By webadmin on 10:42 am May 16, 2011.
Ulma Haryanto
Ahmad Masihuddin, Irwan and Bebi are the lucky ones.
Ahmad recalls the moment when a man attempted to mutilate his
genitals, while Irwan has developed an intense fear of water. Bebi
cannot speak, due to a dislocated jaw, and must eat through a straw.
Despite the fear of reprisals, two of these three men — Ahmad and
Irwan — met with the Jakarta Globe over the weekend to recount their
memories of the bloody attack against a small group of Amhadiyah sect
members in the village of Cikeusik, Banten, on Feb. 6.
On that day, three Ahmadis — Roni Pasaroni, Warsono and Tubagus
Chandra — were killed by a 1,500-strong mob. Much of the violence was
captured on video, and footage of Ahmadi men stripped of their clothes
and being brutally beaten with stones and bamboo sticks can be seen on
YouTube.
Twelve men are facing charges in relation to the attack. If found
guilty their maximum sentences could range from 12 years in jail to the
death penalty.
But Irwan and Ahmad say that even the harshest of punishments for
those 12 men will not blot out the acts of cruelty they witnessed and
endured on that day. Nor will guilty verdicts dampen the attendant rage
and frustration they feel at a police force that is widely seen as
having stood by and allowing the violence to unfold.
“Police pronounced me dead when my muddy, naked body was thrown into a
police truck,” Ahmad said. “If I did not use the martial arts knowledge
I learned through the years, I’d be among the dead.”
The police had collected Ahmad’s battered body after he had been
dragged through the dirt by a group of enraged attackers. “Along the
way, people slashed me with machetes, and threw rocks and bamboo poles
at me. I lost consciousness. I believed I had died.”
Unguarded
Irwan, Roni and Warsono had left for Cikeusik from Jakarta on the
night of Feb. 5. Irwan told the Globe that they had traveled to Cikeusik
to provide security for a demonstration that the village’s Ahmadiyah
community was planning on staging the next day.
“I was at our regular Koran recital meeting in Petojo [Central
Jakarta]. Roni came to me and asked if I wanted to come along with him
to Cikeusik,” Irwan said. “I asked him what for. He told me to guard a
demonstration.”
They arrived around 10 p.m. on Saturday night, and were met by Deden
Sujana, head of security for the Indonesian Ahmadiyah Congregation
(JAI). The next day, Deden would almost lose his right arm to a machete
attack, and police would later name him as a suspect for triggering the
violence.
Ahmad, who lives in Kalideres, West Jakarta, had likewise gone to Cikeusik to provide security for the demonstration.
“Eki, a colleague of mine at JAI, was on holiday and asked me to
replace him to guard an Ahmadi home in Cikeusik. Without thinking it
over, I agreed,” he said.
“I was in the same car as [Tubagus] Chandra and Diaz [Ferdiaz
Muhammad, an Ahmadi who survived the incident]. Chandra was driving, we
arrived at Serang at 3 a.m. and picked up five more Ahmadis.”
Ahmad had prior experience protecting sect members. In 2008 he had
guarded an Ahmadi school in Parung, Bogor, that had come under attack,
and he had been on hand with the now-deceased Tubagus when one of the
sect’s orphanages in Tasikmalaya, West Java, was sealed by local
authorities last December.
Ahmad worked in the administrations division at JAI, while Tubagus
worked for the security division with Deden. Ahmad, however, was well
trained in self-defense. He had earned a black belt in Taekwondo at the
age of 15, and was instructing others in Muay Thai at 18.
As Ahmad and his friends pulled into Cikeusik, he was relieved to see
some dozens of police officers standing watch over both ends of the
road where the house of local Ahmadiyah cleric Ismail Suparman was
located. “I texted my parents so that they didn’t have to worry. The
police were here,” Ahmad said.
“Suddenly, the wife of the Cikeusik village head, Inayah, ran toward
us screaming. She told all of us to leave immediately, because it seemed
thousands of people were marching to Cikeusik to slaughter us. Deden
told her, ‘Don’t worry. We have Pak Hasan [Cikeusik Police chief of
general crimes unit] here.’ ”
However, video footage posted on YouTube clearly showed the police running away when the mob attacked.
Tired from their late-night journey, Ahmad said he and his friends
laid down to rest. They awoke around 10:30 a.m., he said, to loud chants
of “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) and “Ahmadiyah infidels” mixed in with
the sound of stones hitting the house.
To Ahmad’s ears, it sounded as if thousands of people were outside
Ismail’s home. It was then, Ahmad said, that Deden rushed outside, and
attempted to hit a man in a black jacket who seemed to be leading the
mob.
“This man was Idris Mahdani,” Ahmad said. “He is from Banyu Mundu
village [40 kilometers away from Cikeusik]. After he was hit by Deden,
he retreated several steps back before taking out his machete and waved
it in the air as the villagers pelted the Ahmadis with rocks.”
Vicious Beatings
Following Deden’s lead, Ahmad said he went outside and starting
throwing stones back at the mob, but realizing that they were vastly
outnumbered, he and some of the other sect members tried to escape out
the back door of Ismail’s house. “We ended up stuck in knee-high mud at
the paddy fields. We could not run. The drive to Cikeusik was taxing and
we were exhausted,” he said.
The group of Ahmadis parted then, he said. Some sought cover in a patch of jungle while others headed to a nearby river.
Irwan and Ahmad fled to the river. Irwan slipped and fell in. Ahmad stumbled and was caught by the mob.
“I had with me about Rp 2 million ($235) for food and accommodation,
and my BlackBerry. The mob greedily took it. But they still did not
spare me.”
It was then that he saw Roni trying to go to the defense of their
friend Bebi, who was on the ground being kicked by members of the mob.
Someone would drop a heavy stone on Bebi’s face, but he would survive,
largely because of Roni’s help.
Roni, who declined to talk to the Globe, would suffer a dislocated jaw in the attack.
In the meantime, Ahmad was fighting for his own life.
“I saw Irwan slip and fall into the river. I had 10 men on top of me
trying to hit me with sticks and stones and they stabbed me with their
machetes,” he said.
Ahmad said he was dragged 500 meters back to Ismail’s house, and
viciously beaten the whole way. He said he saw Roni being stabbed with a
bamboo spear.
“They stripped me,” Ahmad said. “They were about to cut my genitals. I
shoved the man and shouted ‘You guys have to have limits!’ Another man
hit me on the side but the impact also knocked away the guy who tried to
mutilate my genitals.”
Ahmad said that he tried to retain his focus and stay calm during the
beating, protecting his head and neck in particular to avoid being
fatally wounded by the mob.
“I turned on my side and let it take the beatings. I did not want to
give them my neck.” He said that he still felt a numbness in his neck
from the injuries he sustained during the prolonged beating. “Part of my
body went to sleep, as if struck by a stroke.”
At some point, Ahmad said, he lost consciousness.
“The police thought I was dead; they threw me into the car just like
that. But I gained consciousness and started to ask for water. I was
extremely dehydrated,” he said.
While Ahmad was struggling to survive the mob’s anger, Irwan was
struggling to stay afloat in the river while also dodging a hail of
rocks being thrown at him.
“I could barely swim,” Irwan said. “I was dragged by the current as I
tried to stay afloat. In the meantime the mob was still trying to hit
me with rocks,” he said.
At one point, he went under, and lost track of the time. He said he
had no idea how long he was submerged, but remembered being pulled from
the river.
“At one point it was all dark. But then I heard a voice calling me.
It was Yadi, another Ahmadi” Irwan said. Yadi had swum against the
current to rescue Irwan, dragging him to the shore.
Shirt for a Bandage
For Ahmad, the trip from Cikeusik to Malingping hospital, 10
kilometers away, took one and a half hours. He said the police gave him a
shirt with which to stem the bleeding from a gash on his head.
“I met Deden in the hospital, he was holding his right hand, I saw
Bebi vomiting blood, Ferdiaz put me on his lap and started giving me
water, he was also injured,” he said.
Deden was taken to Pertamina hospital in Jakarta. The other men were
transferred to Serang hospital, six hours away. In Serang, their fresh
stitches had to be removed because they crusted with dirt.
Although Irwan did not sustain any serious injuries, he said he was
now terrified of water, and had trouble recounting the details of the
attack.
“I am undergoing counseling for my trauma. My therapist said that I
had to think of water as my savior. If the river current didn’t carry me
away, I might be one of the casualties,” he said.
Ahmad, however, said he was consumed with rage whenever he saw police officers or fundamentalist Muslims in white robes.
“Once I wanted to go to Senen, I passed the National Monument and at
that time there was a demonstration on Libya and Ahmadiyah. All of a
sudden I started shouting to the driver, ‘Just hit them! Hit them! Why
should they make a fuss over another country when their own is still in a
mess,’ ” he said.
Ahmad also said he suffered from vertigo and severe headaches after
the beating, and had just recently recovered the ability to speak.
“Previously, I found it almost impossible to talk,” he said.
“Once I was in Citraland [West Jakarta mall] and saw a police
officer. I went to him and screamed at him, ‘What are you doing here?
You’re doing nothing! Just like in Cikeusik! Officers only watch and do
nothing!’ ”
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/archive/survivors-recount-violence-in-cikeusik/
In
this portrait Erfan Dahlan has represented Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi
in the garb of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. For comparison, see photo
of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad on the left.
