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Deportees or returnees? Essential difference for deradicalization

On Aug

Chaula Rininta Anindya (The Jakarta Post)
Singapore
Sat, September 14, 2019

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Deportees or returnees? Essential difference for deradicalization

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span>On Aug. 2, Ulta Levenia and Alban Scianca published a commentary in this newspaper titled “Returnees now clear and present danger.” The article is based on their field work in the Southern Philippines and drew the case of two Indonesians behind the Jolo church bombing in early 2019. The points they make about the danger of regional terrorist networks, an inadequate deradicalization program and the monitoring of returnees in Indonesia are worth noting. The article, however, failed to identify the perpetrators in appropriate terms, referring to them as “returnees” instead of “deportees”.

The Indonesian couple, Rullie Rian Zeke and Ulfah Handayani Saleh, entered the Philippines illegally and launched a twin suicide bombing during the morning mass at a Catholic church in January, which killed 23 people. Following the attack, Philippine authorities immediately announced that an Indonesian couple had perpetrated the attack, yet the Indonesian government doubted this statement due to lack of evidence and a one-sided investigation. In July, after a thorough investigation involving Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) members arrested in Malaysia and Padang, West Sumatera, the National Police confirmed that the perpetrators were Indonesians.

While Ulta and Alban identified the Indonesian couple as returnees, they were in fact, deportees. Rullie and Ulfah had sought to join the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria via Turkey in March 2016. They were arrested by Turkish authorities in January 2017 and subsequently deported to Indonesia. They underwent a rehabilitation course at a Social Affairs Ministry social shelters for a month and were then repatriated to their hometown.

This attack marked the first successful terror attack launched by deportees. A number of deportees have been involved in terrorist activities, but the plots were thwarted by the security apparatus. Some examples are Anggi Indah Kusuma and Endang Abu Rafi. In August 2017, Anggi and her husband were arrested in Bandung, West Java, for plotting terror attacks against PT Pindad, Mako Brimob and the State Palace. Endang was arrested for his plan to mount a terror attack against the post-election protest on May 22.

It is important to distinguish between returnees and deportees to determine a suitable approach for their rehabilitation and reintegration. I conducted fieldwork research from late 2017 to mid-2018 on the governmental and NGO approach to Indonesian deportees. My talks with various stakeholders shed light on the different challenges posed by deportees and returnees.

The public has expressed concern over the government’s decision to consider assisted repatriation of Indonesian former IS members stuck in Syrian camps. There is a growing fear of radicalization and possible terror attacks by returnees. In fact, Indonesia has dealt with different types of returnees amidst the Syrian civil war that could provide lessons on how to handle them.

 

Social workers' personal and humanistic approach gradually built trust with deportees, with some of them becoming more open to social workers toward the end of the program.


First, returnees who returned independently to Indonesia. Only one of them, Syawaluddin Pakpahan, had successfully launched a terror attack in Indonesia. In June 2017, he stabbed to death a police officer in Medan, North Sumatra.

Second, returnees repatriated by the government. In 2017, the government with the help of the Institute of International Peacebuilding (YPP) repatriated 18 former IS-sympathizers to Indonesia. The returnees expressed disillusionment with the IS’s false promises. Upon their return, they underwent a one-month rehabilitation program at the National Counterterrorism Agency’s (BNPT) deradicalization center in Bogor, West Java. Three of them are serving sentences for funding terrorist organizations and hiding information related to terrorist activities, while the other three are working for ruangobrol.id, a radicalization and terrorism prevention platform founded by Noor Huda Ismail, YPP’s executive director. These cases show that the assisted repatriation of disillusioned returnees could open up opportunities to engage them in counterterrorism efforts in this country. Once they independently return to Indonesia, authorities might lose track of them and their old network can reach out to them.

In contrast, the public might not be familiar with the term “deportees”. These individuals have yet to enter Syria or were exposed to radical ideologies while living abroad. In January 2017, Indonesia received 75 deportees from Turkey — a main transit point to enter Syria — who sought to join terrorist organizations, with most of them being women and children. The government decided to send them to a social shelter in East Jakarta, because this shelter was designated to host juvenile delinquents, assuming that social workers would be familiar in handling the deportees’ children. One month seems to be a very short time to deradicalize individuals who have been radicalized over months or years. Many of them have not renounced radical beliefs and still aspire to join terrorist organizations.

Nonetheless, it would be inappropriate to say that the one-month rehabilitation program is completely futile. Deradicalization does not happen in a blink of an eye, and the process differs from case to case. Individuals are exposed to various circumstances that will lead to deradicalization, or at least, disengagement (cease participation in violence, without necessarily denouncing radical ideologies).

Though one month is inadequate to completely deradicalize individuals, the rehabilitation program could play an intermediary role for long-term deradicalization with the assistance of social workers in the social shelters. Although the social workers were inexperienced in handling radicalized individuals, their encounter with juvenile delinquents has built up their patience.

Highly radicalized deportees had refused to communicate with social workers when they first arrived at the social shelters.

However, social workers’ personal and humanistic approach gradually built trust with deportees, with some of them becoming more open to social workers toward the end of the program.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) also admit it would be easier to facilitate reintegration programs for deportees if social workers accompanied them.

Experienced CSOs who have facilitated in the reintegration of both returnees and deportees have suggested that dealing with deportees was far more challenging than with returnees, because they had yet to witness what is happening in Syria.

The term itself is significant to better examine the level of radicalization, as the two have different psychological states that will affect the outcome of deradicalization programs.

______________________

Research analyst with the Indonesia Program, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Portions of the material below are adapted from the author’s article “The Deradicalisation Programme for Indonesian Deportees: Vacuum in Coordination”, published in March in Journal for Deradicalization.

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