John McBeth, Singapore – The US is funding, training and arming specially screened Indonesian policemen in a new pilot program that will ultimately leave Indonesia with a self- contained, 400-strong counterterrorism unit capable of tackling everything from bomb investigations and terrorist acts to hostage-taking and armed assaults.
When fully operational in 2005, it will be able to respond swiftly to incidents throughout the archipelago, reports the latest edition of the Far Eastern Economic Review published Thursday. The US expects that the new force, dubbed Detachment 88, will significantly strengthen the police's ability to shoulder most of the burden in the war against terrorism in Indonesia.
Western military experts say, however, that it may take several years before it can match the capabilities of Indonesia's 4,500-strong military special forces, which have traditionally been responsible for counterterrorism operations. The police already have a core of US-trained hostage negotiators but, as one Western military officer points out, "they really aren't yet capable of doing high-level tasks."
In addition to training by the US State Department's diplomatic security service and retired agents from the US Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, the initial $16 million in funding for the new police unit is providing state-of-the-art communications equipment, night-vision gear, technical support and weaponry, including Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns and Remington 700 sniper rifles, Washington officials say. The officials say that if Detachment 88 builds on the successes the police have enjoyed so far in rounding up the terrorists responsible for deadly bombings in Bali and Jakarta over the past 13 months, the US is also likely to supply the unit with helicopters and C-130 transport aircraft. "If everything works out well, we are prepared to look at that," one senior US
So far the Americans have graduated three 10-man police investigation teams, three eight-man tactical response units and three five-man bomb squads in a program that will effectively merge three police departments into one. Security experts familiar with Indonesian police capabilities expect most of the instruction on bomb disposal will center around improvised explosive devices. All recruits to the counterterrorism force are vetted to ensure that they have clean human-rights records and haven't served in the former Indonesian territory of East Timor. Washington has had to focus on the police because of the continuing congressional constraints on the military-to-military relationship with Jakarta dating back to a 1991 massacre of civilians in East Timor by Indonesian troops. The Americans, moreover, believe the police should be responsible for internal security in Indonesia.
But under a new $17 million US Defense Department program, more than 100 Indonesian military officers are taking up "counter-terrorist fellowships," which cover courses ranging from combat skills to finance management. US officials openly acknowledge that the fellowships are a politically palatable way to allow Indonesia's renewed participation in the Pentagon's International Military Education and Training programme.
New image, new responsibility
It was only three years ago that the police separated from the military chain of command, signaling the start of a move aimed at reforming and redirecting the focus of a 196,000-member force tainted by corruption and human-rights abuses. The US
Justice Department is spending $40 million on a project to make the police more responsive to Indonesia's new democratic environment. Parliamentary decrees issued in 2000 stipulated that internal security was the responsibility of the police. Events since then, however, have shown that it is still not up to the task of putting a lid on sectarian violence that has wracked the country since the fall of President Suharto in mid-1998. Moreover, last year's Defense White Paper made it clear that the 297,000-strong military still sees a role for itself in preserving internal security. Political Coordinating Minister Bambang Yudhoyono is still working out who will take the lead role in dealing with scenarios such as hostage-taking and aircraft hijacking that require armed intervention by highly-trained operators.
On a more mundane level, the police's decision to call their counterterrorism unit Detachment 88 was made when the Americans first began offering Indonesia anti-terrorist assistance, or ATA as it is more commonly referred to. The Indonesians mistook the acronym and the way it was pronounced for 88. "Once we got all that cleared up," explains US Ambassador Ralph Boyce, "we all got together and decided to call it 88 anyway."