Unable or unwilling?

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