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.