Crowd control training labeled useless

Crowd control training labeled useless

JAKARTA (JP): A 10-day training course on crowd control given
by the U.S government to the Indonesian Police will be useless,
and would be used by local officers only to break up student and
worker demonstrations here, lawyers and students said on Monday.

In a discussion at the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute on violence
committed by security personnel against demonstrators, the
activists regretted the U.S.-sponsored training, which started on
Monday at the National Police Mobil Brigade Unit headquarters in
Kelapa Dua, south of Jakarta.

The institute's social and political head, Daniel Panjaitan,
said the training, which included 50 police officers ranked
between second lieutenant and captain, would not give much
benefit to Indonesian police.

"It's just a way to share experiences and would not give a
(positive) result for our police. Our police system is different
from the U.S.," Daniel, who attended the training as an observer,
told The Jakarta Post.

He said Indonesia's police would continue to use violence
against demonstrators, since they are still part of the military
system.

"Actually our police already know the skills to control the
protesters properly. But they do not use it in the field," he
said.

The institute's labor division head, Surya Tjandra, said he
was worried the training would be used by police to disrupt
student and worker demonstrations.

"We should remember how members of the Army's Kopassus
(special forces), whose personnel were trained by the U.S.,
kidnapped student activists. We should stop this from happening
again," Surya said.

He was referring to 11 Kopassus soldiers who were sentenced by
a military court on April 6 to between one year and 22 months in
prison for abducting nine political activists in the last month
of Soeharto's regime in 1998.

Surya said the Indonesian police would use the training to
justify their dispersal of demonstrations and treatment of
activists as being in line with standard procedures.

He said the training was intended to gradually reduce the
number of street rallies, which have been mostly conducted by
students and workers and have often ended in clashes with
officers.

Such public protests, which were often referred to by police
as "public order disturbances", should not be dispersed because
they are part of freedom of expression, he said.

"Police should protect the demonstrators, instead of beating
and shooting them," he said.

Meanwhile, Suma Miharja, a member of the Big Family of the
University of Indonesia (KBUI) student group, also said that the
training would not change the abusive attitude of the police
against student protesters.

"If the police use the training to press us further, the
students' feelings of hate for the police would increase
further," Suma warned.

He said student groups are currently arranging new strategies
following a clash between police officers and activists of the
Democratic People's Party in front of the General Election
Commission (KPU) office on Jl. Imam Bonjol, Central Jakarta,
early this month.(jun)