600 desk-bound police given riot training

600 desk-bound police given riot training

JAKARTA (JP): The city police are training 600 personnel from
non-operational units to back up the limited resources available
for handling mass disturbances, particularly to deal with unrest
expected before and during the 1997 general election.

According to participants, they have been trained in various
operational skills every day for the past few months.

Equipped with sticks and batons, the personnel, ranked from
corporal to sergeant, come from units such as administration and
finance.

"It's normal in the Armed Forces to do such activities, what
we call Panggilan Luar Biasa (Emergency Call)," Jakarta
Metropolitan Police Chief Maj. Gen. Hamami Nata told reporters
yesterday.

"In an emergency situation, we could call any of our personnel
to take part in field operations without having to disturb daily
activities at headquarters," he said. "In this way all officers
of nonoperational departments get operational skills which might
be needed at any time.

"We feel that the city actually needs at least 20,000 police
personnel so we must utilize the 16,000 officers we have as
efficiently as possible."

According to Hamami, all the 600 non-operational staff were
deployed to back up the operational personnel during the July 27
riots.

"Then they got on-the-spot training," said the officer. The
city police chief announced an alert situation to subordinates
during the riots in which at least five people were killed and
dozens of cars and many buildings were burned.

Most of the 16,000 on-alert personnel were not allowed to
leave their stations for more than a week following the rioting.
(bsr)