. A witness testified that he was engaged by TNI to remove 15 bodies from the site and dispose of them in the lake in Maubara.
According to…a nurse in a hospital in Dili, six injured persons were brought from Liquicia to the hospital. She described a young woman who had been stabbed in the back and neck. A man had his right ear cut off and had stab wounds at the back, arms and shoulder.
…
48. …Another witness testified that her husband, who had sought refuge in Manual Carrascalao’s house, was killed on that day. Yet another witness testified that on 19 April, 11 bodies were brought in a truck and he was asked to bury them near Maubara Lake. According to him these bodies were from the killing that took place in Manual Carrascalao’s house.
…
75. The Commission visited the site of the massacre that took place at the Suai church on 6 September. At the time of the massacre, several hundred persons had sought refuge in the church. In the incident, three priests – Father Dewanto, Father Francisco and Father Hilario – were killed. Accounts of the militia and TNI removing the bodies of those killed in the church have now been corroborated with the exhumation in West Timor of 26 bodies alleged to be victims of the killings in Suai church…
…
84. An eyewitness testified that on 12 April 1999…people were forced to stand in a line by militia and TNI and then to kneel and pray. Then they were killed with automatic guns and pistols. The dead bodies were thrown on a truck and driven away…Twenty-two bodies were found later, 13 of them in one grave.
The religious overtones of these atrocities are obvious. Finally, on August 30, 1999, with a 99% turnout, over 78% of the voters of Catholic East Timor chose independence from Islamic Indonesia. In October, under the watchful eyes of the UN and the world, Indonesia evacuated its military from East Timor.
The Philippines
The Philippines has a long history of contention between Muslims (called Moros, from Moor, the Spanish term for Muslim) and Christians. This began in the 1400s, when several native tribes in the southern islands converted to Islam. The spread of Islam was partially accomplished by capturing and enslaving natives from the northern islands, and then bringing them south and pressuring them to convert. This Islamicization of the Philippines was interrupted by the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in 1571, who began to colonize the Philippines and convert natives to Christianity, also often by force. Their efforts succeeded over the Muslims in large part due to superior weapons, particularly after the arrival of steam ships in the mid-1800s.
In 1898, the U.S.S. Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor, [2] launching the Spanish-American War. Months later, the U.S. purchased the Philippines from Spain for $20 million, as part of the war’s settlement at the Treaty of Paris.
The U.S. continued Spain’s Christianization effort, but switched to less coercive methods. American administrators encouraged Christians from the northern islands to emigrate to the southern ones, which had historically been Islamic. They also encouraged southern Filipinos to study in Manila and taught them Western methods of politics, economics and social life.
During the American period, slavery was abolished, and highways, schools, and hospitals were built throughout the southern islands. The Moros, however, fought these changes, claiming that the Americans intended to make them inferior to Christian Filipinos. Their resistance continues to this day, in the form of guerrilla warfare against the Western-style Philippine government. [3]
In the War on Terror, the Philippines have been paralyzed by fears of reprisals by the Moros. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has refused to label the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) a terrorist organization, because she fears that doing so would drive them from ongoing negotiations and incite retaliatory attacks. [4] Also, when Iraqi insurgents captured a Filipino and held him hostage in July 2004, demanding that the Philippines leave, Arroyo quickly withdrew the Philippines’ 600 troops from the Coalition of the Willing. [5] Presumably, this capitulation came from fears that defiance of the hostage-takers would invite Moro retaliation.
Has this timidity helped the Philippines end its Islamic insurgency? A recent article answers this question by describing rebel activities in 2005:
Terrorists Train for Seaborne Attacks
By Jim Gomez, Associated Press Writer, March 17, 2005
MANILA, Philippines — Two of the most dangerous al-Qaida-linked groups in Southeast Asia are working together to train militants in scuba diving for seaborne terror attacks, according to the interrogation of a recently captured guerrilla.
The ominous development is outlined in a Philippine military report…that also notes increasing collaboration among the Muslim militants in other areas, including financing and explosives, as extremists plot new ways to strike.
In the past year, the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah has given Abu Sayyaf militants in the Philippines at least $18,500 for explosives training alone…
…
Authorities fear scuba divers could target ships with more accuracy than a small explosive-laden boat like the one used in the USS Cole blast that killed 17 sailors in 2000 in Yemen.
According to the Philippine report, an Abu Sayyaf suspect in a deadly bus bombing in Manila on Feb. 14 named Gamal Baharan described how he and other seasoned guerrillas took scuba diving lessons as part of a plot for an attack at sea.
Thailand
To fully appreciate that Islamic hatred is not limited to Israel, or America, or Europe, or Christianity, or Judaism, but targets any government or religion in the House of War, consider what Muslim fundamentalists are doing in southern Thailand, a Buddhist nation that has never been colonized by the West. As reported by Agence Presse France:
Elderly Buddhist beheaded in Thailand’s restive Muslim south
By Anusak Konglang, AFP, May 29, 2004
Bangkok, Thailand – …It was the first decapitation in the violence, which has claimed some 190 lives since January, police said.
Sieng Patkaoe, 63, was attacked by men with machetes early Saturday as he tapped rubber trees on his plantation in the southern province of Narathiwat…
Sieng’s severed head was left along a village road. His body, found some 60 metres (yards) away, had a note pinned to it threatening more killings, police said.
“If innocent Malayu (the predominant ethnic group in the Muslim south) continue to be arrested, we will murder more Buddhists,” police quoted the note as saying…
The victim had no conflict with neighbours, police said.
The killing marks a new level of brutality in the violence, mainly blamed on Muslim separatists, that has plagued southern Thailand this year.
In addition to decapitating religious leaders, Muslim rebels in this Buddhist country also engage in their depressingly familiar tactic of attacking grade schools and sowing anarchy, as the New York Times reported on July 6, 2005:
Schools in Thailand Under Ethnic Siege
By Seth Mydans, International Herald Tribune
YALA, Thailand – …In an escalating campaign of violence here in the largely Muslim south of mostly Buddhist Thailand, government-run schools and the teachers who work in them have become particular targets of bombs and gunmen.
In the past year and a half, dozens of schools have been damaged or destroyed by arson. The local teachers union said 18 teachers had been killed…in the three most dangerous southern provinces, an average of one a month…
A long-simmering separatist movement in this former Malay sultanate lies at the heart of the violence, hand in hand with resentment at discrimination against Muslims and attempts at forced assimilation by the government.
…
More than 700 people have died since the level of violence rose sharply in January 2004, including nearly 200 in two mass killings by the military that have caused widespread resentment here.
…
Just 10 percent of Thailand’s population of 63 million is Muslim, with most of them clustered here in the south, where they live side by side with Buddhists. The teachers who have been killed include people of both religions.
…
The whole rhythm of life is changing in the south, Ms. Duangporn said. “Everything happens in daylight,” she said. “At night, everybody stays home…”
The economy is collapsing as well. Wholesale buyers no longer come to the fruit and fish markets or buy fabric and clothing. The government is subsidizing part of the economy by buying local produce.
According to a local newspaper, as many as 10,000 workers could lose their jobs as the military shuts down rock quarry operations in order to prevent the theft of explosives…
Thailand’s trials again reveal that Islamic justifications for attack are mere pretexts. If it is not support for Israel, then it is America’s presence in Saudi Arabia. If it is not a French ban on head scarves, then it is Danish cartoons of Muhammad. In the case of Thailand’s Buddhists, their crime is to have the audacity to rule over Muslims, while they themselves commit the unforgivable sin of shirk, otherwise known as polytheism.
Another interesting point about the Islamic insurgency in Thailand is that one of its supporters is Jemaah Islamiyah, [6] just as in the Philippines. Jemaah Islamiyah is also responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings that targeted Western tourists in Indonesia. What is most remarkable about this Pan-Islamist organization is that its host country, Indonesia, refused to label it a terrorist group for many years, and did so only after an attack on its own territory. In October 2003, an Associated Press article entitled Terror Group Filling the Void[] noted:
… Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri and other national leaders don’t publicly mention Jemaah Islamiyah by name in the country, which is home to more Muslims than any other nation, roughly 200 million.
And the government has not declared Jemaah Islamiyah a terrorist organization – making it impossible to prosecute membership in it as a crime – and has refused to shut down Islamic boarding schools associated with militants…
Perhaps what most startling is not that Indonesia shields Islamic terrorist groups, but that apologists for Islam hold up Indonesia as a progressive Islamic state. If Indonesia is progressive, it is only in comparison to nations like Somalia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. The following article displays Indonesia’s true colors:
One in 10 Indonesians back suicide bombings
Reuters, MSNBC News, March 16, 2006
JAKARTA – Eleven percent of the people in Indonesia [more than 20 million]…believe suicide attacks against civilian targets are sometimes justifiable, a survey said on Thursday.
…
The survey also revealed that 8 percent [over 16 million] support masterminds of past suicide bombings, including Noordin M. Top, the most wanted terror suspect in Indonesia…
…
Anti-terror campaigns in Indonesia have faced hurdles, including perceptions the United States is out to attack Islam, as well as the ample space given to militant voices and their sympathizers in the Indonesian media.
Support for shariah
The survey also found that almost half the respondents [about 100 million] back stoning, as a punishment for adulterers, while support for other extreme elements of Islamic shariah was also significant…
REFERENCES FOR SECTION 7:
[1] Published by Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland, Copyright 1996-2000. Presented to the General Assembly on January 31, 2000. This report can be found at http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/(Symbol)/A.54.726,+S.2000.59.En.
[2] At the time, there was high tension between Spain and both Cuba and the U.S. Cuba wanted independence, and the U.S. opposed European interference in the Americas. The explosion of the U.S.S. Maine was attributed to a mine in the harbor. Subsequent investigations have called this explanation into doubt, and suggest a mishap with the ship’s steam boiler.
[3] Sources:
1. Southern Philippines Question – The Challenge of Peace and Development, by Eliseo R. Mercado, Notre Dame Press, Cotabato City, 1999.
2. Decolonization and Filipino Muslim Identity, by Samuel K. Tan, Journals and Publications Division – University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, 1985.
3. Roots of Conflict. Muslims, Christians and the Mindanao Struggle, by Rosalita Tolibas-Nuñez, Asian Institute of Management Washington SyCip Policy Forum, Washington DC, 1997.
[4] The Evolution of Philippine Muslim insurgency, by Marco Garrido, Asia Times. March 6, 2003.
[5] Ex-hostage reunited with family, Contributors: Maria Ressa and Caroline Faraj, CNN, July 21, 2004.
[6] Thailand PM: Hambali was Plotting, Associated Press, CBS News, August 16, 2003. Note: Hambali, an Indonesian whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, is the leader of Jemaah Islamiyah.
[7] Terror Group Filling the Void, Associated Press, CBS News, October 17, 2003.
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