The ongoing humanitarian crisis taking place in and around Myanmar has grown to disastrous levels in the last week, with nearly 90,000 members of the Rohingya Muslim minority community fleeing from their homes in Rakhine state due to allegedly brutal attacks by Myanmar’s military. The violence against the Rohingya has led to condemnations from around the world, but it is causing an especially huge uproar of anger in Muslim-majority Indonesia.
Officials from Indonesia’s most infamous hardline Islamist organization, the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), say that thousands of their members from across Indonesia have volunteered to travel to Rakhine state in order to fight for their Muslim brothers and sisters.
FPI Spokesperson Slamet Maarif told the media that there had been 1,200 volunteers In North Sumatra, 600 from Pasuruan, East Java, and 287 from Jakarta.
“So our members in seven areas have already opened up lists for volunteers to register, and now it is the duty of the FPI council to select which mujahideen (the Islamic term for one engaged in jihad) candidates we will dispatch,” Slamet said today as quoted by CNN Indonesia.
According to the FPI spokesperson, the group has four conditions for the registration of mujahideen volunteers, namely that they have their parents’ permission, be at least 21 years old, have “martial ability” and, lastly, that they be prepared to die in Rakhine state.
Slamet said registration for the first wave of volunteers would be closed on Wednesday, after which they will be dispatched. However, he did not say when their members would actually leave for Myanmar as it would have to be coordinated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other countries.
The FPI representative also said that registration of volunteers was a form of Muslim solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Myanmar, and that they would be ready to fight for them if necessary.
“It means that if the international community’s armies cannot help our brothers there, we are ready to help. Whether in the form of humanitarian aid, assisting in negotiations or even, if we are ready, to take up arms,” Slamet said.
(Strangely, there has been no word from FPI about how many of their members have volunteered to take Rohingya refugees into their own homes or communities. We’re sure that announcement is coming soon though…)
Even if the government were. for some reason, to allow thousands of FPI volunteers to travel to war-torn Rakhine, FPI Klaten Chairman Suyadi Al Abu Fatih estimated it should cost around Rp 20-30 million per volunteer for travel expenses and supplies during their time there and said he hoped there would be a donor willing to financially support them.
In the meantime, FPI and other hardline Islamist groups are planning a demonstration in Jakarta tomorrow in front of the Myanmar Embassy and the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Calling it Aksi Manusia, meaning “Humanitarian Action” (for some reason they didn’t go with Aksi 69…), the action will start at the Hotel Indonesia Roundabout at 1 pm. They are also accepting donations (for people who care about the plight of the Rohingya but want to give it to FPI to send jihadist to Myanmar instead of charities helping the refugees directly).
This poster for the demonstration features a demonic photoshopping of Wirathu, a nationalist Burmese Buddhist monk who is the spiritual leader of the anti-Muslim movement and has been called “The Buddhist Face of Terror” by Time magazine.
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