The President’s decision to summon the new National Police chief over graft suspect Gayus Tambunan’s recent illicit tennis outings from a police detention center has been widely reported.
Once again, the President has shown excellent political instincts by appearing to personally involve himself in resolving a matter that, if not handled properly, has the potential to very seriously damage the government’s credibility in the eyes of ordinary Indonesians.
There is hardly likely to be anything more galling to the average Indonesian than to learn that graft suspects in police detention are able to enjoy pleasant tennis outings by paying off the detention center wardens meant to be supervising their detention. After all, it is not often that the average hardworking Indonesian gets to attend a tennis match in Bali even at his own expense, far less by using the proceeds of suspected tax graft.
Unfortunately, however, the President missed a golden opportunity to do something truly far-reaching about the endemic corruption in the Indonesian police force when he recently nominated yet another career police officer to replace the outgoing National Police chief. It should be apparent to everyone that meaningful internal reform of the police force is a practical impossibility while the “good old boys” continue to be in charge.
No better evidence of this is to be found than in the statement of the National Police spokesman, reported on page 2 of the Nov. 13 edition of The Jakarta Post, that, notwithstanding the embarrassing revelations over the tennis outing, “The police institution is fine, it is these nine [wardens] who are bad apples.”
Such a preposterous statement can only mean one of two things. Either the police are in a state of complete denial about the true state of their institution, or the existing police culture really is one of such utter contempt for the public that the police have no shame in putting forward even the most unbelievable explanations of exposed wrongdoing by their members.
The sad reality is that the Indonesian police have, with extraordinary success, wholly commercialized the process of law enforcement in Indonesia by developing a menu of available on demand products and services that must be the envy of all private sector consumer goods and service companies.
Whether it be tennis outings for tax graft suspects, weekends at home for former senior police officers standing trial for corruption, special access to National Police headquarters and premium office facilities for former diplomats turned case brokers or luxury prison accommodation for hapless wealthy female bribery convicts, it seems that the Indonesian police have something enticing to offer every wrongdoer with the means to pay. Inevitably, however, the commercial success of the police has come at the cost of the almost total debasement of its original function.
With the Gayus Tambunan saga fresh in everyone’s minds, now would seem to be the ideal moment for the President to appoint an outsider to run the police force, at least until such time as some semblance of credibility on the part of the police force is re-established.
William A. Sullivan
Jakarta
