Customs office in hot seat over disappearance of 14 containers
Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Three political parties have threatened to mobilize thousands of their supporters to storm the Cirebon customs and excise office (BC) in West Java following the disappearance of 14 containers with smuggled luxury cars and electronic goods inside.
The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the Justice and Unity Party (PKP) -- all based in Cirebon -- said they would occupy the local customs office if the matter could not immediately be solved.
In a response to the threat, the customs and excise office said on Tuesday that barbed wire would be installed at its entrance gate and riot police would be deployed to guard the building.
"We have anticipated the threat by coordinating with the Cirebon city police to step up surveillance," said Tri Hartono, a spokesman for the office.
Pressure also came from the city's legislative council (DPRD), which plans to summon head of the customs and excise office Tarsiwan, who is on pilgrimage in Mecca, and the local police chief, to clarify the disappearance of the 14 illegal containers.
The containers, with luxury sedans and electronic goods inside, were part of 19 others seized at Cirebon's seaport. They had been smuggled aboard the Panama-flagged MV Santosa Jaya ship from Singapore on Jan. 10, 2002.
The smuggling caused a total of Rp 20.5 billion in losses to the state.
Two of the missing containers had four luxury sedans inside with different brand names -- Jaguar Sport, Land Cruiser, Mercedes Benz S-320 and S-280. The cars are worth at least Rp 3.5 billion in total.
The remaining 17 containers had electronic merchandise with various brand names like Toshiba and Aiwa. Each was valued at approximately Rp 1 billion.
"We will occupy the customs and excise office should the case not be dealt with seriously within three days. It has been handled for more than one month now but nobody has been named as a suspect," leader of the Cirebon branch of PDI Perjuangan Suryana told a media conference on Monday.
Suryana, who also heads the city's DPRD, was accompanied in the media conference by local PKB leader Haris Sutamin and local PKB chairman Enang Iman Gana.
"We are not playing games .... If the law's supremacy does not take effect, the people's justice will speak," Suryana asserted.
He said the report on the disappearance of the 14 containers was revealed when two DPRD teams separately visited the seaport and found that the containers were not there despite the absence of proper documentation.
The local customs office and police should be held responsible for the smuggling, he added.
Customs and Excise director general Permana Agung, who visited the seaport on Jan. 21, had instructed his subordinates in Cirebon to hold the illegal containers until the suspects were identified.
Meanwhile, Cirebon Police chief Sr. Comr. Rukmana stated that little could be done by his staff in the investigation of the case, as the customs and excise office was closed to them.
"The police have encountered difficulties in the investigation because the custom and excise office has not cooperated with us," he told The Jakarta Post.
Apart from that, customs and excise matters were nothing to do with the police, he added.
Mustajab, who serves as acting head of the customs and excise office as Tarsiwan is on pilgrimage in Mecca, refused to respond to the mounting pressure. "No comment," he shouted.