Damar Harsanto

Damar Harsanto
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

While members of the legislature have the option of spending
the night at a five-star hotel near the House of Representatives
(DPR)/People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) building, a number of
policemen who are assigned to secure the event have to sleep in
the dark on the ground at the building compound, with mosquitoes
for company.

"Look at our barracks for yourself. No electricity, no TV set,
not even an electric lamp. The only facility is some new mats we
bought with our own money to sleep on," Second brig. Agus Tahyana
told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

"We must be accustomed to sleeping in the open air, totally
exposed to mosquito attacks here," he said.

Agus, who has camped there for four nights along with hundreds
of other police personnel, said that although the situation at
the compound during the session was relatively normal, they had
been ordered to remain vigilant at the compound until the end of
the session.

The session will be over on Friday.

Another police officer, Second brig. Sigit Noviadi, said they
had managed to arrange their work schedule so that it included a
switch every two hours.

"Every two hours, someone takes a rest, while others are on
duty," Sigit said, citing that such switches were needed to
maintain the stamina of police personnel, while carrying out
tiring and boring tasks.

Not only did they sometimes feel bored, there were also times
when they would face strong protest from MPR members and
journalists, when police officers wanted to check their ID cards.

Bambang said many MPR members and other very important people
(VIPs), as well as journalists, sometimes did not bring their
pass cards with them and got upset when they were asked to show
their identity cards. Some of them, he added, had filed a
complaint with the commander, claiming that some police officers
had hampered them in doing their jobs.

Bambang called on them to follow the security procedures,
whatever their position or profession.

There was no special allowance for police officers who
safeguarded the compound, said Bambang.

"We get no allowance here. We are only given food and drink
for our subsistence," he said.

According to Agus, sometimes police personnel were given a
bonus of as much as Rp 60,000 (US$5.70) at the end of the
operation.

"However, such honoraria are not always distributed for every
operation," he said.

City police spokesman Sr. Comr. Anton Bachrul Alam said
earlier on Monday that the police had not yet received the funds,
totaling Rp 900 million to Rp 1 billion, which were needed to
secure the Assembly Annual Session.

"To provide food for the police every day, we have had to
borrow from our operational resources," Anton said.

The police would return the money once the funds had been
disbursed, Anton said.