Slow action

Slow action

From Gatra

For four full years -- from July 1991 to July 1995 -- I was assigned to a state enterprise in Banyuwangi, East Java, a district subdivided into 13 subdistricts and having a population of some 1.5 million people. When I was stationed there, I traveled all over the district night and day, going through forest areas such as Baluran and Grajagan tourist forest and even the Kaliklatak estate area.

At every place I visited, I got acquainted with the local people and got on well with them. The local people, despite their various backgrounds, such as estate workers, farmers, fishermen, traders and students of traditional Moslem schools, lived in harmony and demonstrated a high sense of solidarity, openness and the spirit of togetherness.

In almost every part of the district, the indigenous people of Banyuwangi were on intimate terms with those of Arabic, Bugis, Madurese, or even Chinese origin. From my four-year stay in Banyuwangi, I can conclude that this district is culturally rich, and that the local people are generally simple and religious.

Three years have passed since I last left Banyuwangi. In 1998, the winds of reform have triggered an outbreak of violence and looting in Banyuwangi, both reportedly being committed by certain groups of people. I was tickled by my curiosity: Was it true that the people of Banyuwangi had committed violence and looting? Given that Banyuwangi is fertile and prosperous, how could anybody resort to violence and looting there?

When various media began to run reports on sorcery in Banyuwangi, I tried to think harder. In my four-year stay there I never once came across such a incident. I became even more perplexed when there were reports that brutal mass terror was under way: people suspected of being sorcerers were kidnapped and murdered.

Why didn't the regional administration, the local police and the military district command try to take any preventive measures when only scores of people had lost their lives? And why did the security apparatuses take firm action only after hundreds of people had been murdered. Although, even this measure was taken only after the military region commander and the governor visited the crime scenes? Was this incident deliberately allowed to drag on before firm action was finally taken? What was actually going on between the local administration and local security apparatuses? It really cannot stand to reason that brutal acts and massacres, like what one can witness in Banyuwangi, have really taken place in a country based on Pancasila.

When media attention was being devoted to the likelihood of illegal exports of the rice from Banyuwangi -- in the midst of food shortages among the locals -- and to the exposure of manipulation in the timber area, an activity damaging to the forests in Banyuwangi, the reports on the killing spree of sorcerers suddenly made headlines. Was this only a coincidence?

As a former activist of a mass organization directly involved in the annihilation of the remnants of the abortive communist coup attempt G-30-S/PKI in Surakarta and Madiun, I can confirm that the mass terror in Banyuwangi has obviously been perpetrated by people with communist leanings. Brutal terror and sadistic acts obviously indicate that they are not just crimes and that there must be agitators behind them.

Many have fallen victim. Irrespective of whether the victims were really sorcerers as alleged, the law must be enforced with impartiality. We should also query why the district head and the local security apparatuses were so slow in taking action to overcome this problem.

H.R. SUDARMONO

Jakarta