What now? Why now?

What now? Why now?

With blood from the Black Friday tragedy not yet even dry, the
Armed Forces (ABRI) has announced that it plans to forge ahead
and recruit tens of thousands of civilians to help maintain
security in the country. Few people will question the legality of
the plan since the government, under the 1982 law on national
defense, is permitted to recruit civilians for the purpose of
defending the country. But the bigger question regarding the plan
to create a civilian militia is "Why now?"

Coming so soon after the disastrous deployment of bamboo
spear-wielding volunteers to "secure" the Special Session of the
People's Consultative Assembly, the timing of the announcement is
wholly inappropriate and insensitive to the victims of the
tragedy.

Have we not learned anything from Black Friday? Have the
scenes of unarmed antigovernment protesters clashing with
security personnel and bands of highly intimidating, untrained
paramilitary volunteers been forgotten already? Sixteen people
died and hundreds more were injured, yet the tragedy and the
controversial decision to deploy volunteer civilian guards have
yet to be satisfactorily explained. So far, no one appears to
have been made accountable for this sad and tragic affair.

Like many recent initiatives proposed by the government of
President B.J. Habibie, the plan to create a civilian militia is
far from satisfactory. It raises more questions than the
government appears willing to answer and smacks of ulterior
motives. A lack of transparency, it seems, is becoming the
hallmark of this government.

The explanation given to the public is that the paramilitary
force is needed because the military, including the police, do
not have the manpower to guarantee security throughout this huge
archipelagic nation. This argument is acceptable if based on the
ratio of police-to-population, but that does not explain why a
civilian militia has to be formed now. If we have been "under-
policed" for all this time, then on balance we appear to have
managed quite well.

The clause on mobilization in the 1982 law is primarily
intended to counteract the possibility of foreign aggression, but
that is definitely not what the military leadership fears at
present. Although not explicitly stating so, they have implied
that the threat comes from within the country. If the nation is
facing a major threat, and the military would deign to share this
intelligence with the general public, then they would get all the
support they need for a civilian militia. Without this, it is
difficult not to believe that the plan is simply a continuation
of last month's highly unpopular decision to deploy bands of
untrained civilian guards on the streets of the capital. It was
dangerous then, and it will be dangerous in the future.

The military has promised that volunteers will be trained and
supervised by the military, but this is hardly comforting given
the frequency with which even the cream of ABRI's soldiers have
been guilty of stepping out of line. More alarming still is that
most of these errant troops -- among them those guilty of
committing atrocities in Aceh, abducting political activists and
shooting dead four Trisakti University students -- have not even
been punished for their actions.

In the light of this, what guarantee do we have that a
civilian militia will not be allowed to wreak havoc with
impunity?

The time when amateurs are needed to help the Armed Forces
uphold security in our nation has not yet come. Not now of all
times.