Rendy A Witular, Jakarta – Fighting terrorism has never been a lower priority for the police than it has been under the watch of police chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri, who assumed his role on Sept. 30 last year.
Despite the notorious top terrorist recruiter Noordin M. Top remains at large, Bambang has sat back idly since the killing of Malaysian Dr. Azahari Husin – the "master bomber" behind Bali's 2002 blasts – in an anti-terror raid in late 2005 and a series of crackdowns on several terrorist cells over four explosion-free years.
However, while such a complacent mentality is common among top Indonesian officials, there has been a jitter within the police force over mismanagement of counterterror work under Bambang, who is far from resourceful when it comes to dealing with the problem.
Bambang's "military-style" management has taken counterterror work back several steps, most notably when he created an unnecessary rift between the police's unofficial terrorist intelligent unit, Satgas Anti-Terror, and the US-funded anti-terrorist squad, Detachment 88.
Satgas, which is coordinated by high-profile terrorist guru Comr. Gen. Goris Mere, is a covert working unit tasked with keeping track of terrorist networks across the archipelago. It is the only unit among the security and defense corps consistently present on the field to monitor every move terrorist leaders and networks make. Having less than 50 personnel "borrowed" from various police division, the unit is directly under the auspices of the police chief.
The Detachment, with its 400 personnel, is a formal entity under the National Police detective division, tasked with investigating attacks and raiding terrorist hotspots, based on input from Satgas or other sources.
While Satgas and the Detachment have traditionally enjoyed close ties, it all turned sour in January, when Bambang replaced retiring Brig. Gen. Suryadharma Salim with Brig. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution, who has limited experience in dealing with terrorism, as head of the Detachment. Bambang's choice of Saud seemed to be an act of favoritism rather than a reflection of his capability, especially as Satgas is often lauded for its high caliber officers.
Bambang also turned down a request to grant the covert Satgas more funding and manpower to prevent it from running out of steam at a time when terrorist networks were boosting their manpower and capability for their next attacks.
Bambang's refusal to debate and discuss these issues has frustrated and exhausted many Satgas officers, who end up having to follow his orders at the expense of compromising long-ongoing intelligence missions.
More often than not, and without consulting the Satgas, Bambang has directly ordered the Detachment to detain terrorist suspects who may be more useful on the loose, where they can unwittingly lead police to unknown cells.
Another setback for the detection of potential terrorist plots was the decision to strip Satgas of its surveillance gear around six months ago.
The equipment was subsequently used for jobs unrelated to the fight against terrorism and sometimes even for the personal use of several top officers. There are signs the equipment is now being used to help undermine the Corruption Eradication Commission's (KPK) intelligence gathering capabilities.
Indeed, instead of focusing on tackling the protracted threat of terrorism, in the past two months, the officers, most notably detective chief Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji, have been preoccupied with his personal rift with KPK leaders.
Several media outlets have reported how Susno is at odds with the KPK after discovering attempts by the agency to tap him as part ofits investigation into the Bank Century fiasco.
Susno, who spent most of his career as a traffic officer, is also at odds with the Satgas officers engaged in monitoring the terrorist networks because of his lack of experience handling issues of terrorism.
Since the 2002 Bali bombing, Satgas has been reputed for its pool of smart officers, who consistently promote a "civilized style" of police management, where debate and discussion are nurtured.
However, not all officers agree to the idea, especially when the Satgas officers get extraordinary promotions and hefty financial gains.
In 2003, the Detachment was officially activated, with most of its top officers coming from Satgas, which nonetheless maintained its presence because of its flexibility nature in terrorism surveilance work is not possesed by other police divisions.
Rifts between Satgas, the Detachment and the detective chief are just a few of the many issues that need to be addressed by the police, aside from the classic and ongoing problems of corruption, lack of professionalism and poor relationship with public.
While the President has been called on to reform the police force since 2004, less and less has been done to ensure this actually happens. It would not be surprising if these persistently poor mentality and management of the police force led to more deadly terrorist attacks in the near future.