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.