Indonesian Justice Run Amok
Increasingly, suspected thieves and other supposed wrongdoers are beaten
to death in the streets. Vengeful mobs are frustrated by
a corrupt and ineffective legal system.
By RICHARD C. PADDOCK, Times Staff Writer
TANGERANG, Indonesia--One man received the death penalty after he admitted
stealing a
motorcycle. Another was put to death for allegedly pinching a pair of Nike
sandals. A third was
executed after he was seen carrying a stolen duck.
Their punishment was immediate and was carried out by the same people who
sentenced
them to death: vengeful street mobs.
In all three cases--and hundreds more like them--it took no more than cries
of "Thief!" in a
busy street to galvanize bystanders into action. Crowds quickly gathered,
seized the suspects
and beat them, stoned them or set them on fire.
Brutal pengadilan jalanan, or "street justice," is on the rise in Indonesia
as economic hardship
and the end of authoritarian rule combine to create a climate of lawlessness.
The nation's
poverty-stricken inhabitants, frustrated by a corrupt and ineffective legal
system, are increasingly
taking the law into their own hands--with gruesome results.
Over the last few months, thieves have been beaten to death or set afire
for stealing a
chicken--or a goat, a cow, chili peppers, green beans, dinner plates, a
gas can, a Sony Walkman.
Government officials do not keep track of the number of cases of vigilante
justice. But nearly every day, Indonesian newspapers
carry reports of suspected criminals slain by the public. Munir, a human
rights activist who works to combat violence, estimates that
lynch mobs have killed more than 1,000 people in Indonesia this year. Few
are arrested for such crimes; even fewer are convicted.
"Every day, there are new bodies," said Munir, who, like many Indonesians,
uses only one name. "People are murdered, and no
one is responsible for it."
Indonesia, a far-flung nation of 17,000 islands, has an ancient tradition
of violence. Many of the country's more than 300 ethnic
groups have long practiced their own rough justice. The phrase "to run
amok" comes from the old Indonesian word amuk, to attack
furiously.
Until President Suharto stepped down in May 1998, the government routinely
used violence as a political tool to control the
populace. During his 32-year rule, hundreds of thousands of suspected opponents
were killed without trial, and many thousands
more disappeared. State-sanctioned violence was seldom punished, contributing
to the attitude that anything goes.
President Abdurrahman Wahid, a democratically minded Muslim cleric who
was elected last year, has had difficulty asserting
control over the politically powerful military, leaving the country in
a state of turmoil.
Under Suharto's military rule, most people were afraid to mete out mob
justice. But as the government has lifted repressive
measures over the last two years, vigilante violence has taken their place.
"What we have now is freedom without order," said University of Indonesia
sociology professor Sardjono Jatiman. Or as a
police detective in Tangerang put it: "People think there is democracy
and so they can do anything."
Suhamdani, a soft-spoken 18-year-old high school student, knows what it
is like to be caught up in the violence of a mob.
On Oct. 27, he and a friend were walking down a street in this city of
1.6 million people near the capital, Jakarta, when a
motorcycle hit his friend. Suhamdani said he and other bystanders grabbed
the driver, beat him and took him into a nearby house so
he could not escape.
Not far away, the owner of the motorcycle heard of the accident. He hurried
to the house and accused the driver, a man named
Njat, of stealing the bike.
"You're a thief! You're a thief!" the owner shouted as a crowd of more
than 100 gathered, Suhamdani recounted.
Inside the house, Njat admitted that he had "borrowed" the motorcycle without
permission and apologized to the owner. But that
was not enough. The crowd dragged Njat outside and beat him senseless with
stones and wood. He was pronounced dead on the
way to the hospital.
Suhamdani, who hopes one day to become a Muslim teacher, was arrested a
week later. He remains the only one in custody. He
says he took part in the initial beating but not the killing. He is cooperating
with police but has difficulty explaining why the crowd of
people--many strangers to one another--acted so violently.
"The mob was led by the motorcycle owner," Suhamdani said in an interview
at the jail here. "They didn't like the thief's attitude.
The owner was very emotional."
Since the Asian economic collapse of 1997-98, Indonesia has been mired
in poverty. Workers are lucky to make the equivalent
of $60 a month, and desperation is high among the large number of unemployed.
In a land where many people have few possessions, a motorcycle is one of
the most valuable. Indeed, taking a motorcycle in
Indonesia is akin to stealing a horse in the Old West--and people accused
of the crime are often hanged from the nearest tree.
Legal experts say street justice has become widespread because the legal
system has failed to adapt from the days of dictatorship
and create an impartial process that ensures basic fairness.
The judiciary remains corrupt and inefficient, and the police brutal and
arbitrary. In some cases, police stand by and watch as
petty criminals are beaten by mobs. Yet rich, well-connected criminals
and corrupt government officials are rarely arrested or
punished.
"A thief should not be punished by death," said Harkristuti Harkrisnowo,
a criminologist and law professor at the University of
Indonesia in Jakarta. "This poor person becomes a substitute for the high-level
criminals that the community never has the
opportunity to get hold of."
In particular, the inability of the government to try Suharto on charges
that he stole at least $571 million from charities he
controlled has contributed to the popular view that the legal system does
not work, acknowledged Atty. Gen. Marzuki Darusman,
whose efforts to prosecute the former dictator have been stymied by the
courts.
While vigilante justice is a nationwide phenomenon, most incidents occur
in the densely populated region of greater Jakarta,
where about 15 million people live.
One of the most grisly incidents of mob rule occurred on a Saturday afternoon
in June in East Jakarta.
Five pickpockets were working together on a crowded bus when they were
caught in the act. They jumped off and ran to a car
but were trapped inside by a gathering crowd. The mob pulled them from
the car one by one, beat them, threw them in a pile and set
them on fire. One of the men jumped up with his clothes ablaze and tried
to run away. He made it only a few yards before people in
the crowd hit him with stones and brought him down.
Nelson Chaniago, a 32-year-old taxi driver who witnessed the scene, said
the killings were justified. People must carry out their
own justice, he said, because the police and courts do not.
"Criminals are caught by the police, but several days later they have already
gotten out," Chaniago said. "It's a pity, but because
the law is not strong at the moment, what can we do?"
Such outbursts of spontaneous violence are all the more striking because
Indonesians are generally very friendly and polite in
public. Criminologist Harkrisnowo, who was trained in the U.S., said even
kindhearted, law-abiding citizens get caught up in mob
frenzy and lose control over their actions.
"You lose your identity," she said. "Your identity is merged with the identity
of other people in the group. When you are
committing a crime, you don't feel as though you are doing it. You feel
as if the group is doing it, so there is a diffusion of
responsibility."
The rise in vigilante justice since the fall of Suharto stems in part from
the growing influence of fundamentalist Islam and its strict
code of morality.
Supriyanto, a 39-year-old married man, often slept at the home of his girlfriend,
Partinah, a widow in the central Javanese town
of Semarang. Neighbors had warned him against this practice, but he paid
little attention. In September, a mob gathered outside the
house at 1 a.m., dragged him outside and beat him to death.
The fear of black magic among superstitious Indonesians also inspires its
share of killings.
In the small western Javanese town of Cianjur, 67-year-old Iyot received
a gift of salted fish from her son in September and gave
some to her neighbors. One neighbor developed itchiness after eating the
fish and accused her of practicing black magic. Hearing the
charge, a crowd of 30 people attacked Iyot with their long machete-like
knives, called golok.
Police said two people have been arrested in connection with her death,
including a man named Barma who was often paid a
small sum by uneducated villagers to judge whether a neighbor was practicing
black magic. Usually, Barma found suspects guilty.
Since 1997, residents of Cianjur have killed 20 people in the belief they
were practicing black magic, said Police Capt. Agus
Nugraha, the town's chief of detectives.
"The level of legal awareness is low," he said. "They always bring their
golok everywhere, and their hard life has formed a hard
attitude. Every problem is solved by using a golok."
Advocates of mob rule dismiss the possibility that innocent victims could
be killed in the rush to justice or that people motivated
by greed or revenge could make false accusations.
Mansyur, an unemployed graduate of an Islamic university, said leaders
in his East Jakarta community judge the guilt of a suspect
before punishment is carried out. "Here the local society isn't doing mass
justice any way we feel like it," said Mansyur, 26. "We
make sure first."
In Mansyur's neighborhood last month, residents beat 30-year-old Ibrahim
after he was allegedly caught stealing Nike sandals
and a pair of pants from a house. He was dead within an hour. Mansyur denied
involvement in the killing but explained how the
community operates.
"We look at the case," he said. "If we find proof that he is a thief, we
take him to the chief of the neighborhood. Then we punish
him, usually by beating him up, but not until he is dead. What happened
last time, he was dead in the hospital, not here."
This system of justice was nearly the death of Sarman, 27, a mentally disabled
northern Jakarta man.
He was wandering in an unfamiliar neighborhood in June when residents saw
him peeking into windows. A thief had stolen a
motorcycle from the same street the previous day, and the locals became
suspicious.
When Sarman sat down in someone's yard, police said, area residents began
beating him and shouting "Thief!'
Fortunately for Sarman, police arrived in time to prevent his death. He
was hospitalized with cuts and bruises.
In Indonesia's volatile political climate, some worry that there is great
potential for anti-democratic forces to exploit the mob
mentality.
In September, a crowd incited by pro-military militia leaders killed three
United Nations aid workers in West Timor province.
The mob entered the U.N. office in the town of Atambua, hacked the three
workers to death, dragged their bodies into the street
and set them on fire.
"People are not thinking critically and are provoked by the smallest thing,"
Harkrisnowo said. "The fact that people act
immediately without any contemplation is very primitive. People could easily
manipulate this vulnerable condition of the people, and
there's no telling what could happen."