Indonesia's ruling elite appears increasingly divided over whether it can combine stability and respond to the growing popular pressure for democratic reform. Without consensus at the top, turmoil in the country is bound to increase. PNS commentator Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Indonesia's future depends above all on a single political question -- can the nation move peacefully toward a popularly elected civilian democracy?

The alternative may be endless cycles of religious violence.

Most U.S. press coverage of Indonesia's current troubles has focused on violence, some of it between Muslim mobs and members of Christian minorities. But pro-democracy leaders in Indonesia and many journalists see these incidents as a result of organized provocation directed from above.

Such provocations were used by former president Suharto to deflect public resentment from those in power, and to provide a justification for strongman military rule.

A commission of inquiry reported to a recent special session of the Indonesian parliament that army elements under General Prabowo had instigated the bloody incidents of last May, in which 1200 died.

When the special session failed to address the question of the army's "dual function" -- its control over civilian life -- student protests began again. And again, as in May, students were shot with live ammunition against official instructions. A second commission is looking for the authors of this new violence, for which several soldiers and officers have already been punished or reprimanded.

These most recent incidents have apparently stretched the elite consensus on reform to a breaking point.

President Habibie and armed forces chief Wiranto, in particular, must decide whether the students and their allies present a greater threat to order than those who organize provocations. Their initial reaction has been to arrest and interrogate senior supporters of the students, including two retired generals.

Exposing the provocateurs would be difficult politically -- and would speed the end of the army's political and economic privileges. Observers disagree as to whether Wiranto is unwilling to follow this course or simply unable to mobilize the army behind it.

Some see Wiranto and the army leadership as the source of the provocations, pointing to the army's decision to import thousands of vigilantes into Jakarta to "defend" the parliament against the students. Most were unarmed Muslim supporters of Habibie, but a sizable minority were mercenary thugs equipped with sharpened bamboo spears.

Others trace the provocations to former General Prabowo and his followers, pointing to the fact that Wiranto ultimately decided to rely primarily on Marines -- who have shown they can cooperate with students in keeping demonstrations peaceful -- to maintain order during the special session.

A third hypothesis is that the provocations come from those inside and outside the army who want to move Indonesia away from open secular democracy, and toward a more Islamic state. Many of the provocations have clearly mobilized Muslim resentment against the Chinese (which is to say Christian minority).

This is a real threat to the prevailing view, shared once by Suharto and now by the pro-democracy students, that only a non-denominational state can preserve Indonesian unity.

Habibie, a technocrat with little popular base, has been leaning more and more toward Muslim activists who think that the state with the world's most populous Muslim majority (over 80 percent) should be defined as Islamic with Islamic laws.

Until now the four leading political representatives of the pro-democracy movement have been as one in calling for unity, reconciliation, and the resisting provocations.

These include Abdurrahman Wahid ("Gus Dur") leader of one of the nation's two largest Muslim organizations, and Megawati Soekarnoputri (who represents the non-denominational nationalism of her father, former President Sukarno). These two have been particularly close. Indeed it could be said that the hopes for a democratic Indonesia rest on preserving this alliance between Muslim and nationalist. There is no other foreseeable base for a peaceful democratic majority in Indonesia.

Unfortunately Gus Dur's movement, the Nahdlatul Ulama or NU, has been the target of sustained provocations in recent weeks. About a hundred of the Muslim clerics in his movement have been murdered. NU officials have given the army a deadline: if it cannot protect them, they will turn to their own paramilitary organization.

This offers an immediate test of the army's ability to prevent a decay of public order into private retribution. This question may face its most severe challenge in the coming weeks, before the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan, begins on December 20.

On November 21, President Clinton, urged Indonesia to stay on course toward democratic elections, and avoid reliance on military power. This timely encouragement should be followed up by another: to handle those whose atrocities threaten a different and more bloody outcome.