Dini Djalal in Ambon, Pontianak and Jakarta – It seemed like what passes for normal at an Indonesian checkpoint. The soldiers were more brusque than usual, but they were on a dangerous detail – frisking people for machetes in strife-torn Ambon, the eastern island racked by murderous sectarian strife.

The arrival of three dozen officers from the Police Mobile Brigade (or Brimob) – apparent reinforcements – suggested something was brewing. But the police weren't looking for troublemakers: The score they had to settle was with the army. "They weren't coming to help," says a police officer. "They came to fight." Soldiers had detained an off-duty Brimob officer for carrying a pistol – and his heavily armed colleagues had come to rescue him. If journalists hadn't been present, says the police officer, it could have turned violent.

The roiling brew that is political and ethnic relations in Indonesia hardly needs yet another explosive element. But the simmering animosity between the two largest security forces – the army and the national police – only serves to exacerbate tensions.

Growing lawlessness has pushed police resources to the brink, while army intervention in policing duties has widened long-standing rifts. In January, Brimob officers tussled with soldiers after a riot in Jawai district, West Kalimantan. That scuffle was minor compared to an incident on September 30 last year in Pontianak, the provincial capital. There, a petty argument ended with a cavalry unit storming a police station with an armoured personnel carrier, killing four officers. The provincial police chief, Col. Chaerul Rasyidi, dismissed that incident as a "youth brawl." But senior officials, including armed-forces commander and Defence Minister Gen. Wiranto, are taking the animosity more seriously. On April 1, the police became a separate unit, freed from the control of the armed forces, known as ABRI. The question is: Will an independent police force end the infighting? Or will it put the police in an even tougher spot – between an angry public and a demoralized army heavy-handedly asserting authority?

Wiranto has acknowledged that splitting the two services is a gamble during this turbulent time. But, he added: "The militaristic reputation of the police must be abolished." Reform promises include a return of the police's oft-forgotten mandate: "To serve and protect." Currently, army training of the police drills into them to a less friendly doctrine: "Kill or be killed."

Yet there are signs that the handover of police control from the armed forces to the Defence Ministry may be cosmetic. Indeed, as Wiranto is also defence minister, one observer joked that the ceremony itself – a symbolic handing over of the police flag from ABRI to a Defence Ministry official – could have been shortened if Wiranto had simply handed the flag to himself.

Even among those who will carry out the changes, little is known about how the separation will unfold. Wiranto concedes that until new legislation passes, a process he hopes will be completed in two years, existing laws still apply. Even the national police chief, Gen. Roesmanhadi, can offer few clues to the reorganization, other than details about redesigning uniforms.

But the police will need more than new hats and badges, say observers. Its ill-equipped officers are stretched thinly through Indonesia's 13,000 islands; some outposts make do with only a few motorcycles. The police complain that funding is scraped from the bottom of the army's coffers. That's a far cry from the old days: A former police chief, retired Gen. Awaloedin Djamin, remembers when the police prospered under its own ministry (Brimob was the republic's first official uniformed force). But when the then police chief sided with President Sukarno after the 1965 coup, incoming President Suharto folded the police into ABRI. They've been subordinate to the military ever since.

Inter-service animosity is legion, but clashes are often played down. "We fought all the time in the 1960s, usually about women," Djamin jokes. Yet the fist fights reflect deep structural rivalries. The police gripe that the army allows only its officers to head ABRI, even though theoretically the armed-forces commander can come from other uniformed services. Army superiority is envied, and many police admit they first sought to be soldiers. "I signed up for the army," says one Brimob lieutenant, "but the psychology tests showed I was more suited for police duty." That could be taken as a compliment; army recruits are chosen for their willingness to kill.

That's not to say that Brimob isn't deadly. Recruits are hardened by three months of torturous army training which, says a graduate, "would make you cry." Crawling on hot asphalt is just one of the severe tests that continue within the units. "I'm kicked, slapped, and beaten all the time," a corporal moans. The police officers are paid a pittance – $25 a month at best – for their hardship, and few can look forward to promotions.

Accusations of brutality hurt these rank-and-file officers; they argue that they are taught little else. Ironically, their rivalry with the army, whom they accuse of even rougher treatment, is making them less aggressive. "We will only shoot if we have no choice," says one police lieutenant. Civilians support police claims that soldiers are too combat-ready. "Soldiers treat us as if they're in war," says Johan, a human-rights activist in Ambon.

One way to reform the police is to shape it into a civilian body under the command of either the president or the interior minister. If the police chief answered to the president instead of the ABRI chief, says Clementino dos Reis Amaral of Indonesia's Human Rights Commission, he would have "more guts" to stand up to the army.

But the police apparatus is no match for the army's, whose grip extends down to the village level. Its 187,000 personnel pale in comparison to the army's 240,000 troops. Ideally, the police force should be double the current national ratio of one policeman per 1,250 people. In some remote areas, one officer serves a community of 5,000. The army, meanwhile, is stretching its reach, with plans for restoring military command regions in hot spots such as Aceh and Maluku, the troubled island province that includes Ambon.

That police inferiority complex became most acute in Ambon during the past three months of bloody rioting. There, the army assumed control of security, but stopped short of declaring an emergency. This was unconstitutional, says Djamin. The army defends its move, saying it didn't declare an emergency because it would have restricted people's freedoms. But the Ambon riots spiralled out of control. By the time military reinforcements arrived, 200 people had died. Yet the police took the heat: The chief and his assistant were sacked and the Brimob commander was replaced.

Police accuse the army of orchestrating tensions in Ambon. "Why did the army wait two months before coming in and confiscating weapons?" asks a police sergeant rhetorically. "So they can look good while we look bad." The police wanted to confiscate arms at the start of unrest, he adds, "But the orders never came. It's all political games." The army privately denies the allegations.

Senior police officers fearing army reprisals keep tensions quiet, and order their underlings to do the same. Ambon's current police chief won't even comment on the security situation there, saying that only the army commander is authorized to make statements. Lower-rank officers heed the pecking order, but one sergeant says resentment is building. "We know we're being humiliated and sacrificed," he says, "but all my superiors can say is, let the people judge us."

So far that judgment has been harsh, and not without cause: Brimob are the storm troopers often seen pummelling demonstrators. But the public is beginning to understand the unenviable position the police are in. The sentencing of Brimob officers for the fatal shooting of students last May elicited protests from students claiming the bullets came from military sharpshooters. Brimob officers say they were scapegoats.

Wiranto hints that he senses the grievances, and is working out ways to unify his forces even as he formally separates them. Recently a new crack anti-riot squad, known as the PPRM, carried out its first operation dousing fires in West Kalimantan without incident. The units comprise Brimob officers and combat troops trained together in Jakarta. Lt.-Col. Johnny Usman, the new force's assistant commander, proudly said: "Friction exists between anyone, not just between soldiers. But ABRI acts as one," momentarily forgetting that he's a police officer, and no longer in the army.