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.