War against agitators

It must be said that never in the history of this Republic have there been riots as big and as grim as those we have experienced lately. The most recent riots appeared multidimensional in pattern and motive, and savage in the extreme.

Oddly, the question of who precisely the instigators were and what their motives could have been has never been adequately answered. Promises to reveal the identities of those agitators have never been fulfilled. All that has been presented to the public is a shadow of "provocateurs" -- a new word that has become immediately familiar to all of us.

Because of all this it is not surprising that people have become apathetic, or even cynical, and that ABRI (the Indonesian Armed Forces) is intentionally letting the disorder continue. Some people even suspect that all the unrest is part of a scheme devised by ABRI leading officers.

For all these reasons, we should welcome the determination stated by Minister of Defense/Armed Forces Chief Gen. Wiranto at the ABRI leadership conference last week to wage war against the troublemakers. All that violence is threatening the unity of our nation. It has shattered the cohesion of religious believers, fractured the solidarity between our ethnic groups and destroyed the general sense of security. Clearly, the problem cannot be solved on a local and fragmentary basis. The root of the problem must be uncovered thoroughly.

-- Republika, Jakarta