the access would be opened if legally terrorist actions could no longer be overcome by the police... or upon a political decision...Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Access is needed for the military (TNI) to be able to be involved in fighting terrorism, the chief of the army's special forces (Kopassus) said.
"TNI has seven anti-terror units but regretfully no access is available for them to be able to be used for it," Major General Lodewijk Paulus said in a seminar on fighting terrorism held by the National Defense Institute (Lemhanas) here on Wednesday.
He said the access would be opened if legally terrorist actions could no longer be overcome by the police or the police were unable to carry out their task or upon a political decision.
Some of the anti-terror units are Combat Platoon from the army strategic reserve command (Kostrad), Bravo 90 from the air-force`s special force (Paskhas) and Gultor from Kopassus.
He said terrorist actions in Indonesia were fluctuative but based on Kopassus' study their intensity has continued to drop from 2000 to 2008.
"Perhaps only 40 percent of radical actions are left," he said.
He said he saw TNI could play a role in the fight in view of the cases. Among activities that could be categorized as terrorist actions are bombing, hijacking, killing, ambushes, kidnapping, hostage taking, robbery and intimidation.
"TNI has often been involved in dealing with hostage taking," he said.
He said TNI`s involvement in terrorism fight is limited and must be based on Law Number 2 of 2002 on police and Law Number 15 of 2003 on terrorism. Based on the laws TNI`s involvement is also limited, he said.
Article 7 of Law Number 34 of 2004 meanwhile states that TNI helps police overcome terrorism but in realization this has created polemic, he said.
He said if a terrorism case could not be overcome legally and the police with all their capability could not carry out their duty through a political decision TNI could be involved in dealing with the case.
He said terrorism is dealt with by three institutions namely TNI, the police and the ministry of home affairs. They all have intelligence agencies down to village levels.
The army has apparatus from provincial to subdistrict military commands and so do the police and the ministry of home affairs.
"Their synergy may be developed and so no new institution will be needed," he said.
He said preventive measures were needed to avoid cases of shooting or arresting wrong persons or human rights violations.
Jakarta Senior Asia Program adviser of the International Crisis Group, Sidney Jones, meanwhile said Indonesia has relatively been successful in the fight against terrorism without necessarily having to enact laws such as Internal Security Act in Malaysia or Patriot Act in the US.
She said she was glad Indonesia could bring the terrorists to justice. Even in the US they were tried in special courts with no clear justice. She referred to the case of tortures in Guantanamo prison.
"Through an open court allegations of intelligence engineering could be minimized," she said.
Since 2002 she said the Indonesian government has arrested 500 terrorists to weaken their organization. (ANT)
Editor: Ade P Marboen
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