Jakarta – The government line is that the Banyuwangi killing spree in East Java, which began in August and has since spread to Central and West Java, is a purely criminal case.
The government is playing with fire by pitting societal groups against each other a cross section of the public says. This explains why security officers have appeared so lackadaisical in tackling the Banyuwangi killings; the dragging of feet allows a sense of terror to reign and attention to shift from the government. It is a message conveyed loud and clear by 1,158 respondents in five major cities in the survey jointly commissioned by The Jakarta Post and D&R magazine. The Resource Productivity Centre conducted the poll from Oct. 22 to Oct. 27.
Not according to respondents in the survey of public perceptions of the killings: 91.6 percent believe it is a political issue orchestrated by the government. Their reasoning is varied, including "it is obviously an initiative to achieve their (the government's) narrow political goals" (56.7 percent); it is "a way to divide and pit one societal group against another" (30.8 percent), and "the way they divert people's attention from the government's failure or bureaucratic decay" (9.6 percent).
Respondents believe the Banyuwangi bloodshed has a different target from the 1982 "Petrus" mysterious killings and plays upon the people's acute poverty and their vulnerability to provocation and bribery. The Petrus killings, reportedly under the direction of former president Soeharto himself, targeted solely criminals, 50.8 percent responded, while the Banyuwangi carnage focuses on religious leaders, 40.8 percent believed.
The terror is widespread; 71 percent of all respondents believed the killing spree will eventually reach their cities. The survey was made of 242 people in Jakarta, 215 in Bandung, 256 in Yogyakarta 241 in Surabaya and 204 in Ujungpandang.
Of respondents believing the killings would spread, the most, 33.4 percent, said it was inevitable "because the people are easily incited" and "the scenario of violence is designed to move to other places" (22.9 percent). Another 15.9 percent said it would be the case "if the government did not take action".
Tellingly, respondents living closest to the site of the violence expressed the strongest rejection of the official line on the killings. Only 2.6 percent of respondents in Surabaya, the East Java capital, accepted the contention by some government officials that the killings were acts of revenge by former communists. Conversely, 21.1 percent of respondents in Bandung, West Java, supported the allegation.
Thus, the farther away respondents are from the site of the killing, the more likely they are to be carried away by emotional tugs of the murders and issues surrounding them. It begs the question of who is the real target is if engineering of the issue to manipulate the public is really going on.
A fat majority of respondents – 86.1 percent – also believed that they are the ones who suffer the most in the end from the murders and ensuing fears. Another 30.2 percent believed the government, including the Armed Forces (ABRI) and the police, benefited the most from the climate of fear. Figures are higher in East Java, with 88.6 percent believing the people suffer the most and 40.9 percent asserting it is the government who benefits the most.
The killings, the most prominent among many violent outbreaks in recent months, are now entering their fourth month. Initially, the victims were suspected black magic practitioners. Frighteningly reminiscent of the Petrus killings, the slayings were allegedly conducted by groups of six to 10 people who appeared to be well-organized and trained. The killings spread to Banyuwangi's surrounding towns before spilling over to Central and West Java. By September, the target widened to include members of the Moslem clergy. Perpetrators by then allegedly involved the masses, hired assassins' local village officials, agent provocateurs and former communists.
The country's largest Moslem organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), believes the real target of the killings is its members. They found that the number of Moslem preachers murdered far outstripped the number of suspected black magic practitioners.
By October, locals began to arm themselves as the target of the killings grew to encompass prominent local figures. People were terrorized through telephone calls and pamphlets. Acute fear descended over many towns. Locals, embarking on overzealous hunts for the socalled "ninja" killers, have resorted to lynching. In one instance, the decapitated head of a suspected killer was paraded around Malang, an East Java town near Surabaya.
The term "ninja" was coined because most of the killers were clad in black and their faces covered in the fashion of Japanese assassins. Dozens of suspected "ninja" have been detained, but police said they had yet to establish a motive behind the killings.
President B.J. Habibie vowed over the weekend to end the killings, and NU has pledged to take action should the military fail to solve the murders by the end of November. On Sunday, the youth wing of NU demanded responsibility from President Habibie over the bloodshed.
Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces (ABRI) Commander Gen. Wiranto has said that conflicts among the political elite might be behind the killing spree, a view shared by NU leader Abdurrahman Wahid. Wahid repeated his allegation at the end of last month, saying that Cabinet members and several "nonstructural officers" masterminded the murders.
In summation, the poll results show respondents believing the Habibie government has failed to align itself with the pepple, and is perceived as using political engineering to buttress its position against opposition.
Asked whether ABRI would be able to solve the killings, 43.6 percent answered in the affirmative and 36.3 percent said no, a tepid show of confidence at best. However, 56.4 percent still have hopes that ABRI will somehow be able to solve them in the future. Thus, the less trust there is toward ABRI now, the higher the hope for the military to guarantee security in the future.
Fears that the terror will spread are acute precisely because the public doubts the guarantee of security and its belief that the state is involved in the killings.
[On November 4 AFP reported that villagers fearful of "Ninja" assassins lynched a man in a township near Jakarta a day after black-clad, masked men attacked two local Moslem leaders. It said that the incident reinforced fears that the killings had spread west to the capital - James Balowski.]