It has been a week of searching for answers - none of which have surfaced. From the heightened search for suspects in the July 17 twin bombings, to a resolution in the confusing post-election legal wrangling.
Arguably most of these had been anticipated. A time bomb, excuse the pun, due to history and an inclination to let situations boil over.
Police continued their nationwide investigation this week into the twin bombings. Despite not yet declaring any real suspects, the investigations do seem to be proceeding along the right track. They should be given time to thoroughly conduct their probe. While media updates are helpful in informing the public, authorities should ultimately resist the frenzy to satisfy sound bytes and a produce good headlines. Hasty revelations are unhelpful and will only serve to heighten unwarranted suspicion and lead the public toward a false sense of security.
Despite the good work of security officers in the past, the latest bombings show us that terrorism is a long hard-fought war with no simple solutions.
A source at the police’s Detachment 88 counterterrorism unit said that dozens of officers had been deployed across the country in pursuit of key figures suspected to have been behind the Jakarta hotel bombings.
The targeted regions include Banyumas, Surakarta and Cilacap in Central Java; Cirebon and Kuningan in West Java; Malang and Probolinggo in East Java; and Jakarta and Yogyakarta. Police are also hunting down suspects in South and Central Sulawesi.
The source added that at least three parties were believed to have been involved in recent terrorist attacks across the country — JI’s Singapore cell, the Indonesian Islamic State Movement (NII) and die-hard loyalists of the country’s prime terror suspect Noordin M. Top. One group of police officers is in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to seek information from the recently arrested head of JI’s Singapore cell, Mas Selamat bin Kastari.
As police were clearing the mystery surrounding the bombings, staff at both the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels had sufficiently cleared up the debris to begin operations again less than a fortnight after the attack.
A terror of a different type was also gripping the country as the prevalence of those infected with the H1N1 virus continues to rise.
Just over a month after the first H1N1 infection was found in Indonesia, the country has recorded a total of 479 cases, including one fatality. The Health Ministry’s official report said infection cases had been found in 15 out of the country’s 33 provinces, including Riau Islands, Bali and all six provinces in Java. North Sumatra, South Sumatra, Jambi, South Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, South Sulawesi and North Sulawesi have all reported cases of the H1N1 flu strain.
The Health Ministry has raised the alert by cautioning all hospitals to expect an increase in numbers of influenza cases.
The government has asked people to stay as clean and healthy as possible and to use masks to prevent the spread of the H1N1 flu. Such is the public show of concern now that visitors to the Presidential Palace in Jakarta have to undergo a thermoscan check before entering the complex.
Health Ministry officers equipped with thermoscanners have also been placed at President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s private residence in Cikeas, south of Jakarta.
Five members from the family of the Aburizal Bakrie, the Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare, have tested positive to the virus. It is believed they caught the flu in the United States.
Three weeks after what seemed to be a smooth and fruitful election, much of the confusion, regulatory discord and administrative weaknesses predicted prior to the five-yearly “celebration” came to the fore. The relatively poor organization and limitations placed on the General Elections Commission (KPU) has placed it in limbo over what to do with a controversial Supreme Court ruling that last month annulled the KPU’s second-phase counting of votes from April’s legislative elections.
Under the now-annulled KPU regulation, the second phase involved the allocation of seats to parties in which the parties who had gained seats during the first phase could not use the votes they used in the first phase. However, the Supreme Court ruled that the votes used by the winning parties in the first phase must be used again in the second phase, costing smaller parties votes and legislative seats.
This after the KPU had already finished allocating seats to representatives of these minor parties, such as Prabowo Subianto’s Greater Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) and the National Mandate Party (PAN).
At least 66 seats would be given to the major parties at the expense of the minor parties if the ruling is adhered to, according to a count by CETRO, an NGO focusing on electoral issues, with an estimated 1,300 regional legislative council seats to shift as well.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Harifin Tumpa confirmed that KPU members had met with him to discuss the verdict, saying the court had explained the contents of the verdict to the commission.
“If the KPU does not implement the decision, then the [KPU] rule becomes obsolete within 90 days,” he said. “That is, 90 days from when the KPU received the verdict”.
However, in a separate interview, KPU chief Abdul Hafiz Anshary denied the KPU planned to wait the verdict out. Such a “transfer” of votes were to take place it would merely confirm the rising domination of President Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party. The party’s imminence will likely be reflected in occupying the speaker position at the House of Representatives and at regional legislative councils.
— Meidyatama Suryodiningrat
