Is what is happening in Dilli a 'Plague'?

Jacquie van Santen for ABC Science Online reports:

"Like an army preparing for battle, locusts instinctively wait until their 'battalion' is large enough before falling into line and swarming ahead en masse, researchers say.

The apparently leaderless group will fly around chaotically until the swarm reaches a certain density of numbers, when they immediately assemble and become an orderly, collective plague."

Pete's Points

If we did not know better, this description of real insect behaviour could well apply to the current behaviour of some people in East Timor's capital Dilli, who seem to have lost any idea of what it means to be civilized human beings who respect each other and each other's property.

Like most others I suspect, I have been watching people looting government warehouses and other people's property, torching homes and shops and killing each other. I am apalled at the behaviour that I am seeing on the screen and wonder what is going to happen to the people who have been so well photographed doing the deeds.

Talking about law and order and bringing some semblance of normal human behaviour back to Dilli is one thing and I have no problems with Australia going in to assist the government there. I do have a problem with people who lose all sense of what it means to be live in society.

People who behave like insects they should bear in mind how plagues of insects are treated and start to worry about whether their behaviour will result in similar consequences.

Violence breeds violence and lawlessness breeds lawlessness.

I look forward with interest to the next few weeks and months to see how the government in East Timor is going to deal with the people whose images have been so adequately been captured by film crews as they carry out their acts of vandalism, theft, arson and murder. If these people are NOT caught, tried ansd where found guilty punished then frankly I despair about the notion of law and oder being restored to this fledgeling country.

As for the other situation that I can forsee on the horizon - namely people who have left the bounds of civilized behaviour seeking escape from justice by claiming persecution and wanting to claim refugee status in Australia, let's just think about first!