Riot alert centers to be set up

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto reiterated yesterday the need to set up "alert command centers" to monitor the entire country and nip unrest in the bud.

Soeharto said the centers would be the first of their kind in Indonesia and would be stationed at Kodim (district military commands). They would monitor situations and rumors that could incite social unrest and report them to the relevant authorities.

"The centers will forward information to the concerned authorities, who will then act on them," Soeharto was quoted as saying by Sudomo, head of the Supreme Advisory Council (DPA), who met with him yesterday. The council advises the President on policy matters.

Soeharto also said the centers should be ready to receive all kinds of reports from the people. No specific establishment date was mentioned.

Creation of the centers was first announced by President Soeharto last Friday when receiving managers of cooperatives owned by Islamic boarding schools (pesantren).

Soeharto said such the centers were necessary to prevent further riots, which had occurred regularly in the past two years.

According to Sudomo, the President disliked having to establish the centers. "I know that he doesn't like to set up new bodies like this," Sudomo said.

Sudomo said since it would not be an "operational" body, the centers could not be said to be taking the role of an internal security agency, the Operation Command for Law and Order Restoration (Kopkamtib), which is now defunct.

Sudomo was formerly chief of the Kopkamtib, dissolved in 1989 to make way for a more lenient Bakorstanas, or the Agency for the Coordination of Support for the Development of National Stability.

He said the agency, to be called the "Control Center for Social Unrest" at the provincial level and led by the governor, would be sufficient to handle local problems and issues.

Sudomo acknowledged the widening social gap was a factor in recent outbreaks of violence around the country.

The violence, however, had been incited by "some dissidents and subversive groups from the left and right extremes seeking to discredit and undermine the government." The groups, which Sudomo did not identify, had sought to make people believe the government could no longer be trusted or relied upon.

"They intend to topple the government," said Sudomo, a retired admiral.

He said certain subversive elements had taken advantage of a localized conflict in the recent Tasikmalaya riot and aggravated the situation.

But Sudomo said the riots had been "sporadic" and would not affect the country's stability. He later called on fellow senior government officials and observers to avoid making "naive" comments about the country's current political situation.

In October, thousands of Moslems in the small East Java town of Situbondo took to the streets and burned dozens of churches as well as a Buddhist temple and other public facilities. Five people were killed.

On Dec. 26, thousands of Moslems went on a rampage in Tasikmalaya, West Java over police mistreatment of three Moslem teachers. Four people died and over 100 buildings were burned and damaged.

Earlier this month unrest erupted in West Kalimantan when a mob of 5,000 Dayak tribesmen, the local indigenous ethnic group, burned and looted scores of homes and stores belonging to settlers who had migrated from the Indonesian island of Madura, north of Java. (imn/08)

Disparity -- Page 2