OE Watch Commentary: On 2 March the Indonesian-language website ucanews.com published the accompanying excerpted article about a program organized by Indonesia’s National Agency for Combating Terrorism (BNPT), in which repentant terrorists, victims of terrorism and their families were brought together. According to the BNPT, the purpose of these two groups meeting is to engage in reconciliation. The BNPT hopes that when terrorists meet victims it will help them understand the negative consequences of their actions and, as a result, they will work with the government to prevent others from embarking on the radical path that they took.
Although some victims chose not to attend due to the pain of seeing those who killed or injured them or their family members, others found closure in seeing their attackers repent. The Minister of Social Affairs, who also attended the event, promised psychological and other forms of support for victims as part of their rehabilitation.
The BNPT considers the event to be part of its soft approach to countering terrorism. Other initiatives have included setting up two boarding schools for the children of terrorists, so they do not follow their parents’ path after their parents are imprisoned. The Minister for Technology and Education also said at the event that scholarships would be provided to the children of ex-terrorists so they could obtain an education and not be marginalized.
The article does not elaborate on whether there are metrics to test the success of this and other BNPT soft approach programs. However, it does note that arrests of terrorists were roughly the same from 2016 to 2017, with 163 and 172 arrests, respectively in each year in the country. End OE Watch Commentary (Zenn)
Around 124 terrorist prisoners met 51 terrorist victims as part of a reconciliation effort initiated by the National Agency for Combating Terrorism (BNPT). However, some of the victims of terrorism and families of terrorist victims were not mentally prepared to meet exterrorist prisoners. “This is the first event that has been held. We want to develop a spirit of reconciliation,” said the head of BNPT…
Mokhtar Daeng Lau, the bomber of a McDonalds restaurant that killed three people in Makassar, South Sulawesi on December 5, 2002, said that the meeting was beneficial because it gave him a chance to become more aware of the consequences of what he had done. “I have repented and I will help the government tell others not to follow the radical path I have done,” he told ucanews.com…
BNPT has also built boarding schools for terrorists’ children in Medan, North Sumatra and Lamongan, East Java, to prevent children from following their parents’ footsteps…
The Indonesian National Police arrested 172 suspected terrorists last year, while in 2016, there were 163 suspected terrorists arrested.