Why jihad?
It is absolutely irresponsible for such an important Muslim cleric as Ibrahim Husein to speak to the press on such a sensitive issue as jihad (Calls for calm, jihad over Maluku mayhem, The Jakarta Post, Jan. 10, 2000). And to make it completely explosive, he further said that jihad was "mandatory"!
Pak Haji, do you not realize that you are giving license to a pack of hungry animals, probably only nominally Muslim, eager only for the opportunity to pour out all the years of frustration and hopelessness on to any object they can find? The legitimate target for all those lost years is Soeharto, not fellow citizens of Indonesia. Jihad, in any case, is more properly invoked where Muslims are in the minority and are threatened with terrible consequences if they do not apostatize. This is not the case in Maluku where Muslims are the majority.
Almost certainly the trouble was started deliberately last year in an attempt by the military to show that, with more and more places apparently falling into lawlessness, martial law for the whole of Indonesia was the only feasible option. Now someone has organized hundreds of thugs to go to Maluku to do the militia's dirty work for them.
One obvious way to lessen the killing is to impose a 24-hour curfew, after first arranging that food supplies will continue to reach the markets, and after ensuring that every person understands that he will be shot at, without warning, if he is found breaking the curfew. Each day the housewives will be allowed to go, escorted, to market for a specific time. Without the use of force, using metal detectors, a careful house by house search must then be made in order to find the majority of the weapons, using soldiers who their officers consider unlikely to turn a blind eye, i.e., use Muslims for Christian houses and vice versa.
The proper control of an army in peacetime rests with the civilian government and, at present, Indonesia is at war with no one. Any acts by the army must be with the prior approval of the elected representatives of the people, so, let's see some consultation, can we? Let us see some evidence that something is being done with our approval in order to bring this quite unnecessary bloodshed to an end.
W. WALLER
Cianjur, West Java