Dual antiterror units cause overlap
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
After reading a media report on police arrests of Muslim activists by the National Police's counterterrorism unit Detachment 88, member Agus (not his real name) denied the unit made such arrests, let alone tortured the suspects.
Upon reading another daily which reported that the unit was to be dissolved, he shook his head in disbelief and said Indonesia badly needed a special counterterrorism team.
"Our duties are to interrogate and prepare dossiers of terror suspects. But there is a separate unit within the National Police tasked with investigating and arresting suspects," said Agus.
The National Police has two units tasked with fighting terrorism: One is the 400-strong Detachment 88, or Den 88, led by Brig. Gen. Pranowo Dahlan, another is an ad hoc antiterror squad led by Brig. Gen. Gorries Mere, who appears to have dominated the police's antiterrorism efforts.
Gorries, who sparked outrage last week for having coffee with convicted Bali bomber Ali Imron at a Starbuck's in the capital, has an official post as the anti-narcotics division chief, while Pranowo is the antiterror director under the National Police chief of detectives, Comr. Gen. Suyitno Landung Sudjono.
"Based on a police chief decree, the official counterterrorism unit is Detachment 88, while the bomb squad is a temporary unit. The bomb squad continues to operate, probably because terrorist threats remain high," said a senior police officer.
National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Paiman said as the bomb squad chief, Gorries was under the direct command of National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar.
A police source said the Gorries-led squad had more influence than Detachment 88, and also had more members.
The two units apparently lack coordination, with officers from one often unable to confirm arrests of terror suspects made by another.
"The two squads have caused difficulties in command. If Gorries is thought to have expertise in terrorism, he should have been appointed as the counterterrorism chief, instead of Pranowo. It isn't right to have an overlap like this," said Bambang Widodo, a former police officer, now a lecturer at the University of Indonesia.
He said the success in the Bali blast investigation showed Gorries' capabilities in handling terrorism cases, which prompted Da'i to continue to rely upon Gorries unofficially.
Detachment 88 was formed after the 2002 Bali bombings, and was planned to become an elite police unit equal to the Army's Kopassus.
The Pranowo-led squad was trained last year in the Mega Mendung police training Center, West Java, by experts from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other intelligence agencies.
In addition, the U.S. government provided US$16 billion to equip and train the squad.
For the Bali bombing investigation, the police consulted Gorries' expertise and pulled together an ad hoc team led by Insp. Gen. Made Mangku Pastika, who was then the Papua Police chief.
Personnel from various units in the detectives department were hand-picked for the team, but its backbone was the Jakarta Police antiterror unit. All of the antiterror officers included on the team were former members of Gorries' Cobra Team, which had arrested former president Soeharto's youngest son, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra.
After the 2003 JW Marriott Hotel blast, arrests of Muslim activists were always attributed to both units.
According to Fauzan Al Anzhary, who chairs the Indonesian Mujahidin Council, about 140 Muslim activists had been arrested or "kidnapped" by the units, and the council demanded their dissolution recently.
Amid the controversy, the National Police is to expand Den 88 to the provincial level, beginning with Jakarta, where the unit was inaugurated on Aug. 26.