Ten officials injured in Senen incident

JAKARTA (JP): At least 10 city officials were injured on Tuesday morning after being beaten by angry street vendors operating around the busy Senen market in Central Jakarta, a police officer said.

Head of the Central Jakarta Police Command and Operation Control Center, Maj. Ricky F. Wakanno, said the traders first upturned the officials' vehicle before chasing and beating them up.

The officer said the injured officials consisted of seven civil defense personnel from the nearby Gambir district office and three officials from the Central Jakarta's Public Order Office.

Ricky said three of them were suffering from head injuries and were still being treated at different hospitals.

"The rest have been released after receiving treatment for light injuries at Gambir health center," the officer said.

The traders, who display their goods on the sidewalk and the edge of Jl. Pasar Senen, separately claimed that they only managed to beat one of the officers.

They recalled that the clash took place at around 9 a.m. shortly after the arrival of a group of six men, who attempted to remove vendors from the sidewalk and the street.

Manurung, a handbag trader, said he and his fellow traders blocked the progress of the officials' vehicle and pushed it over.

Five of the officials managed to escape the mob, while one was badly beaten by the vendors, he explained.

"We chased them, but we only caught one," Manurung said.

The traders said they were angry after learning that their plastic tents, wooden carts, boxes and boards used to display their merchandises had been taken by public order officials in a predawn raid on Tuesday.

M. Yani, a street trader selling pirated VCDs, said: "We were about to start our business in the morning, when we learned that our carts, boxes and benches had been taken."

He said they suspected that it was the work of city public order officials.

Manurung added, "The already tense situation turned explosive with the arrival of the six personnel, who appeared suddenly and wanted to clear out the area this morning."

But officer Ricky said the traders took out their anger on the wrong people.

The 10 men, he said, were about to end the night shift and be replaced by their colleagues when the incident occurred.

"They were driving in a city public order pickup truck and passing through the area when some 200 vendors ran after the car and turned it over," Ricky said.

Different personnel from the city Public Order Office raided the area in the early hours of the day, filling three trucks with tents, carts and boxes belong to the traders, he said.

No one has been arrested or questioned in relation to the incident, which left many motorists and commuters in a state of panic.

Police immediately deployed 200 personnel to secure the area.

In the afternoon, the usually crowded Senen market and environs resumed to normal.

Some of the street traders even began laying out their merchandise onto the sidewalk and street, as if challenging Public Order officials to raid their goods again. Many of them used the market's iron fence to display their goods.

Others constructed new carts and benches to replace those that had been seized by the city officials earlier in the day.

However, most of the street vendors could not hide their worries of a fresh raid by public order staff.

A few meters away, three military trucks were seen parked below the Senen flyover with dozens of personnel from the police's elite Mobile Brigade Unit hanging around the spot.

The Project Senen market and nearby Plaza Atrium were packed with visitors as usual.

Most of the street traders blamed the incident on the merchants selling goods from kiosks in the Blok IV shopping center located behind their makeshift stalls.

They said that those people trading from Blok IV were unhappy with their presence since they blocked potential customers' views of their wares.

"They paid a certain amount of money to the public order officials to force us to leave the site," Manurung said.

Blok IV traders said the accusation was groundless, however.

"We are indeed annoyed by their presence on the sidewalks since they block shoppers' views. But, it isn't true that we asked city officials to force them out," trader Jeffrey said.

He speculated that the action was carried out simply to help overcome the chronic traffic congestion on Jl. Pasar Senen and help stop other misdemeanors, such as the growing number of pickpockets, in the area. (06/nvn/asa)