Akbar and 37 legislators demand police protection

JAKARTA (JP): House of Representatives (DPR) Speaker Akbar Tandjung and 37 other legislators have requested protection from city police in anticipation of worsening security in the capital.

City police chief Insp. Gen. Sofjan Yacob said on Tuesday that he received an official letter from Akbar on Monday, requesting a police escort to accompany him wherever he went.

Besides Akbar, 37 other legislators have asked for police protection, he said.

"They have asked for police escorts to accompany them wherever they go," Sofjan said.

Nevertheless, Sofjan could not promise anything, noting that the city police were now overstretched to cover the whole of Jakarta following the heightening political tension in the capital.

"The city police are considering what can be done about this since we have to think of securing the whole capital and its people, not only legislators," Sofjan said on Tuesday.

Security concerns have worsened in the capital following an influx of President Abdurrahman Wahid supporters, mostly from Abdurrahman's political heartland of East Java.

Some of the president's supporters earlier said openly that they would deal with legislators from political factions that were trying to bring down Abdurrahman through the convening of a special session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

Sofjan noted that the police expected huge demonstrations across the capital on Wednesday, when the House convenes a plenary session and is likely to call for an MPR special session to impeach the President.

He said that up until Tuesday afternoon, over 9,000 supporters of the beleaguered President had arrived in the capital by train and bus from several parts of East Java.

So far, Sofjan said, police had not only tightened security around the MPR/DPR building in Central Jakarta, but had also confiscated hundreds of weapons, including whips, slingshots, stones, machetes, sickles and swords from people. (ylt)