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Viewing cable 08SURABAYA44, CENTRAL SULAWESI: ON THE RUN SINCE 2005, SECT LEADER IS

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
08SURABAYA44 2008-04-07 08:43 2011-08-24 01:00 UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Consulate Surabaya
VZCZCXRO4887
RR RUEHCHI RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHJS #0044 0980843
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 070843Z APR 08
FM AMCONSUL SURABAYA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0189
INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 0099
RUEHDT/AMEMBASSY DILI 0015
RUEHJA/AMEMBASSY JAKARTA 0176
RUEHKL/AMEMBASSY KUALA LUMPUR 0006
RUEHGP/AMEMBASSY SINGAPORE 0003
RUEHJS/AMCONSUL SURABAYA 0194
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 0042
RHHMUNA/USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON 0097
UNCLAS SURABAYA 000044 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS, INR/EAP,  DRL, S/CT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ASEC KISL ID PGOV KIRF PREL
SUBJECT: CENTRAL SULAWESI: ON THE RUN SINCE 2005, SECT LEADER IS 
KILLED DURING ARREST 
 
 
This message is sensitive but unclassified.  Please protect 
accordingly. 
 
1. (SBU)  Summary:  Arifin, (aka Madi), the fugitive leader of a 
so-called heretical Islamic sect, was killed while resisting 
arrest according to press reports and Congen Surabaya sources. 
After three years on the run, police received information that 
Madi had returned to his home village of Salena near Palu, 
Central Sulawesi.  While the shooting took place in a region 
long prone to violence, the province remains otherwise calm.  No 
one has suggested links between this incident and any recurrence 
of the inter-religious conflict that has plagued Central 
Sulawesi over the course of the past decade.  End Summary. 
 
2.  (SBU)  Yoseph, Adjunct Police Commissioner and Secretary to 
Central Sulawesi Police Chief, Brigadier General Badrotin Haiti, 
told Congen Surabaya April 7 that General Haiti had instructed 
10 members of the counterterror unit Detachment 88 to capture 
Madi on Saturday April 5, 2008.  Officers decided to move in 
based on a tip that Madi had returned and was hiding out in his 
home village.  Madi was shot while resisting arrest, said Yoseph. 
 
3.  (SBU)  Darlis Muhammad, a Palu-based journalist for Tempo 
magazine, told Congen Surabaya on April 7 that members of 
Detachment 88 shot Madi dead after a chase in the hills near 
Salena village.  According to the Surya Daily newspaper, three 
police bullets hit Madi, one each in the shoulder, chest and 
leg, respectively. Madi's family told Darlis that Madi was 
escaping his village home when officers of Detachment 88 chased 
him into the hills and reportedly shot him dead because Madi had 
threatened to use a machete.  Madi's family and fellow villagers 
speculated to Darlis that Madi was shot in revenge for the 2005 
killing of three policemen. Police are questioning three people, 
including two of Madi's followers arrested in Saturday's raid. 
 
Prelude to a Clash--Heresy and the Village Behind the Man 
--------------------------------------------- ---------------- 
 
4.  (SBU)  Salena is a poor isolated village within the city 
limits of Palu but roughly 20 minutes by car from the Palu City 
center. Electricity only arrived in the village after the 
provincial government started efforts to improve the lot of 
villagers in the wake of the 2005 violence.  On October 25, 
2005, when Madi was reportedly conducting a traditional ritual 
gathering in the village, policemen descended and tried to 
arrest him.  They had reportedly received complaints from 
observant Muslims about pressure by the sect to reject 
fundamental tenets of Islam.  Madi and his followers fought the 
arrests, stabbing three policemen to death.  Madi had been on 
the run ever since. 
 
5.  (SBU) The approximately 90 families who follow the 32-year 
old Madi consider themselves to be Muslims, but reject prayer 
and fasting, believing instead in the native and non-Islamic 
power of "adat" or tradition.  This caused the Indonesian Muslim 
Council and Central Sulawesi Religious Department to formally 
declare Madi's teachings heresy.  His followers prohibited 
others from praying or fasting and this caused some to report 
Madi to the police.  The police went to the village in early 
October 2005 reportedly to attempt mediation, but Madi refused 
to go quietly to the police station, setting the stage for the 
clash to come, according to Congen Surabaya NGO contacts in Palu. 
 
6.  (SBU)  On October 25, 2005, police again went to Salena to 
forcibly take Madi into custody.  Madi refused and his followers 
attacked the police using knives and machetes.  Three officers 
were stabbed to death and three others were taken hostage as 
Madi and his followers fled into the hills nearby. On October 
26, 2005, police found the three hostages, alive but badly 
injured. Meanwhile, Madi's followers continued to surrender.  At 
the time, some 230 villagers, (some of whom were Madi followers) 
were questioned by Central Sulawesi Police.  In 2006, Palu 
District Court requested the death penalty for five followers of 
the Madi sect Madi himself (aka Arifin), Bambang, Nanga, 
Hasanuddin, and Olimin) all on charges of murder.  All five were 
later convicted of killing the police officers and each 
sentenced to 9-12 years in prison. 
 
MCCLELLAND