http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20070703.E03&irec=2
Internal police reform, the forgotten agenda Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta Wise men say retrospection and introspection are the finest things to do to celebrate a birthday. Likewise, July 1 is the right moment for the National Police to once again engage in the uneasy annual rite of look backing at its past. The police's divorce from the military in 1999, after being united with it for more than 30 years, marked a historic milestone in the force's history. Anyone attending the ceremony in 1999 marking the initial separation of the police and military, which was presided over by then military chief Gen. Wiranto, could see the burgeoning hope painted on the beaming faces of the police's top brass. Anyone witnessing the ceremony, later repeated at National Police Headquarters, would likely feel they were part of history in the making. In his address to the police rank and file, Wiranto asked the police to adopt less repressive measures and take on the role of "protector of the public." "Your new philosophy should be to fight crime, promote humanitarianism and protect the public," Wiranto said. Police generals, too, symbolically replaced the badges, caps and uniforms of their officers. Vows to create a people-friendly civilian law enforcement agency were like mantras: hummed and chanted from police headquarters to tiny stations in remote villages. The public instinctively shared the same hope. The police appeared to have been reborn as the backbone of the country's law enforcement effort, renewing their slogan of protecting and serving the public. Back then, professionalism was on the tip of every police general's tongue whenever they spoke of the force. As a whole, that year was an historic milestone in the country's long journey toward the recognition of civil society. But separation was definitely not the goal, rather it was merely the starting point toward better law enforcement. Long overshadowed by the powerful military -- former president Soeharto's favorite institution -- the police had kept a low profile as regards serving and protecting the public. So low that they dared not touch cases involving military personnel. Since the separation, low-ranking personnel of the military and police have been involved in numerous embarrassing clashes. Nevertheless, seven years later, the police have become an independent institution, albeit with two extremely contradictory images, seemingly the product of reluctant or partial internal reform. Speaking of change and reform, time is indeed a relative concept. Apologists will quickly use it to excuse deficiencies in police performance. Moving away from a militaristic style of leadership and training is, of course, not easy -- though not something impossible, as in any divorce. The apologists claim that what is happening inside the police is "a work in progress". In the years after 1999, the police were quickly forced to deal with a more sophisticated form of crime: terrorism. Catching the perpetrators of terrorism has resulted in a lot of praise coming the police's way. Leaving the force's other units far behind, the antiterrorist squad has swiftly grown into an elite force inside the police, provided with funds and attention from every quarter so as to allow its members to improve their capabilities. The world, after Sept. 11, does need a new crop of heroes. Other less popular units in the police, however, have remained much as before, vainly struggling with conventional crime, such as street crime and drug offenses. Some police officers have apparently failed to resist the temptation of "getting into bed" with criminals as a result of their old-fashioned, and typically military, intelligence modus operandi -- infiltration. Many police officers are also involved in extortion and abuse of power, misusing their weapons and even unlawful shootings. The slogan of protecting and serving the public could become nothing more than an empty promise. For many officers, serving in the police is a job, not a profession that is synonymous with dedication. If there were only isolated incidences of crooked police officers abusing their powers, then the police leadership could reasonably claim these were merely isolated cases. But we have lost count of the number of such cases. There are just too many of them. Money is always the crux of the matter. It was common knowledge in the past that would-be officers had to pay bribes just to get into police training college, and for subsequent promotions. Whether or not this still happens, the police top brass should know better than anyone else. The police should be able to prove that there are more and more officers who can withstand the temptation to abuse their uniforms and the public trust so as to fatten their wallets. The thing is, even if the Hollywood cob, Dirty Harry Callahan, was real, he would probably be shocked by the sort of shenanigans that go on in the police here. Are we having a panic attack? Hopefully not, but what Wiranto once said about fighting crime, promoting humanitarianism, and protecting the public keeps cropping up in the mind whenever we hear of police officers being caught breaking the law they are supposed to enforce. Laws are man-made and liable to be broken, but the last people one would expect to break them are the law enforcers. Who will protect the public if the police break the law? The author is a staff writer with The Jakarta Post. printer friendly [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
