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few years after communal conflicts subsided in Maluku, Central Sulawesi and Central and West Kalimantan, activists pushed for a law to prevent and overcome social conflict. One goal was to regulate all security forces in the event of widespread violent conflict — and ensure they remained engaged in keeping the peace, rather than undermining security — as many incidents suggested.

But in the weeks ahead of the law’s passing last Wednesday (April 11), activists claimed its deliberation increasingly ceased to involve the public. The final draft led to protests, mainly over what was considered to be a large space for the authorities to determine the definition of a social conflict, the timing of when the troops would be brought in, and the parties to be targeted for arrest.

It is this blank check that makes people nervous, mainly regarding the prospect of having soldiers and police trampling everywhere, as in the old days.

A number of NGOs said they would request a judicial review of the Social Conflict Law. Their protests were earlier drowned by the other new law, which all aspirants for 2014 were waiting for — the law on general elections.

As a small survey by the leading daily Kompas shows, public trust remains low in the security forces, mainly the Indonesian military (TNI). An overhaul of the military’s “dual function” doctrine in 1999 meant they were no longer in charge of internal security, which was to be the job of the police — but then it was evident that few were willing to let go of the TNI’s pervasive role in society for over three decades.

Regulation of all security forces in massive conflicts is needed, experienced peacemakers say — but they said the law amounted to a blank check that heightened the sense of insecurity.

The survey published on Monday also showed that while over 65 percent of 659 respondents were worried that the TNI’s involvement in overcoming conflicts would trigger human rights violations, 63 percent also said they were dissatisfied with government efforts to maintain harmony. Slow law enforcement against perpetrators of violence was a trigger for conflict, according to almost 83 percent of respondents.

Though only covering barely 700 respondents in 10 cities, the survey highlights the question on the causes of communal violence and the authorities’ capacity in defining a social conflict. Another question is the credibility of the security forces, which cannot be perceived, for instance, as the bodyguards of large — and in some cases multinational — companies.

This was thus a bill that needed a slow and steady process. Peace workers knew that while a law on social conflict prevention and management was ideal, its main instrument to keep the peace — the security forces — were themselves still the subject of start and stop reforms. As evidence, today the TNI retains its omnipresence through military commands across the country.

Therefore, the fear that such a law would be an incentive for the troops to emerge from their barracks is naïve. As military observers have said, the fact that the TNI has never had any barracks to return to is part of the nation’s unresolved issue of what we want to do with our troops: They are mandated to use force against the enemy — yet their most familiar target practices are the nation’s civilians, their compatriots.