The killings must end

Perhaps our security authorities are well advised to carefully heed the call made recently by the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) central board. The board's secretary-general, Achmad Bagja, reminded the authorities that the NU board is willing, for the present, to allow them time to restore peace and security (in East Java and other areas where mostly NU supporters have been killed by unidentified individuals). This tolerance, he said, would run out by the end of November at the latest. "Unless the security authorities can end the problem soon, the people, and NU members in particular, will settle the situation in their own manner," he warned.

We hope this reference to settling the case in the people's own manner does not mean abandoning the codes of the law. After all, as Achmad Bagja also said, NU is hoping that the legal process (of settling the affair) can be completed quickly. Nevertheless, it should be realized -- and anticipated -- that the people's way of settling affairs could overstep the boundaries of correctness as defined by the law.

Even the village vigilantes -- which were formed at the government's advice -- can overstep their lawful authority because of the pressures of the situation. In some instances, people have taken the law into their own hands and acted with excessive force against those who were suspected of being the killers. Once again, therefore, the authorities must lay open the situation promptly in order that the people do not take the law into their own hands. This is also important to bolster the credibility of the security apparatus.

This era of reform, it has often been said, is an era of the supremacy of the law. The law must be upheld in order to defend the human dignity of our people and protect their basic rights, including the right to live. For this reason, the unnatural death of every person -- particularly if it is the result of any inhumane act of violence -- deserves to be thoroughly investigated.

We would like to remind everyone, as Foreign Minister Ali Alatas has told us, that the international community is carefully watching what is going on in Banyuwangi. Imagine the damage that our good image would suffer in the world if we cannot resolve this problem satisfactorily.

-- Suara Karya, Jakarta