[Kabar-indonesia] Juwono says Islamic parties infiltrated by radicals

[Joyo at aol.com]

BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
October 8, 2006
Source: Republika, Jakarta,
in Indonesian 5 Oct 06

Indonesian minister: Islamic parties infiltrated by radicals

Jakarta: Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono has accused Islamic 
radical group of infiltrating into Islamic political parties. He said this
radical group is waiting for the right moment to foment radicalism.

He made this statement during a discussion on Ramadan held at the
Freedom Institute on 4 October. It discussed the article "Rational
Islamic Radicalism" written by Quaintan Wiktorowicz and Karl
Kaltenthaler in the journal, Political Science Quarterly.

"In fact, they [radical group] regard Islamic parties as enemies,
particularly the parties that take part in the government. They think
that these Islamic parties have been contaminated by the western
system. Actually, they do not have any power. Hence, they join these
Islamic parties," said Juwono, who spoke in his personal capacity not
as minister.

According to him, this infiltration is similar to the Indonesian
Communist Party [PKI], which infiltrated its members into various
parties in 1960s. During that time, Communist cadres joined particular
parties, which were considered as representatives of bourgeois, and
provoked these parties to become radical. He said the PKI failed
because during that time the Indonesian system was not yet
established. [passage omitted on history of PKI]

Juwono said that this radical group, whose objective is to establish a
Caliphate, will fail because its ideology does not have any local
content. He predicted that the failure of this group will be similar
to that of the PKI.

Drawing an analogy, Juwono said he is not worried about the growth of
this radical group in Indonesia. According to him, in the Middle East
many factors have led to radicalism like the Palestinian issue,
religion, oil, and competition among Arab countries. In contrast, no
such factor exists in Indonesia.

The deputy secretary general of Prosperous Justice Party [PKS], Fachry
Hamzah, was surprised by Juwono' statement. He said Juwono does not
know how to present his views while he made this statement. According
to him, Juwono cannot be separated from his [ministerial] position.

"An academician can make any kind of analysis. In fact, he is a
representative of the government. His statement is provocative. I want
to ask: What is the purpose and target of his statement? Perhaps, he
wants to say that democracy is becoming stronger," Fahcry stressed.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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