Growth of militias spell trouble

Civilian militias and task forces are everywhere. They belong to different organizations but are established for a similar goal: To be used as a coercive force.

Like soldiers, they wear uniforms, berets, army boots and carry clubs and blow whistles. Secretly, they also possess military gear and weapons.

This situation defies common sense. If all our subdistricts and large organizations had their own troops then Indonesia would become unmanageable.

We are, in fact, now heading in that direction. The incident in Ngawi is the most obvious example. Laskar Jihad and the task force of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) have assaulted each other with firearms, homemade bombs and sharp- pointed weapons. They also resorted to kidnapping.

After correcting the excessive role of the military, we are ironically now greedily adopting the role of the military. Militarism is everywhere again, adopted by civilian organizations under the pretext of law enforcement. We all know that civilians have no right to enforce the law. If they do, they just become prone to committing gross violations of human rights.

Political parties and religions possess enormous power in terms of their followers. So, paramilitary groups must never be allowed to exist.

As long as the military behaves itself, the greatest danger to public order will come from civilian militias.

Such militarism is potentially dangerous to the sovereignty of the state. Separatist movements in Aceh and Irian Jaya are, in some respects, examples of how civilians have been allowed to resort to military practices.

Only when the law is truly enforced can we avoid the chaos and civil unrest that militias spell. Unfortunately, there is a strong reason to feel pessimistic as the law remains subservient to money and power.

-- Media Indonesia, Jakarta