Army officer detained for assaulting activist

Army officer detained for assaulting activist

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Aceh military authorities have detained an army officer
for questioning after he allegedly assaulted an anticorruption
activist accused of stealing relief aid from the air force base
in Banda Aceh.

"As soon as we (the TNI) were informed that one of our
officers had assaulted the activist, we ordered the provost to
arrest him and put him into Aceh Military Police detention.

"The investigation against him will proceed," Col. Yani
Basuki, spokesman for the Indonesian Military (TNI)'s Aceh
disaster management task force, told The Jakarta Post by phone on
Friday.

But he quickly added that Captain Suaib had yet to be named a
suspect.

The move by the TNI came after President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono expressed his regrets on Thursday over the attack on
Farid Faqih, the director of Government Watch (GOWA), a non-
governmental organization that had previously vociferously
criticized the government's poor coordination of relief aid in
Aceh.

According to Yani, Suaib had been assigned to monitor the
movement of all military supplies and relief aid arriving in
Banda Aceh.

Farid is alleged to have been caught red-handed taking away
various relief items, such as medical equipment, medicines,
cigarettes, and kitchen utensils, donated by the wives of
military officers stationed at the Banda Aceh air force base.
Before handing the activist over to the local police, the army
captain allegedly assaulted Farid, who sustained a black eye,
bruising and swelling to his face.

Farid denied the charge of theft, saying that he was moving
the goods to a warehouse outside Banda Aceh to prevent them from
being soaked by the rain. He also said that he was assaulted by
more than one soldier.

But in an interview aired by Metro TV, the commander of the
TNI's Aceh disaster management task force, Maj. Gen. Bambang
Darmono, said that Suaib was the "sole perpetrator."

Meanwhile, United Nations officers in Aceh said Farid was a
partner in the world body's relief operation in the province.

Bo Asplund, the United Nations representative in Indonesia,
was quoted by AP on Friday as saying that he believed that Farid
had been wrongly accused and would be released soon.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who also chairs the National
Disaster Management and Refugee Coordination Board (Bakornas
PBP), said that the assault on Farid was the result of a
misunderstanding and had nothing to do with poor coordination on
the ground.

"So much aid has been flooding into to Aceh. It would be very
easy to take it just like that. They are supposed to get permits.
This is not about coordination. In fact, if there was no
coordination, Aceh would be even more messed up. But it's not,"
he said.

Meanwhile, National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on
Friday that Farid would be transferred to police headquarters in
Jakarta for further questioning on the grounds that the law
enforcement institutions in devastated Aceh had yet to return to
normal.