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[Jakarta, 8 August 2024] President Marcos and his advisers should stay neutral on the coming 2025 parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). The recommendation comes as some in the president&rsquo;s inner circle are suggesting that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) needs another three years in power &ndash; one more election cycle to consolidate the peace.
<a title="Philippines: Avoiding a Zero-Sum Game in the 2025 BARMM Elections" href="https://understandingconflict.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/dashboard/IPAC-Report-97-Philippines-Avoiding-a-Zero-Sum-Game-in-the-2025-BARMM-Elections-pdt.pdf.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&ldquo;Philippines: Avoiding a Zero-Sum Game in the 2025 BARMM Elections&rdquo;</a>, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) in Jakarta and the third in a series on the elections, looks at increasing violence as two large parties and many small ones compete to win seats in the Bangsamoro Parliament and secure the all-important position of Chief Minister in May 2025. The main contest will be the MILF&rsquo;s United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) and an alliance of traditional clan leaders known as the Bangsamoro Grand Coalition (BGC).
&ldquo;The idea that peace depends on the MILF staying in power is flawed,&rdquo; says Sidney Jones, IPAC&rsquo;s senior adviser. &ldquo;If it&rsquo;s not clear that the BGC will do any better, it&rsquo;s also not clear that they will do any worse.&rdquo; A BCG victory would, however, end the hope that BARMM, with its unprecedented experiment in parliamentary democracy, could fundamentally change the political culture of the region.
IPAC notes that there is no guarantee that the unfinished business of the peace process in BARMM, especially the final round of decommissioning of MILF combatants, will be any closer to completion by 2028, mainly because the armed combatants constitute the MILF&rsquo;s strongest bargaining chip. No progress has been made on dismantling of private armed groups; the biggest source of violence as the elections approach is targeted assassinations by unidentified gunmen. If some fear that an MILF defeat could lead to a loss in patronage and therefore dangerous discontent among former fighters, the president and his advisers should be helping craft a better-managed reintegration program rather than trying to prop up one side in power.
The report is a snapshot of election preparations as of July 2024. It examines the electoral strength of the parties that have registered to take part in the election, the alliances being formed, the internal rifts, and the ethnic and regional issues involved. And critically, it examines the political interests of key actors in Manila and how these could affect the outcome in BARMM.
&nbsp;

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President Marcos and his advisers should stay neutral on the coming 2025 parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

Philippines: Avoiding a Zero-Sum Game in the 2025 BARMM Elections

<a href="https://understandingconflict.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/dashboard/IPAC-Report-96-Is-this-the-end-of-Jemaah-Islamiyah-updated.pdf.pdf">IPAC-Report-96-Is-this-the-end-of-Jemaah-Islamiyah-updated</a>

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On 30 June 2024, sixteen senior leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) gathered in Bogor and issued a statement dissolving the organisation.

Is this the end of Jemaah Islamiyah? (Updated)

[Jakarta, 27 June 2024] The Al-Qaeda franchise in Yemen has exerted a small but steady pull on Indonesian jihadis as illustrated by trials that concluded in Jakarta in May 2024.&nbsp;
<a title="Indonesians with al-Qaeda in Yemen" href="https://understandingconflict.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/dashboard/IPAC-Report-95-Indonesians-with-Al-Qaeda-in-Yemen.pdf.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&ldquo;Indonesians with al-Qaeda in Yemen&rdquo;</a>, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), examines a dozen cases of Indonesian extremists who sought training with AQAP from 2012 to 2023. Most departed between 2013 and 2015 with the aim of acquiring military training for a vague future use against Islam&rsquo;s enemies, not for planning terrorist attacks at home.&nbsp;
&nbsp;The attraction of Yemen was in part the belief at the time that the Sunni AQAP would ultimately prevail over both Shi&rsquo;a Houthi and Western-backed leaders.
&ldquo;Belief in the imminent victory of Islamic forces is a powerful pull factor for would-be mujahidin,&rdquo; says Sidney Jones, senior adviser of IPAC. &ldquo;This is something to consider when thinking about the next international battle that Indonesians might be tempted to join.&rdquo;
The recently concluded trials involved six men linked to the organisations Jamaah Ansharul Tauhid (JAT), founded by radical cleric Abu Bakar Ba&rsquo;asyir in 2008, and Jamaah Ansharul Syariah (JAS), a splinter that broke away from JAT after Ba&rsquo;asyir swore loyalty to ISIS in 2014. JAT in East Java was the primary driver of the search for training in Yemen.
While thousands of Indonesians attend schools in Yemen, mostly in the Hadramaut region, neither the traditional Islamic schools there nor the less popular Salafi schools closer to Sana&rsquo;a have been fertile areas for AQAP recruitment. Those known to have sought military training with AQAP were all radicalised at home by groups that viewed al-Qaeda as an ideological ally.
&ldquo;Even if those who went to Yemen did not initially plan to conduct violent attacks in Indonesia, the problem with the skills they learned, from sharpshooting to bomb-making, is that sooner or later, there could be a temptation to use them,&rdquo; says Jones.
&nbsp;

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The Al-Qaeda franchise in Yemen has exerted a small but steady pull on Indonesian jihadis as illustrated by trials that concluded in Jakarta in May 2024.

Indonesians with Al-Qaeda in Yemen

[Jakarta, 3 April 2024] All parties to the peace process in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) need to take steps now to reduce the potential for political violence in the lead-up to the 2025 parliamentary elections.
The latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), <a title="Philippines: Political Jockeying and Violence before the 2025 Elections in BARMM" href="https://understandingconflict.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/dashboard/IPAC-Report-93-Philippines-Political-Jockeying-and-violence-before-the-2025-elections-in-BARMM.pdf.pdf">&ldquo;Philippines: Political Jockeying and Violence before the 2025 Elections in BARMM&rdquo;</a>, analyses the different power blocs that will determine the outcome of the 2025 elections and the political jockeying and alliance-building that has already begun.&nbsp; The stakes are huge. &ldquo;While the peace process itself doesn&rsquo;t hang in the balance,&rdquo; says Sidney Jones, senior adviser to IPAC, &ldquo;the quality of the peace does, and the impact of the 2025 elections will be enormous.&rdquo;
The report explores the mechanics of the elections, the battle to control economic resources, the way in which traditional politicians have moved into king-maker roles, the implications of victory or defeat for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and some of the contentious issues that are raising hackles. These include the gerrymandering undertaken by the MILF leadership in an effort to boost the chances for its party, the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP), and a probably doomed effort to ban political dynasties. It also looks at why the last phase of &ldquo;normalisation&rdquo; and the decommissioning of MILF fighters has moved so slowly and why it would be in the interest of everyone to speedily complete it.
The 2025 elections for an 80-seat parliament will be the culmination of the peace process that produced the momentous 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro. The sources of potential violence, however, are many, from politicians determined to win seats at any cost, disgruntled combatants, a rift in the top ranks of the MILF leadership, and remnants of pro-ISIS groups determined to disrupt democratic procedures.
All parties need to take steps now to prevent deadly conflict. The government needs to map particularly tense areas and assign additional security forces. It also needs to work with civil society and universities to identify and respond to threats and disinformation on social media. Police need to avoid serving arrest warrants on former (and possibly armed) combatants without prior communication with those who can negotiate a peaceful surrender. The MILF needs to get its own house in order. Finally, all local political parties based on the Mindanao mainland need to reach out to the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi to ensure their concerns are reflected in programs and Cabinet choices once the elections are over.
&ldquo;Violence can&rsquo;t be eliminated but it can surely be reduced,&rdquo; says Jones. &ldquo;Keeping conflict to a minimum before the elections will help give the new government, once in office, the best chance of living up to the aspirations of those who worked for so long to bring it into being.&rdquo;
&nbsp;

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All parties to the peace process in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) need to take steps now to reduce the potential for political violence in the lead-up to the 2025 parliamentary elections.

Philippines: Political Jockeying and Violence before the 2025 Elections in BARMM

[Jakarta, 28 February 2024] The keys to successful deradicalisation programs in Indonesia are careful targeting, sustained personal attention, and provision of selected religious reading materials to those in prison.
<a title="An Indonesian Deradicalisation Program that Works" href="https://understandingconflict.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/dashboard/IPAC-Report-92-An-Indonesian-Deradicalisation-Program-that-Works-rev.pdf.pdf">&ldquo;An Indonesian Deradicalisation Program that Works&rdquo;,</a> the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) in Jakarta, examines one program undertaken by a unit of Detachment 88, Indonesia&rsquo;s counter-terrorism police, that has successfully changed the way that a group of formerly hardline ideologues think about violent jihad.
&ldquo;The accepted wisdom for the last decade is that the aim of prison programs should be to change behaviour, not ideology,&rdquo; says Syafiq Hasyim, IPAC research director. &ldquo;But this program has demonstrated that with the right approach, former extremists can come to realise that their interpretation of religious texts is flawed.&rdquo;
The report looks at how a Densus unit, IDENSOS (an acronym for the Directorate of Identification and Socialisation), was apparently able to convince four imprisoned pro-ISIS leaders that they had been misled and that several of their ideological premises were wrong. The four were Kiki Muhammad Iqbal, a two-time recidivist from West Java; William Maksum, a religious teacher from Bandung; Iskandar alias Abu Qutaidah from Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, who had served as spokesman for a prisoner uprising against police and prison staff in 2018; and Ustad Yasin, a cleric whose school became the centre of ISIS activity in central Sulawesi. In all cases, there were other factors besides the IDENSOS program that led them to question their beliefs but the sustained attention from police who themselves were devout Muslims was a crucial element.
The report examines the history of deradicalisation initiatives in Indonesia and how approaches have changed over time. It also notes that even the successful IDENSOS program faces obstacles in implementation. These include corruption in prison that allows wealthy narcotics dealers and white-collar corruptors to pay their way into less harsh prison regimes, taking up space that deradicalised prisoners have been promised. Bureaucratic procedures sometimes mean that those prisoners, promised early release, have to wait until well beyond their scheduled release for paperwork to be completed, creating new grievances. Punishing corruption and streamlining procedures would strengthen the IDENSOS program.
IPAC also recommends that more attention be made to women&rsquo;s networks outside prisons, since the attitude of spouses can be a major factor in whether in-prison transformations of male prisoners can be sustained after their release.
&nbsp;
<a href="https://understandingconflict.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/dashboard/IPAC-Report-92-An-Indonesian-Deradicalisation-Program-that-Works.pdf.pdf">IPAC Report 92 An Indonesian Deradicalisation Program that Works.pdf</a>

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The keys to successful deradicalisation programs in Indonesia are careful targeting, sustained personal attention, and provision of selected religious reading materials to those in prison.

An Indonesian Deradicalisation Program that Works

[Jakarta, 6 February 2024] The incoming president of Indonesia needs to learn from local initiatives in Papua if he wants to reduce the high level of deaths and displacement.&nbsp; After ten years, President Jokowi has left a pro-independence insurgency, the West Papua National Liberation Army (Tentara Pembebasan Nasional &ndash; Papua Barat, PNPB) that is better armed, resourced, and coordinated than it was when he took office. His successor needs to radically change course.
<a title="Managing Conflict in Papua: Suggestions for a New President" href="https://understandingconflict.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/dashboard/IPAC-Report-91-Managing-Conflict-in-Papua-Suggestions-for-a-New-President_06-02-2024.pdf.pdf">&ldquo;Managing Conflict in Papua: Suggestions for a New President,&rdquo; </a>the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), examines why various Papua initiatives attempted by post-Soeharto presidents have failed. These approaches can be characterized as &ldquo;Get them to like us&rdquo;, &ldquo;Hit them without mercy&rdquo;, &ldquo;Divide and rule&rdquo;, &ldquo;Give them money&rdquo;, &ldquo;End their isolation&rdquo; and very occasionally, &ldquo;Talk to them&rdquo;.&nbsp; But all have been marked by an effort to treat Papua as an undifferentiated whole and a lack of in-depth knowledge of local actors and dynamics. Instead, a new administration could learn from a &ldquo;live and let live&rdquo; approach of Lanny Jaya district, where violence steadily declined between 2018 and 2023, despite the strong presence of both guerillas and security forces.
The Lanny Jaya model was based on constant communication between local officials with both the TPNPB and local military and a determined effort to keep them out of each other&rsquo;s way. It involved meeting the basic needs of the guerrillas and their families but also providing the security forces with enough information so that they could provide accurate reports back to Jakarta. The flood of troops into the area after the abduction of the New Zealand pilot in 2023 may have undermined this approach.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s clear that top-down, Papua-wide initiatives that involve multiple actors from both government and the independence movement don&rsquo;t work,&rdquo; says Deka Anwar, IPAC researcher. &ldquo;The Lanny Jaya model is not a long-term solution to the conflict, but at least it can buy time and build trust as the level of violence is reduced.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&nbsp;

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The incoming president of Indonesia needs to learn from local initiatives in Papua if he wants to reduce the high level of deaths and displacement.