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.