The State and Illegality in Indonesia

ISBN: 9789067183710 出版年：2011 页码：340 E Aspinall G van Klinken Brill

In July 2007, at the height of a government military operation against separatist rebels in the Indonesian province of Aceh, a short but curious article appeared in the local newspaper. It quoted the Aceh military commander, Major General Endang Suwarya, warning members of the public not to be hoodwinked if they received a telephone call from someone claiming to be him and asking for money. Apparently, a group of swindlers had been telephoning rich people in the province, with one first pretending to be Endang’s adjutant. After ascertaining the identity of the person being called, the ‘adjutant’ would hand over the telephone to ‘the commander’ who would then ask for hundreds of millions of rupiah in order to help pay for the military operation. A number of local officials and businesspeople had apparently already fallen for the trick, and transferred large sums to the bank accounts in Jakarta nominated by the swindlers. Endang was angry: ‘For as long as I’ve been serving here, I have never telephoned anyone to borrow or ask for money.’ Yet this was not the first time, nor the last, that confidence tricksters had pretended to be members of the security forces in order to extort money from people in Aceh; on the contrary, there have been repeated reports of individuals pretending to be police officers, army soldiers or agents of the State Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelijen Negara, BIN) for this purpose. [Extract from introduction]