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enggulun subdistrict in Selokuro, Lamongan, East Java, was once infamous because of the October 2002 arrests of three Bali bombers, brothers Ali Gufron, Amrozi and Ali Imron, known as the Trio Tenggulun.

Now, 15 years later, the subdistrict attracted public attention again after more than 40 former terrorist inmates and combatants from various conflict areas, including Afghanistan and Mindanau in the Philippines, gathered there to vow loyalty to Indonesia and promised to help fight extremism.

“I have promised to preach, voicing peace. I want to help the government, persuade others to repent and together develop Indonesia,” Agus Martin, alias Hasan, 36, said recently. Agus was imprisoned for committing acts of terror in Poso, Central Sulawesi, and Ambon, Maluku.

Agus said he chose not to return to his home village in Bekasi, West Java, to avoid meeting those from his old extremist network for fear of returning to radicalism.

“Whom we make friends with defines what we become,” said Agus, who spent six years in prison for illegal gun ownership and bomb-making.

Former gun and bomb maker Khoirul Ihwan, 36, of a Tangerang terrorist group who was released from Porong prison in East Java earlier this month after serving a four-year sentence, also pledged his loyalty. “I promise to pay for my wrongdoings by freeing others from radicalism.”

Saiful Arif, alias Abid, a former combatant in Ambon and Poso who lost his left leg during a gunfight with Mobile Brigade (Brimob) members in 2003, said, “I want to become an ambassador of peace.”

It has been Ali Fauzi Manzi, the younger brother of the Bali bombers siblings who is also a former member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s special elite force, who has played a big role in persuading former terrorists and combatants to repent.

He founded the Lingkar Perdamaian (Peace Circle) Foundation, which gained government recognition in November 2016.

“Hopefully the community will be willing to accept us again,” said Ali Fauzi, who is also a former bombmaker of Jamaah Islamiyah’s (JI) East Java network.

He said the foundation had prepared various activities aimed at de-radicalizing young militants. One way of doing so is by sending volunteers to correctional facilities where terrorist inmates are serving sentences to conduct “contra-narratives” on radicalism.

He uses his own money to finance the foundation.

Meanwhile, Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa expressed hope that communities would forgive and accept former terrorist inmates who had repented.

She warned against the stigmatization of former terrorist convicts and combatants in order to help them reintegrate into society.

“Do not alienate them. Let their children go to school. They have equal rights to other citizens,” she said after visiting a number of ex-terrorist convicts and combatants at the foundation

She said her ministry would offer psychosocial supervision to help restore the confidence of former terrorist inmates and combatants as well as their families.