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.