Presidential guards almost clash with police on busway

Damar Harsanto and Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Just a month after Vice President Hamzah Haz was roundly condemned for cruising down a restricted busway lane, a member of the Presidential Guard came close to getting into a brawl with a traffic police officer on Wednesday for the same reason.

Second Corp. Asrul took the busway lane in Harmoni, Central Jakarta, on his Honda Astrea Grand motorcycle to avoid a traffic jam on his way to the State Palace.

Seeing the violation, traffic policeman Brig. Ali stopped Asrul, and ordered him to leave the busway lane and to show his driving license and vehicle ownership card.

Instead of showing the documents, since he did not have them with him, Asrul stormed off only to return shortly with a bus full of other, fully armed presidential guards. The bus pulled up in the middle of the road and immediately caused a traffic jam.

The presidential guards alighted from the bus and got involved in a dispute with the officers at the police post, including Ali and his superior, Second Insp. Sukirman.

A full scale clash was avoided, however, as the dispute was brought to the Gambir police subprecinct office for resolution.

Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso strongly condemned the incident, particularly as it was sparked by a military officer's use of a restricted busway lane.

"I have been informed about this. It is not the time for military personnel to be showing off ... Even Vice President Hamzah Haz was strongly criticized by the public when his convoy went along the busway lane ... This officer simply did the same. Worse, he was on a motorcycle without proper documents," Sutiyoso complained.

The governor said that as a retired military lieutenant general, he was "very disappointed" with the incident.

"Such examples of indiscipline will tarnish the Indonesian Military's image, particularly when the offender and his comrades come from an elite unit," said the former Jakarta Military commander.

Sutiyoso said he expected the presidential guard commander to take disciplinary action against those of his men who were involved.

Jakarta Police traffic division chief Sr. Comr. Sulistyo Ishak said that the police did not ticket the presidential guard but only reported the incident to his superior.

"It's true that the police officer and the presidential guard were involved in an argument, but it did not lead to a brawl. They settled the matter properly," he said.

This is the second embarrassing incident involving presidential guards this month. Last week, a presidential guard allegedly opened fire on a crowd of civilians, wounding two of them, after getting involved in a traffic dispute with another road user in Rawasari, Central Jakarta. The case was handed over to the Military Police.