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Radical group claims coordination with police, military
One day in the 2015 fasting month, the field commander of the Yogyakarta chapter of the Indonesian Islamic Front (FUI), Muhammad Fuad Andreago, led dozens of his men to stage a rally at the Gunung Kidul regent’s office, 40 kilometers to the east
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One day in the 2015 fasting month, the field commander of the Yogyakarta chapter of the Indonesian Islamic Front (FUI), Muhammad Fuad Andreago, led dozens of his men to stage a rally at the Gunung Kidul regent’s office, 40 kilometers to the east.
Their mission: Asking her to reject the local Catholics’ application for a permit to build a grotto in the northern village of Sengonkerep. Before they marched to Gunung Kidul, they met with leaders of the Yogyakarta office of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and demanded a formal ban of Shia.
An umbrella for a host of notorious Islamic vigilante groups in Yogyakarta, the FUI is highly active and has no fear of prosecution because it coordinates with the police and military, or so it loves to claim.
During the controversy surrounding the screening of Senyap (Silent), a documentary on the 1965 tragedy, the FUI forced the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) Yogyakarta and Gadjah Mada University (UGM) to cancel the movie screening on their campuses, although the event was strictly meant for academic purposes.
Fuad has defended his actions, which have been widely condemned as intolerant, on the pretext that FUI needs to help the short-staffed state apparatuses carry out their countless jobs.
Moreover, he knows police and military officers often lack confidence when handling certain cases, apparently for fear of losing their jobs if anything goes wrong. It is at this point, he said, that the authorities need the help of civil organizations like FUI.
“We have become part of the control mechanism,” said Fuad, who is running for deputy mayor in next year’s regional elections, at the forum’s headquarters in Yogyakarta.
Billed as Yogyakarta’s most solid Islamic vigilante-style group, FUI targets what its members see as “Christianization”, prostitution, LGBT communities, “misguided [Muslim] sects” like the Shia and Ahmadiyah and activities they perceive as “promoting communism”. Fuad claims he coordinates with the police and the military for every mission.
Set up out of concern about the uncoordinated Islamic groups in the city, now the FUI oversees 120 paramilitary units, some 80 of which are affiliated with the Islamist United Development Party (PPP).
In addition to the FUI, Yogyakarta hosts numerous other vigilante groups — religious-based or otherwise — that have won notoriety for their intolerant actions: the Islamic Jihad Front (FJI), the Pancasila Youth, the Communication Forum of Indonesian Veterans’ Children (the FKPPI, an association of families of military and police veterans), Paksi Katon, Laskar Jogja and the Indonesian Anti-Communist Front (FAKI). They were accorded an audience with Governor Hamengkubuwono in the wake of last month’s incident in which police and violent groups brutally stopped Papuan students from staging a pro-independence street rally.
But in fact the various groups are not as united as they look. They disagree on some issues, resulting in occasional physical conflicts. Now, Fuad said he is planning to barge into several “places of ill repute” defended by groups rival to the FUI.
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“Such organizations cannot be banned; they will reappear by other names anyway,”
The various vigilante groups operate on different turfs, often as rivals. True to experts’ assertion that they are groomed by political and economic elites to help protect their resources, their members are present in major establishments like hotels, entertainment centers, upscale housing complexes, bus terminals and malls, usually as “security personnel” or parking attendants.
“In the past, establishments used the service of groups affiliated with the PPP and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle [PDI-P]. Now, hotels and apartments prefer using the services of professional security agencies belonging to the police and the military because the [vigilante] groups are prone to conflicts,” said Fuad, an ex-chairman of the Ka’bah Youth Movement affiliated to the PPP.
Apart from their religious motives, organizations like the FUI also enjoy the “pie” of the burgeoning tourism industry in Yogyakarta. The FUI uses its cooperative to administer a major tourist bus terminal and parking lots at business districts in the city, such as the iconic Malioboro.
The FUI started its lucrative businesses in 2008 after the then Yogyakarta mayor, Herry Zudianto, initiated empowerment programs for the masses. With it, he allowed civic groups to take part in the management of strategic places in the city.
The mushrooming intolerant groups in the city of “peaceful heart” has been blamed for increasing cases of violence that tarnish its image as a melting pot that attracts people of all backgrounds from across Indonesia.
Yenni Wahid, director of the Jakarta-based rights group Wahid Institute, calls for legal action against people resorting to violence regardless of the ideology they use as a pretext. As the Indonesian Constitution guarantees freedom of association, banning bad organizations as some people are seeking will only make a mockery of democracy.
“Such organizations cannot be banned; they will reappear by other names anyway,” she says. “It is their members who trample on the laws that must be prosecuted,” said Yenny, who was only recently named co-chair of the US-Indonesia Council on Religion and Pluralism.
