Jakarta to launch antiterror guidebook

Jakarta to launch antiterror guidebook

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city administration is to launch an antiterror guidebook on
Monday in an effort to improve people's awareness of possible
terrorist activities in their neighborhood.

Governor Sutiyoso said on Friday the book which consists of
practical tips would be distributed to all neighborhood
communities in the city so that they could detect any terrorist
activities in the early stages.

"The most important thing is that we want to introduce the
public to activities which may be conducted by terrorists. In
short, we want to improve public awareness in intelligence
gathering," Sutiyoso who is a former Jakarta military commander,
told the media at City Hall on Friday.

City spokesman Muhayat said 3,500 copies of the book would be
released on Monday and 35,000 copies would be available in the
near future.

Muhayat said that the books would be distributed free of
charge to all communities including neighborhood units, community
units, private offices and government offices.

He said security officers in public places, such as in
shopping malls, hotels and hospitals, would also be given the
books.

The book was prepared by the Indonesian Antiterrorist Society
(M-pati), an NGO which raised funds to finance the book, he said.

He refused to mention how much the book cost to produce, but
stressed that the fund was not taken from the city budget.

The launching of the book follows the bomb blast at the JW
Marriott Hotel in South Jakarta on Aug. 5 which killed 12 people
and wounded 147 others.

Many blamed the police's poor intelligence skills for not
being able to predict and prevent the bombing.

Besides improving public skills on intelligence matters,
Sutiyoso earlier planned to ask military officers to safeguard
public places.

Observers criticized the governor's idea as the military
officers might frighten visitors away from public places.