E. Java killings politically orchestrated: Survey

E. Java killings politically orchestrated: Survey

The government is playing with fire by pitting societal groups
against each other, a cross section of the public says. This
explains why security officers have appeared so lackadaisical in
tackling the Banyuwangi killings; the dragging of feet allows a
sense of terror to reign and attention to shift from the
government. It is a message conveyed loud and clear by 1,158
respondents in five major cities in the survey jointly
commissioned by The Jakarta Post and D&R magazine. The Resource
Productivity Center conducted the poll from Oct. 22 to Oct. 27.

JAKARTA (JP): The government line is that the Banyuwangi
killing spree in East Java, which began in August and has since
spread to Central and West Java, is a purely criminal case.

Not according to respondents in the survey of public
perceptions of the killings: 91.6 percent believe it is a
political issue orchestrated by the government.

Their reasoning is varied, including "it is obviously an
initiative to achieve their (the government's) narrow political
goals" (56.7 percent); it is "a way to divide and pit one
societal group against another" (30.8 percent), and "the way they
divert people's attention from the government's failure or
bureaucratic decay" (9.6 percent).

Respondents believe the Banyuwangi bloodshed has a different
target from the 1982 "Petrus" mysterious killings, and plays upon
the people's acute poverty and their vulnerability to provocation
and bribery.

The Petrus killings, reportedly under the direction of former
president Soeharto himself, targeted solely criminals, 50.8
percent responded, while the Banyuwangi carnage focuses on
religious leaders, 40.8 percent believed.

The terror is widespread; 71 percent of all respondents
believed the killing spree will eventually reach their cities.
The survey was made of 242 people in Jakarta, 215 in Bandung, 256
in Yogyakarta, 241 in Surabaya and 204 in Ujungpandang.

Of respondents believing the killings would spread, the most,
33.4 percent, said it was inevitable "because the people are
easily incited" and "the scenario of violence is designed to move
to other places" (22.9 percent). Another 15.9 percent said it
would be the case "if the government did not take action".

Tellingly, respondents living closest to the site of the
violence expressed the strongest rejection of the official line
on the killings.

Only 2.6 percent of respondents in Surabaya, the East Java
capital, accepted the contention by some government officials
that the killings were acts of revenge by former communists.
Conversely, 21.1 percent of respondents in Bandung, West Java,
supported the allegation.

Thus, the farther away respondents are from the site of the
killing, the more likely they are to be carried away by emotional
tugs of the murders and issues surrounding them. It begs the
question of who is the real target is if engineering of the issue
to manipulate the public is really going on.

A fat majority of respondents -- 86.1 percent -- also believed
that they are the ones who suffer the most in the end from the
murders and ensuing fears. Another 30.2 percent believed the
government, including the Armed Forces (ABRI) and the police,
benefited the most from the climate of fear.

Figures are higher in East Java, with 88.6 percent believing
the people suffer the most and 40.9 percent asserting it is the
government who benefits the most.

The killings, the most prominent among many violent outbreaks
in recent months, are now entering their fourth month. Initially,
the victims were suspected black magic practitioners.

Frighteningly reminiscent of the Petrus killings, the slayings
were allegedly conducted by groups of six to 10 people who
appeared to be well-organized and trained.

The killings spread to Banyuwangi's surrounding towns before
spilling over to Central and West Java. By September, the target
widened to include members of the Moslem clergy. Perpetrators by
then allegedly involved the masses, hired assassins, local
village officials, agent provocateurs and former communists.

The country's largest Moslem organization, Nahdlatul Ulama
(NU), believes the real target of the killings is its members.
They found that the number of Moslem preachers murdered far
outstripped the number of suspected black magic practitioners.

By October, locals began to arm themselves as the target of
the killings grew to encompass prominent local figures. People
were terrorized through telephone calls and pamphlets. Acute fear
descended over many towns.

Locals, embarking on overzealous hunts for the so-called
"ninja" killers, have resorted to lynching. In one instance, the
decapitated head of a suspected killer was paraded around Malang,
an East Java town near Surabaya.

The term "ninja" was coined because most of the killers were
clad in black and their faces covered in the fashion of Japanese
assassins. Dozens of suspected "ninja" have been detained, but
police said they had yet to establish a motive behind the
killings.

President B.J. Habibie vowed over the weekend to end the
killings, and NU has pledged to take action should the military
fail to solve the murders by the end of November. On Sunday, the
youth wing of NU demanded responsibility from President Habibie
over the bloodshed.

Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces (ABRI) Commander
Gen. Wiranto has said that conflicts among the political elite
might be behind the killing spree, a view shared by NU leader
Abdurrahman Wahid. Wahid repeated his allegation at the end of
last month, saying that Cabinet members and several
"nonstructural officers" masterminded the murders.

In summation, the poll results show respondents believing the
Habibie government has failed to align itself with the people,
and is perceived as using political engineering to buttress its
position against opposition.

Asked whether ABRI would be able to solve the killings, 43.6
percent answered in the affirmative and 36.3 percent said no, a
tepid show of confidence at best.

However, 56.4 percent still have hopes that ABRI will somehow
be able to solve them in the future. Thus, the less trust there
is toward ABRI now, the higher the hope for the military to
guarantee security in the future.

Fears that the terror will spread are acute precisely because
the public doubts the guarantee of security and its belief that
the state is involved in the killings. (hbk)