JAKARTA: The Indonesian government is set to sponsor a reconciliation meeting between survivors of terror attacks and former terrorist convicts by the end of this month in Jakarta.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto announced the landmark plan following a ministerial meeting with relevant stakeholder, to discuss various counterterrorism issues in the country.

“This meeting will be quite unique — as it has never happened before and we are going to do it,” Wiranto told reporters.

The reconciliation would provide the opportunity for ex-terrorist convicts — all of whom have participated in de-radicalisation programmes — to apologise to the survivors. This was expected to help in bringing an end to hatred and calls for vengeance, Wiranto said.

“Former terrorist convicts will express their apologies and regrets over their past actions which have hurt many people and also killed many others,” he added.

Among the ministries and state agencies who took part in the meeting to discuss the issue were the National Police, the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNTP) as well as the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK).

Wiranto, however, stopped short of mentioning the details of the meeting, including how the event would take place and the names of former militants and whether any family members of those who had been killed in terror attacks would participate.

The reconciliation meeting appears to be another innovation by the government in its use of the soft approach in countering terrorism, which includes de-radicalisation of convicted terrorists, which has won praise from many countries around the world.

Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country, has long fought terrorism and has suffered a string of terrorist attacks over decades, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed over 200 people, most of whom were foreign tourists.

Deputy National Police chief Syafruddin revealed that about 150 people, comprising survivors of terror attacks and former terrorist convicts, would attend the meeting.

He added that the ex-terrorist convicts in the meeting would be those who had been de-radicalised by the BNPT and who were prepared to meet with the survivors for reconciliation.

BNPT chief Suhardi Alius said Wiranto himself was set to deliver a keynote speech during the reconciliation meeting, which would also be attended by the presidential working unit for the implementation of the state ideology Pancasila (UKP-PIP).

“We will also invite both national and international media to the event and some editors-in-chief will also give speeches,” he said, adding that the event was aimed at spreading peace for all.

A study by the Jakarta-based Centre for the Study of Religion and Democracy (PUSAD) at Paramadina University, which involved 23 terror convicts and former terror convicts, found that some of them decided to disengage from terrorism after they had met and talked with families of the victims of their attacks.

De-radicalising militants is not an easy thing to do, said PUSAD director Ihsan Ali Fauzi.

The study, which was conducted between 2010 and 2012, found that one of the factors that reportedly discouraged former jihadists from continuing terrorist activities was the aggressive antiterrorism campaigns launched by the National Police’s Densus 88 counterterrorism squad.

The study also found that the respondents left terrorism and jihadism as a result of their families’ disapproval.

— The Jakarta Post

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2018