A Lesson from Mumbai

Mumbai a.k.a Bombay is a memorable city for my family, because it was the second diplomatic post that my father was assigned to in his forty years career with the Department of Foreign Affairs. Beside that, Mumbai was the birth place of my late kid brother Dody Lesmana, and also the place where I have spent three years of my infancy.

Due to these reasons, we were saddened by last week’s terrorists’ attack that has brutally killed more than one hundred and ninety innocent people and injured many more others. At the time I type this article, the Indian security agencies are still investigating this matter, but their government has pointed out that the terrorists originated from Pakistan. And the terrorists themselves claimed that they belong to an unknown Moslem organization called Deccan Mujahiddin that struggles for the unification of the Indian region of Kashmir with Pakistan. Meanwhile, according to the BBC reported that some of the terrorists hold certain British papers, although it is still unclear whether those papers are passports or other ID cards.

Facts about India:
India is an industrial country that is also one of the few countries in the world bthat has developed nuclear armament. It has several world class businessmen such as Mittal the Steel King, and many of its educated and experienced people work abroad as expatriates. Due to India's huge population of 1,1 Billion, the economic wealth has not been distributed equally among its people. However, considering that it also has a large number of middle class society, India has been able to make development progress. Since its independence in 1948, India has been able to maintain its reputation as the largest democratic country in the world. One important factor that has made India able to maintain its existence as an independent nation is the ability its government and people to maintain the Rule of Law, whereby Law Enforcement officers are respected for their correct behaviors. Actually, India has similar characteristics like Indonesia i.e. diverse Tribes, Race and Religions. Although majority of its people are Hindus, however they have a minority of Moslems of 160 millions which is almost the same as the population of Pakistan. Due to which facts many problems faced by India are similar to the ones faced by Indonesia, such as regional separatist movements, never ending poverty, tribal and religious disputes, etc.

Considering the above mentioned facts, Indonesia can learn from the tragedy in Mumbai i.e by finding out what actually caused such attack, why can't it be prevented. In which case our Government, Courts of Justice and people should up held the Rule of Law principle i.e. Supremacy of Law, Equality before the Law, and Presumption of Innocence. For which purpose, the National Laws must be obeyed by every citizens no matter what their Religious, Tribal, Racial or Social backgrounds. Everyone must be treated equally, therefore Law Enforcement agencies i.e. the KPK, Attorney General Office the Police, and the Courts must show very strong integrity. Actually our existing Laws are quite good if implemented properly. Our amended Constitution (UUD1945)provides better protection for citizen's right, our Criminal Procedural Law No 8 Year 1981(KUHAP) adopted the Presumption of Innocence principle. We also have the Human Rights Law No. 39 Year 1999 and a National Human Rights Committee. In this regards, the current government has made a good start by making serious efforts to eliminate corruption, proven by the arrest of our President’s in law. Also by conducting close supervision on extreme religious fanatics, and sending their leaders to jail and executed some of them to death. Moreover, the government should also promote the importance of Religious, Tribal, Racial tollerance among our people. If these efforts could be maintained and improved continuously, we would be able to prevent terrorist attacks.

Pic.:BBC