Police work in Bali

Police work in Bali

The arrival of police investigators from the United Nations
has expanded the international character of the police work
currently going on in Bali. A number of countries, such as
Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and the United
States, have sent their best police investigators and forensic
specialists to Bali to ferret out any available information
behind the tragic bombing of Oct. 12.

Australia, of course, because of the large number of its
citizens that were killed or injured in that horrendous event,
felt compelled to send in its own police team to satisfy its
domestic demand for information and clarification. The U.S.
obviously has an interest in knowing if or to what extent the
Oct. 12 event is linked to the global terrorist network
spearheaded by al-Qaeda.

It is the presence of the United Nations investigators that
perhaps needs further clarification. Is their presence perhaps a
consequence of the Security Council's Resolution No.1438/2002,
passed last Monday? It is one thing to accept police specialists
from countries that have a clear interest in the Oct. 12 event,
but it is another to internationalize the police investigation in
Bali by accepting a UN umbrella.

Although it may be a repetition of statements already made
before, it should be stressed that the overall coordination of
police investigation pertaining to the Oct. 12 event needs to
rest with the Indonesian National Police. The National Police
Headquarters has assigned a capable senior police officer, Chief
Insp. Gen. I Made Mangku Pastika, the police chief of the
province of Papua, as the top coordinator for the ongoing police
investigation in Bali so that the perpetrators of that horrific
event may be captured as soon as possible.

We urge that the multinational police team, including the UN
investigators now working in Bali, work together under the
leadership of Gen. Pastika. Too much self-interest on the part of
the national teams concerned and an unwillingness to share any
obtained information with Indonesian investigators would only
slow down the ongoing investigation.