Police personnel being trained for presidential guard
JAKARTA (JP): The National Police announced on Monday that some 200 police personnel had been undergoing training since last month to become members of the newly established presidential security guard.
Sr. Supt. Saleh Saaf, an officer at the information department of the National Police Headquarters, said the training was part of a plan to replace the old Presidential Security Guards (Paspampres), which consisted of military members, with police personnel as recommended by Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono on June 1.
"About 100 of those personnel were recruited from the National Police's Mobile Brigade corps (Brimob), while the rest were selected from other police units," Saleh told reporters at his office.
He declined to comment on whether members of Banser, a militia under the supervision of the 30-million strong Nadhlatul Ulama (NU) Muslim organization, were also recruited as members of the new presidential guard.
President Abdurrahman Wahid is a former chairman of NU.
Saleh said the personnel were carefully selected because of their important tasks of maintaining the safety of the country's number-one figure.
"The recruited personnel are those who have very good physical health, intellectual ability and are emotionally mature," he said.
Saleh did not disclose the total number of personnel recruited.
"We will continue recruiting personnel, but I don't know yet whether the number of the new presidential guard members will be the same as the current Paspampres personnel," he said.
The current presidential guard, which is located on Jl. Tanah Abang II in Central Jakarta, has some 1,600 members. It consists of troops from various units, such as the military police, the Army's Special Force (Kopassus) and the Army's Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad).
It is divided into three groups: Group A to protect the president, Group B to protect the vice president and Group C to protect state guests.
Paspampres is now led by Brig. Gen. I Putu Sastra.
Serpong
National Police chief Gen. Rusdihardjo said on Thursday that Paspampres would soon be dissolved and the duty would be handed over to the police personnel.
The four-star general, however, did not disclose when the plan would be carried out.
This shift of responsibility comes as part of the police's separation from the Indonesian Military (TNI), which will take effect in January 2001.
National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Dadang Garnida said on Thursday the change of duty could not be avoided since militaristic attributes no longer suited the era of reform.
"We are facing an era of civil society today. Military deals with national defense affairs, while the police are responsible for the people's security matters, including to secure the president and the vice president," he said after a gathering of retired high-ranking police personnel here.
Saleh said several trainers from the old Paspampres had been recruited to train the personnel.
"The training is taking place at the police's training and education center (Pusdiklat) in Serpong, west of here," he said, adding that the training was in line with international standards.
"However, adjustments have been made, since our President has a more liberal policy on presidential security matters," he said, referring to Abdurrahman's penchant for relaxing presidential protocol. (asa)