Don't sweep dirt under the carpet

I am writing in response to Sumarsono's letter of July 29 and Masli Arman's article Ethnic Chinese a fault for riots, July 30.

What really struck me as insensitive was that Masli Arman simply quoted a few isolated cases of Chinese misbehavior to malign the whole Chinese-Indonesian community. He said such incidents are sufficient grounds to gang rape Chinese women, destroy infrastructure and kill. So, may I then ask when the Arabs in Saudi Arabia raped pribumi (indigenous Indonesian) maids, how come the pribumi did not resort to raping and killing Arabs in Indonesia? Is it because the Arab rapists are Moslems and the haughty Chinese are not?

You also said Chinese should not speak Chinese and should forget about their roots totally to count as assimilated. Now let me ask, how come pribumi never ask European- and American- Indonesians to stop speaking English or French, etc. or stop celebrating Christmas? How come no calls for Indian- and Arab- Indonesians to stop speaking their own languages? If you use such double standards, who is satisfied?

And excuse me, Masli Arman, why do you cite the cases of the Chinese in Singapore? We are talking about Indonesia here.

As for the Golkar politician Lukman Harun's continued denial of the rapes, it only shows once again how deep is the pribumi's hatred of Chinese, that in order to guard Indonesia's "image", he tried to cover it up. If he wants evidence, I suggest he go and visit Singapore hospitals. There he will find Chinese-Indonesian girls whose vaginas and uteruses were so badly mutilated that they died.

And talking about no single victim complaining, how do you expect these victims to come out and testify in public that they were raped, reliving the whole traumatic incident, not to mention the humiliation that would follow? How do expect them to dare speak up, if they have received threats and grenades in the mail? In fact, these threats themselves are evidences enough that the rapists are out there.

I think I know the reason why the Indonesian government and people like Lukman Harun tried to deny the rapes -- because they think it will bring nothing but disgrace and shame to Indonesia and will delay investor confidence to return here. But if you have a disease, you must find the virus and kill it, not sweep it under the carpet.

Do you know why the Indonesian economy is not improving? Because the international community is not dumb enough to believe the rapes did not occur. As long as the virus is not eradicated, who dares to be near a sick Indonesia?

Masli Arman, Sumarsono and Lukman Harun, say what you want. But fortunately, the international community's opinion matters more. If they agree with you that the Chinese-Indonesian are at fault, and that the rapes did not happen, they will vote with their money. But if they feel that the actions of people like you and the government are outrageous and unacceptable, you can forget about economic recovery. Now guess which side the international community is on right now? So Indonesians, if you want economic recovery, see a doctor now and find the virus, instead of saying "I am fine, I am fine" again and again.

ROCHILI S.

Jakarta