Return of the gunmen?

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?