Police bomb squad kept busy by spate of threats

By Emmy Fitri

JAKARTA (JP): The soaring number of mysterious bomb threats at both state and privately owned properties have kept the National Police Gegana bomb squad very busy in the past few months.

Although many of the calls turned out to be hoaxes, the 700- member unit cannot take any chances but must speed to the site and comb the area in their 28-kilogram black body armor and other special equipment, including metal detectors and robots.

They must first locate any suspicious packages, then defuse or seal any explosives before disposing of them at the National Police Mobile Brigade headquarters in Kelapa Dua, south of here.

The bomb squad keeps a low profile and is rarely seen by the public until it is called to an emergency.

In an interview with The Jakarta Post last week, the squad chief Col. Jacki Uly described the mysteriousness of his unit as being symbolized in its name Gegana, which is derived from the Sanskrit word Gegono, meaning sky.

"Everything in the sky is mysterious and so are we," Jacki said.

Gegana, established in 1974, was designed to be the country's first anti-terrorism squad, given the task of handling explosives used by airplane hijackers. Apparently that is the reason for its name.

The squad is reportedly the only unit in the police force to be equipped with up-to-date equipment, and received a lot of funding when Gen. Dibyo Widodo was head of National Police between 1996 and 1998.

Judging by its function alone, one could easily imagine the strict requirements for new recruits of this elite unit.

According to Jacki, every Gegana member must have knowledge of the types and composition of explosives. They must also be qualified to defuse explosive devices.

When not on call, the squad members spend most of their time in the laboratory, researching bomb components and their functions and studying the mixing of explosive materials.

That is why many of the unit members are proud to say that the day's "special menu" at Kelapa Dua is a choice of TNT, PETN, RDX and Semtex, all of which are explosive toxic compounds.

In the laboratory, the members are required to analyze the chemicals contained in bombs prepared by their seniors.

Jacki said accidents of course occur frequently during the laboratory exercises.

Once, he said, one of the squad's senior officers had to have his hands amputated after a bomb unexpectedly exploded in a drill.

"The exercises are risky, but the risks are part of our commitment to our team," Jacki said, adding that safety was the most important thing for the force.

A number of Gegana's junior personnel are sent to get an advanced course at the special bomb disposal training center at Watukosek in East Java.

Jacki insisted that the growing number of bomb hoaxes would not mean they would be careless in the handling of bomb threats.

"Who knows whether or not the bomb will explode," he cautioned.

Jacki believes that the recent spate of bomb threats are meant to scare people, even if not launched by a well organized terrorist group.

"Any kind of threat, not necessarily a bomb threat, is a terror," he said.

He gave the example of the Jan. 2 blast on Jl. Sabang, which damaged several stores along the busy street, and apparently had no political motives at all.

"But it scared many people," he said.

Empty hands

In the past few weeks, the squad -- which has branches nationwide -- has mostly returned to headquarters empty-handed after searching areas said to be planted with explosives.

Sometimes, the 'suspicious objects' found on the scene were later identified as bricks or empty pipes.

Only in a few incidents have Gegana members in Jakarta discovered real bombs.

They included last month's blast at a department store on Jl. Sabang, the 1984 explosions at three of Bank Central Asia's branch offices, 1986's rocket attacks on the embassies of the United States, Canada and Japan, and a bomb package found at the residence of the American ambassador in 1991.

In the case of the 28 sticks of plastic explosives found at the U.S. Embassy, the squad successfully defused all the devices, which were believed to have been planted by Japan's Red Army.

"We don't know what would have happened if the sticks had exploded. Many top figures were inside the house at that moment, including Pak Benny Moerdani," an officer of the squad says, referring to the country's former chief of the Armed Forces, Gen (ret) L.B. Moerdani.

The recent spate of mysterious telephone calls, however, has led some people to accuse the security forces, including Gegana itself, of being responsible for the threats, saying the real reason was to extort money from the building's owners.

Many owners of buildings receiving bomb threats have complained that they had to pay a certain amount of money to Gegana members after they finished their work.

Commenting on these accusations, Jacki said: "I of course can not tell my subordinates on what they should do. But if they were offered cups of tea to drink, why should they have to refuse?"

"What my subordinates and I do is protect the public from harm and if possible keep safe their valuables as well.

We're paid by the government to serve them and it's not likely that we would ask for more money from them for the services they've paid for," he said.