Nervousness Over Afghanistan

By John Gee

In the first weeks after Sept. 11, the terrorist attacks and their repercussions seemed to dominate every waking hour where I live, in Singapore. When my wife and I met friends at a restaurant, our conversation quickly turned to those subjects; our sons, who normally take no interest in the news, not only followed events but asked a lot of questions about what was happening. The two-day break that we took three weeks after the attacks was, therefore, very welcome. We were to go on a short cycling trip in southern Malaysia and spend a night by the seashore, away from television and telephones.

The break not only was refreshing, but it also helped to put events in perspective. In the quiet villages and small towns through which we passed, life was going on as usual. It seemed like an important thing to remember: in the Western media, it is all too easy to see photographs of protest rallies over Washington’s moves against Afghanistan and read stories of groups calling for a jihad. It’s easy to assume that this represents what is going on throughout predominantly Muslim countries. In reality, people are still going to work, shopping, cooking, eating and worrying about how their children are performing in school.

Regional leaders want it to stay that way. They worry about the fallout from Sept. 11. One thing that certainly sends a shiver through all, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, is any suggestion that the “war against terrorism” might be extended against other Muslim countries besides Afghanistan. That, they feel, would play into the hands of those who say that the U.S. operation in Afghanistan is an attack on Islam and Muslims in general. Above all, it would be very harmful for Washington to be seen to be targeting states and organizations on Israel’s enemies list. Suggestions by pro-Israel figures in the U.S., therefore, that it should go after Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah are viewed with alarm and incredulity. Such a campaign might be in Israel’s interests, but it would also certainly be in those of Bin Laden’s network, which would relish any consequent polarization between Muslim and non-Muslim. Countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, who have had to grapple with communal conflicts at various times in their modern histories, do not want to see extremist groups handed ammunition by gung ho Westerners.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia and Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia in particular, as leaders of predominantly Muslim countries, have sought to impress their concerns upon Western governments. Both strongly criticized the Sept. 11 attacks, but advised the U.S. to be cautious in its response.

Bin Laden’s network would relish polarization between Muslim and non-Muslim.

Megawati had an early opportunity to present her views directly to President George W. Bush. She had been scheduled to meet him in Washington on Sept. 19 and, despite speculation that her trip might be canceled, it went ahead as planned. Megawati emerged from that meeting with a promise of $400 million in U.S. aid and an American commitment to revive contacts with the Indonesian military to a certain extent. She was no doubt given assurances of Washington’s support for the territorial integrity of Indonesia within its current borders.

Back in Indonesia, her government performed a balancing act. It did not come out in support of U.S. policy toward Afghanistan, but, without condemning that policy as such, it indicated its unhappiness with aspects of it. Differences between Megawati and Vice President Hamzah Haz were evident. The vice president heads the United Development Party, the second largest of the Muslim parties in the Indonesian parliament, and voiced views that are widely held within them, calling for air strikes to be stopped because they were killing and injuring civilians and destroying mosques. Megawati commented more hesitantly until, speaking at a Jakarta mosque Oct. 14, she stated, “If a certain country wants to find those responsible for terrorist activity, it must apply acceptable international norms and not do what it likes.”

Despite their differences, however, both leaders sought to cool down public protests in Indonesia, regarding them as damaging to the country.

Most anti-U.S. demonstrations in Jakarta have drawn crowds in the hundreds rather than the thousands. The burning of George Bush effigies and American flags, however, and their calls for a jihad have drawn much international media attention. Members of a group called the Islamic Defenders Front visited hotels in several Central Java cities before the opening of the air attacks, saying that they were looking for Americans in order to tell them to leave Indonesia for their own safety. They do not seem to have found any, but their threats were well publicized. Actions such as these, the government fears, will drive away investors and tourists. Minister of Communications and Information Syamsul Mu’arif said on Oct. 18 that tourists’ cancellations of planned holidays in Indonesia had already cost the country $1.1 billion. The Ministry of Tourism expected losses to rise to $1.7 billion by the end of the year, in an industry that ordinarily employs eight million people.

Indonesia’s main parties—except for that of former President Abdurrahman Wahid—support Megawati’s government. The country’s largest Muslim organizations, while highly critical of the bombing of Afghanistan, have opposed calls for a jihad against the U.S. In Malaysia, by contrast, the second largest party in parliament, the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS), has been vehement in its denunciations of the U.S. moves and, following the start of the bombing campaign, called for a jihad against the U.S. and its allies—although it should be noted that, in their first reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks, PAS leaders had called them a “heinous crime” and continued to maintain that view.

Attempting to cultivate the support of non-Muslims, who make up over 40 percent of Malaysia’s population, PAS had entered into an electoral alliance with the Chinese-based, non-Muslim Democratic Action Party. The DAP has felt increasingly uncomfortable with the PAS insistence on turning Malaysia into an Islamic state, however, and Sept. 11 finally convinced it to follow through on its threats to end the alliance. One consequence, some commentators suggested, was that PAS “modernizers” suffered a setback and the party retreated into concentrating solely on rallying Muslim support. Trying to draw it away from Mahathir’s United Malays National Organization, PAS adopted a more radical position toward the U.S.

This may not have done it much good, however. Mahathir has been consistently critical of the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, while maintaining that it has a right to hunt down those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

“We have no liking for the Taliban,” he said on Oct. 13. “We know the Taliban trained Malaysian people to overthrow this government. However, there are people in Afghanistan who are not followers of the Taliban,” noting that Malaysia was concerned for the welfare of ordinary Afghans.

The newspapers of the two countries reflect the divisions within them over the conflict. Those in Indonesia’s national language and in Malay in general have been sharply critical of the U.S. and have taken a stand sympathetic to the Taliban and, in some cases, to Bin Laden—against whom, they claimed, Washington had not provided evidence of culpability for the Sept. 11 attacks. English-language and other papers, while still voicing the widespread concern about Afghan civilian casualties, have taken a more straightforward factual approach.

How the public mood develops in the two countries over the long term will depend largely upon how the U.S. government pursues its “war against terrorism.” If Washington sticks to the goal of targeting the al-Qaeda network and limits the number of casualties among innocent Afghan civilians, opposition to its actions should remain in check—especially if the U.S. also makes a serious effort to bring to heel the nest of terrorists that goes under the name of the Israeli government. If it fails to do this, however, it will face not only a rising tide of public anger among Muslim populations, but a withdrawal of support from a number of leaders who previously had given it their backing.

No Ties With Israel

Throughout Abdurrahman Wahid’s presidency, his repeated efforts to promote Indonesian ties with Israel were a bone of contention between him and the Muslim parties, which together command about 30 percent of the seats in Indonesia’s parliament. After Megawati Sukarnoputri became president in July, those parties (minus that of the former president) presented her with a list of demands. In exchange for her agreement to address them, they said they were prepared to support her government until the elections due in 2004. Along with cabinet positions, the demands included a commitment not to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

The president agreed to these demands after the Muslim parties had accepted conditions that she had put forward—chiefly that they would not push for the implementation of syariah (shariah) law and that they would not make gender an issue in the next presidential campaign, as they had in 1999, when they blocked her bid for national leadership.

Megawati also agreed that the government would not put obstacles in the way of Islamic teaching and practices. In the latter days of the Suharto regime, when it faced opposition from some Muslim groups, state intelligence services closely monitored what Muslim religious leaders said and did, and the practice has continued.

New Report on Chinese Workers in Israel

The only demonstration by foreign workers in Israel took place in 1996, when some 200 Chinese protested in Tel Aviv against the withholding of their pay and forced deportations. Israeli police waded into the protest and dispersed it.

On Oct. 15, the Israeli workers’ rights organization, Kav La’Oved, issued a damning report on the conditions faced by workers such as those who joined the demonstration. This follows the organization’s involvement in supporting efforts by Chinese workers employed by Solel Boneh and A. Drori to secure basic rights supposedly guaranteed by Israeli law. (See July 2001 Washington Report, p. 53, on the A. Drori case.)

The report states that there are approximately 20,000 Chinese workers in Israel, most of whom are employed in the construction industry. The rest work in agriculture, nursing and services.

“The Chinese government exports workers as a source of foreign currency. This is not unusual. It is unusual, however,” Kav La’Oved said, “that Chinese governmental agents apply pressure on Chinese workers to accept deplorable working conditions.

“To earn the privilege of working in Israel, Chinese workers must pay from $1,500 to $8,000, more than any other migrant worker. They believe that they can cover the loans they take to pay this sum by working nights and Saturdays. When they arrive in Israel they find out, right after their passports are illegally confiscated, that they must work 11 to 12 hours a day six to seven days a week for an average of $380 per month—less than half the medium wage. They are subject to curfew, violence, bad food and poor living conditions. If they choose to ‘escape,’ they receive no pay for the work they’ve done, and are liable to be arrested by police or forcefully and illegally deported by their employer’s bounty hunters.”

The report continues: “The system handling the Chinese worker is composed of the Israeli employer, which provides the work, the Chinese employment agency, which is in daily contact with the workers, the Chinese Embassy, which supervises, and the Israeli government, which issues work permits.”

In most cases, the agencies receive the workers’ pay directly from the Israeli employers and only turn it over at the end of the contracted period. In the meantime, the agencies have made various deductions, including charges for food and accommodation, often in atrocious conditions. The economic section of the Chinese Embassy works closely with the agencies and does nothing to defend the rights of the Chinese citizens employed in Israel. On the contrary, it plays a significant part in monitoring the workers’ activities and trying to suppress protest. Kav La’Oved reported that at the end of 1999, it found out that 11 workers had been prosecuted in China for escaping from Israeli employers who withheld their pay and violated their rights in other ways. A Chinese Embassy official told Kav La’Oved that the Israeli government had warned the embassy that escapes by Chinese workers would lead it to terminate their import. This, it was felt, would hamper China’s economic development drive.

Kav La’Oved outlined the actions it has taken to support the workers, which have resulted in some successes. It insists upon holding Israeli employers responsible, legally and morally, for the workers’ conditions and states its belief that if they are “exposed and punished, the entire system collapses.” In its conclusions, it said: “The common practice of confiscating passports and withholding pay until the end of the contract period creates a pattern of total subjugation and turns the protesters into ‘escaping slaves’ punished by persecution and eviction.”

Noting that the Chinese government’s support, via its embassy, for Israeli and Chinese employers exacerbates the problem, the report called upon the Israeli government to enforce Israeli labor laws and said that, if Israel is not able to guarantee basic rights to Chinese workers in the country, then it must stop issuing permits for them to come.

In the remainder of the report, Kav La’Oved provided a case study of the ultimately successful struggle to secure the rights of Chinese workers employed by Solel Boneh, and referred to other actions taken in support of Chinese working in Israel.

John Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore.