Return of the gunmen?

A hungry man, they say, does not question where his food comes from. Somehow, this saying immediately sprang to mind upon reading a news item which appeared in the Jakarta morning newspaper, Republika, yesterday.

Earlier this week, the report said, 151 young residents of Jakarta, who hail from the province of South Sulawesi, visited the office of the Indonesian Foundation for the Study of Justice and Democracy (YLPKDI) on Jl. Setiabudi, Central Jakarta. The youths presented the board of the foundation with a signed statement in support of active military involvement in fighting crime in this city.

The youths said the measures taken by the chief of the Jakarta Military Command as head of the coordinating body for national stability for the greater Jakarta area (Bakorstanasda Jaya) warranted the full support of the public and should be continual. "And if necessary "petrus" (penembak misterius, or mysterious gunmen) should be revived," the report quoted the statement as saying.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, the term "petrus" came into vogue some years ago, when citizens in Jakarta and other big cities in Indonesia were startled at the almost daily regularity of newspaper reports on the discovery of the dead bodies of supposed criminals found in all sorts of public places, from roadsides to marketplaces. Often, the deceased were found tied up and stuffed into sacks. Most of those people had gunshot wounds and hence were obviously murdered.

However, the question of who killed them remained a mystery, although rumor had it that it was the work of licensed gunmen, sent out by whoever had the authority to clear criminals out of the capital. The official explanation at that time was that the victims were casualties of a "gang war" that was supposed to be raging. The mysterious killings subsided and eventually stopped after lawyers and human rights advocates, here and abroad, protested against what they suspected were killings by officially licensed gunmen. And even politicians objected on the grounds that the measures, if condoned, could eventually tempt those who had the power to do so to try to eliminate politically unwanted persons by the same means.

All the protests notwithstanding, it is a well known fact that many Indonesians -- probably the large majority -- welcomed those strong measures against criminals, which they attributed to military concern over the rising tendency toward crime at that time. And, indeed, there was no doubt that criminals seemed to disappear for a while from the urban landscape, at least in the big cities of Java.

It is no doubt that this same reason is what motivated the youths to visit the YLPKDI office this week. In their statement the youths said among other things that they regarded the military involvement in the fight against crime in Jakarta at present as necessary. The main reason they cited was that the police are now often ignored by criminals, a phenomenon which shatters the public's feeling of security.

In the meantime, obviously it must be clear that the doubts and anxieties that were voiced by those with cooler minds against such drastic measures apply now as they did during the days of "petrus."

The questions remain the same. To mention a few: Who is marked for this kind of "elimination", and who has the say in making such choices? Who is there to guarantee that only criminals will be eliminated, or that those licenses to kill will not be abused?

If support for mysterious shootings is indeed widespread (just how widespread is a matter of speculation), then obviously we as a nation are confronted with a serious dilemma. Obviously we are hungry for security, at home and in the streets. But shouldn't we question where that security comes from and how it is achieved?