Farouk Arnaz – An internal investigation by the National Police has led to three officers being named suspects in the violence in Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, but for assaulting protesters, not shooting at them.

"The three are suspects in the context of indiscipline," said Brig. Gen. Budi Waseso, the head of internal security at the National Police. "We have named them suspects based on the video that has been widely circulated in the media. They beat up and kicked protesters."

Budi did not identify the three officers but said they were low-ranking police personnel attached to the Mobile Brigade (Brimob) unit. He said the three faced sanctions from the police, and could also be charged under the Criminal Code.

"But proving a crimes might be hard because the victims have to be questioned," he said. "If criminal charges are filed, the case will be taken over by the National Police's detectives unit." The number of suspects, he added, might still increase, both in terms of number and rank.

Budi is part of a police team that traveled to Bima to investigate the incident. The team has so far questioned 151 police officers and 18 residents about the violence at Sape port. He did not say if any officers would be named suspects for opening fire on the protesters, leaving two people dead and another 11 wounded.

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has also sent a team to investigate the Sape violence. It has said that three peopled died as a result of the shooting. Its commissioners have said the team has found indications of violations of police procedure in the handling of the protests.

Netta Pane, head of Indonesia Police Watch, a nongovernmental group, has said that the police should only use live ammunition after exhausting all other means to disperse a crowd, including the use of rubber and blank bullets, water cannons, tear gas and the deployment of riot police.

The police, however, have insisted that there were no breaches of procedure by the officers involved in the Sape incident.

In his year-end press conference on Friday, National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo said the police had not committed any human rights violations in 2011, despite what would seem to be an abundance of evidence to the contrary. Timur said the video of the violence in Bima only showed the end of the clash, and that the police had followed all procedures before that.

He said the police were also investigating how the two dead protesters were found some 700 to 900 meters away from the port where the violence took place. "We are looking into this, how they were found dead there, while at the location there were no deaths," Timur said.

On Dec. 24, in their effort to disperse protesters who had occupied the Sape ferry port for days, the police opened fire on the crowd. Two people were found shot dead.

The police have argued that the protesters, who had occupied the port in opposition to an exploration permit granted to a gold mining company in Bima, had disrupted vital transportation links between Sumbawa and the island of Flores, doing damage to the local economy.