Public order officers should be more 'humane'

Public order officers should be more 'humane'

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

For public order officers, slapping, kicking and beating people
at work is not a taboo at all. They often use force when evicting
side-walk vendors, riverbank squatters or becak (pedicab)
drivers.

As the eviction is often accompanied by violence, the public,
as well as activists, have strongly criticized the officers for
not only violating human rights, but also for being "inhuman".

"Public order officers should be more human in conducting
their operations," National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas
HAM) member Saparinah Sadli said on Thursday during a discussion
on public order at the City Hall.

"I think the law and other regulations are OK, but in
implementing the law, they often violate human rights, such as
what happened in the eviction of people living on riverbanks,"
she said.

The evicted people, including street traders, felt they had
the right to occupy their places as they had paid levies to
certain officers at the administration, she said. After receiving
the money, the officers allowed them to operate, and the number
grew.

She criticized the administration's failure to prevent the
people from illegally occupying certain places when their number
was still small.

The city has 3,600 public order officers. About 1,900 of them
were recruited from the now-defunct People's Defense militia,
which was established as security for the 1999 general elections.
The militia members were mostly unemployed people.

The officers, who have only graduated from junior or senior
high school, earn at least Rp 750,000 a month.

It is often reported that they often take illegal fees from
street vendors.

Amid strong public criticism on human rights violations, head
of the City Public Order Agency Firman Hutajulu said that Law
22/1999 on regional autonomy and Bylaw No. 11/1988 allowed the
use a force to uphold public order.

"The law states that we can use force. So, is it called human
rights violations?," Firman said in the discussion.

He denied violating human rights, saying the use of force was
the last resort when talking failed.

Firman claimed that the city had allocated 1,117 places for
more than 15,000 informal traders in various parts of the city.

But they could not operate in certain places, such as the
National Monument (Monas) Park and areas along Jl. M.H. Thamrin
and Jl. Jend. Sudirman, he said.

"They are white areas which should be freed. We can not
tolerate it," he said.

He said he would soon evict 1,200 traders from Monas Park
following the installment of fences around it.

However, the administration would not able to provide 5,000
square-meter plots to accommodate the traders, as suggested
earlier by critics.