Some Western reports on the wave of killings terrorizing parts of Java have implied that only Indonesia's armed forces can restore order. But there are ominous signs the current killings--like the Army-instigated terror campaign of 1965 that killed half a million people--might have been instigated by the Army itself to justify its continued control of Indonesia's civilian life. PNS analyst Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and professor emeritus of UC Berkeley, has written numerous books on U.S. and foreign politics.

For weeks now widening areas of Java have been terrorized by a wave of killings. The chief victims have been almost 100 preachers in the moderate Muslim NU (Nahdlatul Ulama) organization. Despite ugly scenes of mob reprisals, these killings bear the marks of a carefully orchestrated psychological warfare campaign.

Some religious, political and military leaders have attributed this campaign to political splits within the top levels of the government. They do not point to any one individual or faction, but the terror has come to look more and more like the campaign mounted in 1965 by the Indonesian Army -- a bloodbath in which over half a million civilians were eventually killed.

In October 1998, as in 1965, "death lists" have been distributed, naming those allegedly marked for killing, and many individuals have been threatened. In 1998, as in 1965, many of those listed and threatened are rural preachers in the NU. The difference this time is that 96 preachers have actually been murdered, out of 150 or more victims.

The original targets of the 1998 threats were traditional sorcerers (dukuns) of East Java. Dukuns, part of the pre-Islamic traditional culture, have been opposed by Islamic sectarians but tolerated by the NU. When NU clerics sought to stop these killings, they swiftly became principal targets themselves.

Rumors spread that the killers were sadistic professionals, and dozens of black-dressed killers have reportedly been seen arriving in trucks -- just as army recruits were transported in 1965. Corpses have also been chopped up and parts thrown into mosques, a touch guaranteed not just to terrify people but to infuriate them.

Finally, as the terror and outrage spread, people began to lynch falsely suspected killers, at least one only because he was wearing black. A number of those victims have been mental patients who turned up in widely dispersed villages where they knew no one, and were executed by vigilante patrols looking for strangers. Vigilante teams were a key source of the slaughter in 1965. Then, as now, the victims' heads have been paraded on poles.

The mental patients offer perhaps the clearest sign of a professional psychological warfare campaign. As the Malang Military Commander observed, someone is victimizing people with mental disorders. Why else send them to scattered villages, where ten have been killed in less than a week.

What motives could there be for such a terror campaign? Many agree with NU Chairman Abdurrahman Wahid ("Gus Dur"): "They want to create national instability and disrupt plans to hold the general election in 1999." As the largest Muslim group in Indonesia, and indeed the world, the NU has played an important role in easing the nation towards a civilian democracy. It also represents the most important civilian force holding the nation's diverse cultures and factions together, a role exercised by the Armed Forces in the last thirty years.

Some have suggested the killings are part of long-standing tensions between Muslim factions, but the analogies with 1965 point to the Indonesian Army (ABRI) -- which has both the experience and the motive to create national instability and prevent democracy. The analogies increased when ABRI spokesmen attempted to blame the current killings on survivors of the PKI Communist Party, a claim widely ridiculed in the press.

Although the chief victims in 1965 were the Communists and their allies, the terror campaign also elevated to power those generals in the Army who believed in "dwi-fungsi" -- army control of the civilian population. Another faction, made up of generals who believed in army subordination to civilian control, were among the first victims.

A brief terror campaign in May against the Chinese minority has been attributed to Army provocateurs, who instigated mass violence as a case for the Army's retention of power. The latest terror campaign can be seen as having the same goal.

Today, after 33 years of extra-judicial killings, fomented riots, and other forms of Army terror, many pro-democracy forces in Indonesia are calling for an end to dwi-fungsi. ABRI itself has conceded that under Suharto excessive powers led to a perversion of the Army's role, a general has been collaborating on cosmetic political reforms, and some ABRI members have shown themselves more open to change.

Just how ABRI Chief Wiranto, a defender of dwi-fungsi, will react to the latest wave of terror remains to be seen. He was originally reported to have agreed with Gus Dur that political divisions at the top lie behind the killings. But now he has denied saying this, and has pointedly argued that only a swift response by ABRI (rather than the police) made it possible to bring the terror wave under control.

Once again, as in 1965, the Army's leader has pointed to the Army's role in establishing order and curbing slaughter. But in 1965 the Army itself was behind the massacre it ultimately put down. Today the Army is fragmenting, and increasingly under attack. It is too early to say if those responsible are at ABRI's center, or alternatively a dissident faction with possible outside support.