Deserters worsen Maluku conflict

Deserters worsen Maluku conflict

JAKARTA: Nineteen police officers in Maluku who were once declared deserters are still at large and may have played a role in past instances of communal unrest in the province, National Police Chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar disclosed here Wednesday.

"We are still trying to find them. When they are found, they will face severe measures," he said at a hearing with the House of Representatives' Commission I.

Bachtiar said he had issued an instruction that the deserters must be found and subjected to the force's rules of discipline. The more so because they were possibly involved in the sectarian conflict in Maluku.

Bachtiar had told a previous hearing, the National Police were grossly overburdened when one considered the ratio between the force's manpopwer strength and the country's population.

In Malaysia, there was one police officer for every 300 citizens, in Singapore the ratio was 1 to 250. But in Indonesia, one policeman was supposed to serve 1,000 people.

To overcome the problem, there was no other way except to increase the National Police's manpower strength to a level approaching the ideal ratio, he said.

The National Police had set a target of reaching a ratio of 1:750 by 2004, he added. -- Antara