TNI arrests 20 flyboys over police attack

TNI arrests 20 flyboys over police attack

Tiarma Siboro and Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post,
Jakarta

The National Military Police commander Maj. Gen. Sulaiman A.B.
said that they had arrested 20 Air Force personnel allegedly
involved in the fatal attack on the Makassar police station in
East Jakarta late on Tuesday, all of whom could face sanctions
and legal charges.

"Currently, there are some 20 Air Force soldiers in detention,
all of whom have been declared suspects in the attack," Sulaiman
told reporters on the sidelines of the commemoration of the Army
Strategic Reserves Command's (Kostrad) 42nd anniversary on
Thursday.

"And because they killed a policeman in the attack, they will
face legal charges for murder. The other attackers will also be
legally processed," he said.

An armed mob of about 60 soldiers from the Air Force Equipment
Repair Unit besieged the station at about 11:30 p.m on Tuesday,
killing a policeman on duty, First Pvt. Brig. Salmon Panjaitan
and severely damaging the station.

These soldiers' actions are also against the military code of
ethics and all decisions regarding these soldiers would be left
to the Air Force Chief of Staff (Marshall Chappy Hakim). "But we
plan to discharge them," Sulaiman added.

He explained that the incident took place after the police
arrested a soldier, for public drunkenness and disorderly
conduct, and detained him at the station house. When arrested, he
was given a choice of detention or being reported to his
commanding officer. He chose to be detained.

But the soldier -- whom Sulaiman refused to name -- apparently
objected to being thrown in jail. Soon after being released, he
rounded up his military friends and they attacked the police
station.

Sulaiman's statement differs from an earlier press report that
the assault occurred after the police confiscated a motorcycle
belonging to a motorcycle taxi driver.

The taxi driver complained to his relative, an Air Force
member assigned to the Halim Perdanakusuma airbase, that he saw a
policeman driving his motorcycle outside the police post. The Air
Force member then asked his fellow soldiers to attack the police
post, which they did.

The East Jakarta attack is yet another in a series of
disturbing Military (TNI)-Police conflagrations since they were
officially separated in 1999. One of the largest and deadliest
took place in Binjai, North Sumatra in late 2002 where over 100
Army soldiers attacked two police stations in an apparent drug
dispute. At least 8 police officers were murdered, dozens of
convicts were released and 1.5 tons of hashish, which is still
missing, was taken from the station.

Another fatal incident recently occurred in Madiun, East Java,
where a number of Army soldiers attacked a police station
apparently following a quarrel between a TNI soldier and a
policeman at a gas station.

Several of the wayward troops involved in those incidents were
handed minor sanctions or discharged from the force.