Richard Ness : Blog : WALHI's Strange Bedfellows

WALHI's Strange Bedfellows - 26 Jul 2007
by Eric

In a surprising move, the Indonesian chapter of Friends of the Earth, WALHI, joined forces last week with Form Umat Islam, in an effort to attack Newmont's environmental performance as well as discredit and disband the Indonesian elite counter-terrorism force, Detachment 88. Detachment 88 has been highly successful in arresting key individuals involved in the Bali, Marriott and Australian Embassy bombings in Indonesia, as well as hundreds of members of Jemaah Islamiya (JI) a Southeast Asian based terrorist network with links to Al-Qaeda.



At a civil court hearing last week dealing with the latest civil case filed by WALHI against Newmont Minahasa Raya, members of WALHI and Umat Islam handed out a flyer [link] with the following message:

Newmont = Bad for the environment
Detachment 88 = Bad for the people
Bush = Bad for the world
Form Umat Islam - WALHI

The above photograph, which was featured in the Indonesian press, shows a poster-sized version of the flyer. Most striking, Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiya (JI) appears in this photograph seated alongside the poster, and is flanked on his other side by Muhammad Al Khaththah, the leader of the Indonesian chapter of Hizb-ut Tahrir.

What Is WALHI?

All of this begs a series of very serious question: Why is a (supposedly) environment NGO handing out flyers calling for the disbanding of a nation’s anti-terrorism force group? Perhaps more problematic, why are they coordinating their activities with Form Umat Islam. Does Friends of the Earth want to be associated with these types of messages? And, the million dollar question – why is WALHI associating with Abu Bakar Bashir and Muhammad Al Khaththah? A literal and equally absurd parallel would be if Greenpeace was sitting next to a bin Ladenesque individual outside a US Court House protesting the US Patriot Act and Japanese whaling. Both of these scenarios seem outside the realm of possibility, yet one of them unfolded inside a South Jakarta District Courthouse last week.