The specter of anarchy
The specter of anarchy
The sporadic riots which broke out in Cilacap, Central Java,
and Bondowoso and Situbondo in East Java last weekend have raised
the specter of anarchy spreading to other parts of the
archipelago.
While the circumstances for these riots were different, we can
find a common thread in them. In Cilacap, a usually quiet fishing
town overlooking the Indian Ocean, local fishermen reacted
violently to what they saw as an unfair distribution of their
daily catch with their bosses and by the presence of fishing
boats from other regions. In Bondowoso and Situbondo, villagers
resorted to looting foodstuffs which they no longer could afford
because of soaring prices.
Deplorable as they were, the riots were acts of desperation by
people facing economic hardship. They resorted to violence
because they felt they had no other recourse. With rice prices
rising to record levels and the economic turmoil showing no signs
of abating, it requires little imagination to see that more
unrest could easily spread to other parts of the country.
More worrisome than the underlying causes behind these riots,
however, is the failure of our law enforcement agencies in
dealing with such incidents, and in their inability to anticipate
trouble.
The credibility of the police and the military has been
brought into serious disrepute since their failure to maintain
peace and order during the massive riots in May. Not only did
they fail to protect lives and property then, they were seen as
the very source of the menace in the shooting of peaceful student
demonstrators at Trisakti University just days before the riots
broke out. While their technical capability to control crowds
still leaves a lot to be desired, their commitment to maintaining
security is even more deplorable. Added to this are strong rumors
that organized groups actually perpetrated the Jakarta riots.
Even leaving aside suggestions that these groups had links with
units in the Armed Forces, there are lingering doubts about the
security apparatus' intelligence capability in detecting and
defusing unrest before it happens.
With their reputation in tatters, the police and the military
can look forward to little respect, much less support, from the
community they are supposed to protect and serve. Given such a
situation, people who are prone to crime, either out of
desperation or out of malicious intentions, have little to fear
from security personnel.
The combination of economic hardships and an increasingly
impotent security apparatus is a sure recipe for anarchy on an
unimaginable scale. If the source of anarchy comes from the
combination of these two factors, then any solution requires a
two-pronged approach. On one front, the government must tackle
the economic crisis to ease people's hardships. On another front,
the security apparatus must restore its public image if it wants
to become effective in defusing future incidents.
The only way that the police and military can regain public
trust is by showing they are serious about protecting the lives
and property of all Indonesians. For this, the Armed Forces needs
to put its own house in order first, and it must do this quickly.
The protracted investigations of the Trisakti shootings, the
May riots in Jakarta, the abduction and torture of activists and
other incidents involving the military are not helping the
security apparatus' image. The Armed Forces has shown a lack of
courage, and political will, in punishing its own personnel, let
alone in disclosing the truth.
We have heard senior police and military officers promising to
get tough on looters and rioters, even to the point of giving
shoot on sight orders. But this is not helping at all and may
even be counterproductive as long as the security apparatus does
not enjoy the respect or trust of the community. For in the final
analysis, the police and the military can only maintain peace and
order with the public's support.