Unable or unwilling?

Sidney Jones, the Jakarta-based South East Asia project director for International Crisis Group, had two months before the 2002 Bali bombings, released a meticulously researched, and prescient report on the danger posed by Jamaah Islamyah (JI) now widely believed to have masterminded those attacks (TIME, Oct. 10 edition).

Few paid heed at that time. And then there were the other bombs, like the one in front of Australian Embassy and those on Oct. 1 back in Bali. If Jones' report was such a crystal-clear warning, why did the authorities turned a deaf ear to it?

Surely, ideally, our security forces should have known better than Jones, a foreigner, about what was going on in this country. The police's call for us to be aware of suspicious neighbors is a good idea, but this won't work forever.

It's almost an impossible mission to watch over more than 200 million Indonesian citizens. What we need to do is uproot and crack down on the JI network and ban organizations like JI that exist, lest this peace-loving country is destroyed.

If police and/or intelligence agencies fail to execute this simple plan, people will think that they are not only unable but also unwilling to protect Indonesia and Indonesians.

WIDHYAWATI AMBARA, Jakarta