KNews.id- The eyes of the world focused on the Kanjuruhan Tragedy after the Arema FC vs Persebaya match, October 1, 2022, which claimed 131 lives. The well-known media from the United States, the New York Times, also highlighted the unfortunate incident at the Kanjuruhan Stadium.
They considered the Indonesian police to be highly militarized, lacking training in crowd control based on expert testimony. In addition, in almost all cases the police were never held accountable for missteps.
The moment of the Kanjuruhan Tragedy that captured the world’s attention has become a benchmark for the Indonesian police in the eyes of the international community.
Police Reform Failure
Quoted by Kompas Trend, several experts say police officers have never been held accountable for their actions. Huge police budgets were spent on tear gas, batons and other devices used during protest control.
The New York Times said that over the years, tens of thousands of Indonesians have faced a police force that many say is corrupt, uses violence to suppress the masses, and is accountable to no one.Then, on Saturday, when riot officers in Malang City beat football fans with batons and shields and, without warning, sprayed tear gas on tens of thousands of spectators crowding a stadium.
Police methods sparked a stampede that resulted in the deaths of 131 people, one of the worst disasters in the history of the sport.
Never been held accountable
Experts say the tragedy exposes the systemic problems facing police, many of whom are poorly trained in crowd control and deeply militaristic. In almost all cases, analysts say, they never have to answer for missteps.
“To me, this is really a function of the failure of police reform in Indonesia,” said Jacqui Baker, a political economist at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, who studies policing in Indonesia.
For more than two decades, human rights activists and government ombudsmen have investigated the actions of the Indonesian police. These reports, according to Baker, often reach the police chief, but have little or no effect.
“Why do we continue to be faced with impunity?” he says.
“Because there is no political interest to actually create a professional police force,” said Baker.
The New York Times also wrote that the police in Indonesia had never been “great or cruel” before.
During the three decades of Suharto’s rule, the military was seen as very powerful.
However, after the fall of Suharto in 1998, as part of a series of reforms, the government handed over responsibility for internal security to the police, giving the police enormous powers.
In many cases, police officers have the final say on whether a case should be prosecuted. Accepting bribes is common, analysts say, and any allegations of police misconduct are left entirely to top officials for investigation.Most of the time, rights groups say, they don’t. Wirya Adiwena, Deputy Director of Amnesty International Indonesia, said there were “almost never” trials for excessive use of police force except in 2019, when two students were killed on Sulawesi Island during protests.
In 2018, riot police fired tear gas at Kanjuruhan Stadium, Malang, when violence broke out in a match involving the home team, Arema. A 16-year-old boy died a few days later. There were no reports of whether there was an investigation into his death or how the police handled the riots. (AHM)
