Any assignment is a religious duty: General

I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Kuta, Bali

Papua Police chief Insp. Gen. I Made Mangku Pastika was giving a speech at the Papua Peace Conference in Jayapura last Wednesday afternoon when his adjutant leaned in and whispered that he had an important call on his cellular phone.

"There are only two people I fear in this world: the National Police chief and my wife. I will always answer any call made by either of them. And this one is from the National Police chief," Mangku said by way of apology to the conference participants before taking the call.

A few minutes later he told the audience that the National Police chief had just named him to head the special investigation team tasked with finding the party responsible for the Oct. 12 bombing in Legian, Bali.

"One of the participants stood up and said they would organize a mass rally to express their opposition to my transfer from Papua. I calmed them, explaining that I was not being transferred. I was and still am the Papua Police chief, but with the additional duty of heading the investigation team," Mangku said with a smile as he recalled that moment.

"At the end of the conference, they prayed together to ask God to help and guide me in completing my task. I was deeply touched by that," Mangku said here on Thursday.

Mangku treats his new assignment with the same sense of respect he has given to all his previous assignments.

"Any assignment, regardless of the level of difficulty involved, is a Dharma -- a religious duty -- and I will sincerely try to carry out that duty to the best of my ability. I believe that if somebody is earnestly committed to doing something, then he shall accomplish his objectives," he said.

Even as he was speaking, his 80-year-old mother was in the middle of a sacred pilgrimage to numerous temples in Bali, asking the gods to protect and guide her son in investigating the attack that has shattered their island.

His immediate priority is establishing a working atmosphere and structure that will ensure a high level of coordination and cooperation among the different members of the team, which includes Indonesian, Australian, American, Japanese, British and German investigators.

"I will have to formulate a job description, command structure and working-relations for each human resource we have on the team," he said.

He brushed aside rumors that the investigation team was marred by friction between the Indonesian officers and their foreign counterparts.

"These people (the foreign officers) are here to assist us. And they are experts who have extensive knowledge of forensics, explosives and telecommunications. Now it is up to us to help them utilize their expertise to obtain the best results in the investigation. There is no friction that I am aware of. Communication problems probably take place sometimes since not all of our officers speak English fluently and not all foreign officers speak Bahasa very well," he said.

Mangku does not see the team members' diverse backgrounds and nationalities as a problem. He was in a similar situation in 1988-1989, when he served as a commanding officer for the UN's police force in Namibia.

"I supervised officers from 15 different countries and some of those countries were politically very hostile to each other. Some of my officers at that time were from India and Pakistan, and also from West Germany and East Germany," he said.

Soft-spoken and humble, Mangku was initially reluctant to give an interview to discuss either his career with the police or his personal life. He even downplayed the importance of his role on the investigation team, particularly since he is a two-star general and thus outranks the Bali Police chief, a one-star general.

"Come on, I haven't done anything yet. I just arrived and have not been briefed on the latest developments in the investigation. I just came here to manage the team. It is the Bali Police chief, the local police officers, the team members and our foreign counterparts who have done tremendous work and have achieved significant progress. And then I came. Sometimes it feels good to be the boss," he said with a smile.

Born on June 22, 1951, in the small village of Patemon in the Seririt district of Bali's northern regency of Buleleng, Mangku spent a carefree childhood with his five brothers and sisters until the island's highest mountain, Mt. Agung, erupted in 1963. The volcanic earthquake that ensued destroyed most of the houses and infrastructure in Seririt and forced Mangku's family to leave the island. They moved to Bengkulu and in 1971 to Palembang, both in Sumatra.

After graduating from the Police Academy in 1974, Mangku's first assignment was with the famous scout's regiment of the police's elite Mobile Brigade. Three years later he was appointed adjutant to the then minister of defense/armed forces commander Gen. Maraden Panggabean.

Mangku attended the prestigious Army Staff and Command School in 1991 before filling the important post of West Jakarta Police chief, and later held different positions with the National Police's detectives directorate.

He earned his first star in November 1999, a few months after completing a high-profile assignment as the police commander in East Timor, overseeing some 4,000 officers tasked with providing security during the self-determination ballot in the province.

In 2000, Mangku spent several months as the secretary of the National Crime Bureau (NCB) before being appointed East Nusa Tenggara Police chief in October.

In 2001 he was assigned as the Papua Police chief, where he earned his second star after overseeing several high-profile cases, including the kidnapping of 17 workers, including three South Koreans, from PT Korindo Group by a Free Papua Movement (OPM) faction led by Willem Onde; the kidnapping of two Belgians by another group of the OPM led by Titus and Beny Murid; and the murder of Theys Hiyo Eluay, the head of the Papua Council Presidium.

Bali Police chief Brig. Gen. Budi Setyawan praised the decision to assign Mangku to head the investigation team, saying Mangku had the expertise and ability to solve the case.

"And General Pastika speaks six different languages fluently, so he will not have any difficulty in speaking his mind to his foreign counterparts, while I cannot even speak English properly," Budi Setyawan said.

Mangku himself is not exactly certain why he was chosen to lead the investigation team, but he has some ideas.

"Perhaps because I am Balinese," he said.