STATELESS

Posted by AsiaViews | Feb 14, 2020 | 0 |

What must it feel like to suddenly become stateless, without a country to go home to? That is the fate soon to befall close to 700 ‘ex-Indonesians’ — as President Joko Widodo calls them – men, women and children hoping to be repatriated from different parts of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, once the hub of the Islamic State (IS) rebellion to establish a caliphate.

Over a span of about six to seven years, they renounced their citizenship, burned their passports and headed for IS territory. The men took up arms to fight alongside other foreign IS militants, followed by their wives and children.

But now the fight has been lost and the caliphate had collapsed, IS fighters and their dependents are either in detention camps or on the run. They have nowhere to go and now want to be repatriated to their home countries.

Predictably, this has created intense debate among Indonesians on whether they should be allowed back or not. Although there have been no proper polls to measure public opinion, popular sentiment seems to support the government’s decision not to repatriate them.

Association with an armed group with links to domestic ‘terrorist’ cells has not won them any sympathy. People are unlikely to forget the bombings and other violent acts undertaken by similar radical movements in Indonesia supported financially by these IS groups. People fear if the IS sympathizers are allowed back, they will continue their struggle to fight for a caliphate, this time at home.

Legally, they have forfeited their right to citizenship when they renounced Indonesia as their one and only nation by swearing allegiance to the caliphate. Article 23/2006 of the Indonesian Citizenship Law stipulates that Indonesians can lose their citizenship, among other stipulations, if they join a foreign military or swear allegiance to another country. So, the government decrees they cannot return to the motherland.

Humanitarians argue that IS cannot be called a country, it was a non-entity, unrecognized by no other states. That may be, but they did burn their passports, renounced their citizenship and swore allegiance to another group, nation or not. IS sympathizers now claim they were deluded and deceived. Worst of all, it is the women and children who are now in limbo, their fates uncertain. What a dilemma the government faces.

Yuli Ismartono

AsiaViews

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POINTS TO PONDER

EXTRICATING NDONESIAN CHILDREN FROM ISIS INFLUENCE ABROAD

Indonesia urgently needs to revisit the possibility of repatriating the neediest of its young citizens stranded abroad, whose families had earlier joined ISIS. Most of these children are in camps in northern Syria but there are also small numbers in the Philippines, Afghanistan and Iraq. “Extricating Indonesian Children from ISIS Influence Abroad”, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) argues that the government could begin by bringing back small groups of unaccompanied children under ten years of age, who pose minimal security risk and are most vulnerable to deteriorating conditions in the camps.“The problem is that health and security conditions are worsening by the day in the Syrian camps, and the children are growing older,” says Dyah Kartika, IPAC analyst. “They need access to schools, a nurturing environment, and medical attention. If the government waits too long, the children will be further exposed to ISIS ideology.” The new report examines a 2019 list of Indonesians in camps and prisons run by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Indonesian government has been trying to verify their citizenship, but with pseudonyms, misspellings and bad transliterations, it is a daunting task. At the time the data was collected, between March and June 2019, there were 555 Indonesians in SDF camps and prisons, including 367 children. Among the children, approximately 277 were under the age of ten and 34 were unaccompanied. In June 2021, there are fewer than ten children who are both unaccompanied and under the age of ten that could be prioritized for return. Bringing back children of ISIS families is no easy task. The report analyses the main challenges faced by the Indonesian government. These include definitional issues, bureaucratic competition, the difficulty of verifying nationality, evaluating the toll of exposure to conflict, assessing security risk, and finding relatives or others willing to provide care once the children are returned. In addition, COVID has meant stringent restrictions on travel, placing further obstacles in the way of repatriation. There are several models for rehabilitation of children exposed to violent extremism in Indonesia that could be modified to accommodate the needs of children repatriated from abroad. The report examines these models and argues that the government does not need to have every detail of rehabilitation programs in place before it starts extricating children from ISIS influence. It can start by bringing back the most vulnerable children and then modify programs as needed.

“It’s important that the government see these children as victims” says Dyah. “They deserve a chance to be children again.”

STATELESS