Jakarta. Indonesia and Australia have long been tied in security cooperation, particularly after the Bali bombings. However, the joint cooperation is not limited to tackle terrorism only, but also other crimes. Vice President Jusuf Kalla stated this when receiving the visit of the Australian Attorney-General Hon George Brandis at his office, today.

The visit was aimed to discuss security and legal issues, and to hold cooperation on the fighting against terrorism, cyber security, and intelligence.

Mr Brandis said there will be a meeting of ministers and senior officials from both countries held annually to talk about those three issues more in-depth.
Based on Indonesia’s experience, the Vice President said, radical ideologies such as Alqaeda and ISIS are commonly brought by ex-fighters returning from Afghanistan and Syria or other Middle East countries.

In response, Mr Brandis said that the trend also happens in Australia. “The well-trained terrorists returning home typically spread their ideology and thus it stimulates higher scale of terrorism,” he said.

Mr Kalla observed that the main cause of terrorism and radicalism is the absence of justice, poverty, and improper education.

“Alqaeda and ISIS find their fertile lands in the failed states. The western countries then come and impose democracy in the states. Unfortunately, such non-democratic way to introduce democracy just made the condition even worse,” argued Mr Kalla.

He then explained that, based on his experience in settling the conflict in Poso, terrorism is not related to religion. “The terrorists made use of religion as it is the most effective way to mobilize people,” he said.

Mr Kalla believed that the leaders of terrorist groups are not that religious and do not know their religion very well.
“Al-Zarkawi of Alqaeda, for instance, was a gang leader. Al-Baghdadi of ISIS is also not a religious figure. Even a terrorist in Paris, Abdelsam, had a bar and consumed alcohol,” he affirmed.

Australian Minister of Justice the Hon Michael Keenan, who was accompanying the Attorney-General in the meeting, said ISIS members utilize social media as the main platform to spread their propaganda.

Meanwhile, an Australian Federal Police commissioner Andrew Colvin, who was also present in the meeting, said that those committing terrorism are commonly people who are marginalized.
Director General of ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) Duncan Lewis at the same occasion said it is hard to monitor all the ISIS members as they are tech-savvy, especially in social media and data encryption.

“For that reason we need to join in a technology-based cooperation with Indonesia to handle this. We have a long history in working together with BIN (the Indonesia’s National Intelligence Agency -red),” he said.

The Vice President welcomed with the initiative and said that it needs more IT experts to prevent ISIS members to spread out their propaganda known as cyber terrorism.

“We have to be ahead of them,” he affirmed.

Also attending the meeting were Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Panjaitan, Law and Human Rights Minister Yasona Laoly, and BIN chief Sutiyoso.
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