Jakarta – Armed with wooden sticks, several young police officers were seen banging on public minivans loading passengers at Tanah Abang market, Central Jakarta, and blocking the roads.
One police officer turned to a line of fruit vendors on the roadside and picked up a rambutan with paying for it while chatting with the seller before returning to his job.
The police officers were carrying out a public order operation against undisciplined public transportation workers, thugs, illegal-parking attendants and street vendors causing congestion in the area.
The Central Jakarta administration, in cooperation with the police, has been conducting the operation since Nov. 25 to improve the market's image as Southeast Asia's biggest textile market. The operation is scheduled to last for four months.
The operation has done little to ease traffic, but has been successful in temporarily ridding parts of the city of thugs.
"I can run my business without having to pay thugs security money," said Juned, a clothing vendor. "I do not have to worry about the thugs messing up my stall because there have been no thugs here for the past three days." Juned said he was afraid the thugs would return after the operation was over.
Tambunan, a bus driver, said that thanks to the operation, the streets were safer because there were no more thugs, but he doubted whether it would last long.
Suwardi, from the Tanah Abang Police command post, said police were focusing more on the eradication of thugs. "The police are responsible for the eradication of thugs and clearing traffic, while the illegal vendors are the responsibility of the subdistrict office," he said.
Despite its successes, resident said they still felt skeptical about the operation because it had not been conducted thoroughly.
Harun, a Tanah Abang street vendor, said the police and public order officials only raided the vendors during the morning from 10 a.m to 2 p.m. "Most of the vendors here know that it is safe again to start selling after 2 p.m," he said, adding that earlier this morning some 10 fruit stalls had been raided by police.
An ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver who refused to be named said an operation like this costs money and that was why it had not been conducted thoroughly. "The operation is just ceremonial, it's just a token measure to impress the mayor and the police chief," he said.
He said similar operations had been conducted several times in the past, but the police failed to net many thugs and illegal street vendors because there were police insiders who tipped them off.
"Some of these stalls are owned by retired police officers and civil servants, that's where they get the information prior to the execution of the operation," he said.
Imam, a passing car driver, said the authorities were not serious about the operation. The operation does not reduce congestion in the area, he added.
"Just look around you, there are a lot of minivans and buses still loading passengers anywhere they like, and there are a lot of illegal vendors selling their goods on the sidewalk and the roadside," he told The Jakarta Post.
He said the problem of congestion would still remain unless firm action was taken against street vendors. "The vendors will feel that they have more freedom to run their businesses because they will no longer have to worry about paying thugs security money," he said.
Last week, Central Jakarta municipality announced it would deploy 470 officers to "clean Tanah Abang market". The officers comprise 150 policemen, 150 public order officers, 60 officers from the transportation agency, 60 hired security guards, 20 from the parking agency and 30 from the military.
Central Jakarta Mayor Sylviana Murni was quoted by beritajakarta.com as saying that the municipality would put 40 banners and 1,000 stickers to announce information on the sweep effort. In addition to that, a car equipped with an announcer will circle the area every two hours to blast out information, she said. (fmb)