Gen. Chaeruddin appointed as caretaker police chief

Gen. Chaeruddin appointed as caretaker police chief

JAKARTA (JP): After adding a fourth star to his rank,
President Abdurrahman Wahid proceeded to install Gen. Chaeruddin
Ismail as interim National Police chief at the State Palace on
Friday.

Claiming that he had secured the prior approval of House of
Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung, Abdurrahman installed
Chaeruddin, following the dismissal of National Police chief Gen.
Surojo Bimantoro.

"This appointment was decided based on an agreement between
the President and the House speaker," the President said in his
brief introductory remarks.

Abdurrahman expressed his confidence that he would be able to
win the approval of the House to install Chaeruddin as National
Police chief before the country's Independence Day on Aug. 17.

On Friday afternoon, Akbar implied that he had approved the
President's decision on Chaeruddin.

However, later in the evening, Akbar called a media conference
and denied that he had given his approval to the President's
installation of Chaeruddin as caretaker National Police chief.

Akbar acknowledged he had had a discussion by telephone with
the President, in which Akbar told him that the House could not
give its approval to the installation of Chaeruddin as new police
chief.

"It's not true that I conveyed my approval of the installation
of Chaeruddin as police chief. The House cannot take any official
stance on this," Akbar said on Friday night.

The installation of Chaeruddin prompted leaders of the
People's Consultative Assembly, the country's highest legislative
body, to hold a meeting in the evening and decide to convene a
plenary session on Saturday in order to decide whether to hasten
the special session.

Abdurrahman did not swear in Chaeruddin in Friday's ceremony.
He only delivered a short speech after Military Secretary Vice
Marshal Budhy Santoso read out Presidential Decrees No. 56 and
No. 57 on the promotion of Chaeruddin to a four-star general, and
his appointment to the new position of caretaker police chief.

After the ceremony, Chaeruddin said, "I am ready to accept
this position, as a Bhayangkara soldier, and prepared to carry
out measures ordered out by the President."

Unlike the situation in the Indonesian Military, the rank of
general at the National Police Headquarters is one that is held
solely by the National Police chief.

Chaeruddin was turned from commissioner general to general in
less than two months, following his appointment as National
Police deputy chief on June 2.

He therefore holds two positions concurrently, that of
caretaker National Police chief and National Police deputy chief.

According to the formal invitation sent by the President's
Office to high-ranking officials including Cabinet Secretary
Marzuki Darusman, the President was scheduled to install
Chaeruddin as National Police chief.

After meeting with Chaeruddin at his office before the
official ceremony, Budhy said the swearing-in ceremony had been
canceled, but the President decided to promote Chaeruddin to the
rank of general.

A National Police top official who requested anonymity said
that most police generals had not expected Chaeruddin, a 1971
graduate of the Police Academy, to accept the post, but he did.

At 3 p.m. on Friday, Bimantoro's belongings and personal
furniture were being moved out of his official residence at Jl.
Pattimura No. 37 in South Jakarta, and loaded into a parked
police truck outside the tightly-guarded official residence.

Brimob Police officers guarding the house said that
Bimantoro's belongings, which included among other things a
mattress, pillows, Dutch pillows, cupboards and a computer, were
to be driven to Bimantoro's private home in the Cibubur Asri
residential complex, East Jakarta.

A top police alert was declared solely within the National
Police Headquarters as of 4:40 p.m. on Friday and police officers
and officials were formally forbidden to leave the compound of
the National Police Headquarters.

Some 1,000 officers of the National Police elite Mobile
Brigade (Brimob) forces were called in and deployed in the
compound of the Headquarters. (ylt/prb/dja)