Officials turn a blind eye to smuggling

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Tanjung Balai, North Sumatra

Smuggling has persisted in a seemingly unchecked manner at perhaps 15 small seaports in North Sumatra province despite the presence of security forces, according to some officials and residents.

"Usually, goods smuggled to and from abroad are loaded and unloaded in the small seaports throughout the night," Syaiful Ganda, a fisherman from Tanjung Balai regency, told The Jakarta Post.

"There are always security people around when the smuggled goods are loaded and unloaded," he added.

Syaiful said such illegal practices have taken place for a long time in and out of the ports that are operated by private companies and used normally for ferrying passengers to neighboring islands.

Some of these ports, numbering at least 15, are located between larger ports in Tanjung Balai and Bagan Asahan. Others are found in Nibung Bay and Es Dengki.

Syaiful said smugglers have operated in such places virtually unchallenged, thanks to the apparent backing from certain government and security officers.

Other local fishermen and residents said smuggling practices continued in Tanjung Balai, even though police and port authorities have launched the occasional raid against smugglers in North Sumatra.

"How can smuggling in Tanjung Balai be stopped, while almost all officials there, including those from the local customs office and the water police, are suspected of taking bribes from smugglers," Syaiful claimed.

One of the cases included around 100 tons of plastics which were allegedly smuggled from neighboring Malaysia to Tanjung Balai. The shipment, allegedly belonging to a businessman from Medan, was unloaded from a ship at 9:25 p.m. on Sept. 5, 2003., according to local fishermen.

Adj. Sr. Comr. Adityawarman, chief of the security operations unit at the Belawan port in Medan, did not specifically deny the widespread accusations that certain officers were involved in the smuggling.

Officials of local excise and customs offices should be most to blame because they should be on the "front lines" in dealing with smuggling cases through seaports, he said.

"We (police) are essentially the second line of defense," Adityawarman added.

He confirmed that smugglers had been operating mostly along North Sumatra's east coast ranging from Belawan, Asahan and Tanjung Balai to Labuhan Batu.

Private ports, particularly those around Tanjung Balai, have played vital roles in the increase of smuggling practices, he said.

"For smugglers, the geographic location of Tanjung Balai is very strategic because there are many river inlets that can be used as safe places to hide their ships," Adityawarman added.

He said many cases of smuggling, which had been dealt with by his office, revealed that most of the smuggled goods were shipped to and from Singapore and Klang Port in Malaysia.

Tanjung Balai is about a 2-hour journey from Klang Port.

Fishermen in Tanjung Balai said on Saturday that they had received a report that several ships carrying smuggled sugar and electronic goods were sailing from Klang Port.

However, Adityawarman could not confirm the report.

He claimed that it was impossible for smugglers to operate through official ports as security inspections were tightly imposed on every ship.