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