EDITORIAL : THE JAKARTA POST, INDONESIA

 

Beware invisible police

For those who habitually ignore traffic signals in the absence of police officers, you must immediately cease such bad habits or someone may come knocking at the front door of your house, bringing you an invitation to a court hearing and requiring you to pay a fine for your violation.

The new ticketing system will be possible after the Jakarta Police install monitoring cameras at intersections across the city. The police have installed cameras at the Sarinah intersection on Jl. Thamrin, Central Jakarta, and plan soon to install many more cameras in 50 other intersections.

The new system, the Electronic-Traffic Law Enforcement (E-TLE), which is scheduled to be fully-enforced in May, seems to be an effective way to force motorists to abide by the existing traffic regulations, as motorists will always feel monitored by the hidden cameras.

The police have confirmed the effectiveness of this system based on results of a trial period since early this month in which traffic violators were informed that they were being monitored. “The number of violations at Sarinah declined from about 500 to only 23 a day,” said the head of Jakarta Traffic Police’s law enforcement, Sr. Comr. Yakub Dedy Karyawan, early this week.

When the system is fully operational, according to the police, the violators could be fined up to Rp 1.5 million (US$174): Rp 500,000 for violating a traffic signal, Rp 500,000 for crossing a white line and Rp 500,000 for entering a yellow box.

The introduction of the electronic traffic ticketing system is a good step to encouraging motorists to respect the laws, because undisciplined motorists who often ignore traffic signs worsen traffic congestion.

But it is too early to say that the system will be successful immediately. The poor administration of vehicle ownership in the city may hamper the system, as many owners of secondhand vehicles are currently often reluctant to change their vehicle’s documents.

Under these circumstances, many secondhand vehicle owners will not realize they are being ticketed. Therefore, strict vehicle’s documentation requirements for of secondhand vehicle owners could be the way out from this difficulty.

The new traffic ticketing system is only a small step in an effort to address acute, daily traffic congestions in Jakarta. The real problem is that the city can no longer accommodate the increasing number of vehicles, particularly due to people’s heavy dependence on private vehicles.

Installing spy cameras at many intersections, which is expected to encourage people to respect traffic regulations, should be followed by the improvement of public transportation to encourage people to leave their vehicles parked at home and shift to public transportation.

It is hard to call on people to respect the laws while they are trapped in gridlock.

Bad Friday

When a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque inside the Cirebon Police complex in West Java on Friday, terrorists sent yet another message that they would never stop their attack on humanity in Indonesia.

No one expected the explosion just before a Friday prayer, therefore the suspected terrorist found it easy to secure a place close to Cirebon Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Heru Koco, who was among the 26 people injured in the incident, which occurred a week ahead of Good Friday.

The Cirebon blast, the previous attacks on Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta and Syuhada Mosque in Yogyakarta in 1999, the simultaneous bombings of churches on New Year’s Eve in 2000, the carnage in Bali in 2002 and 2005, the hotel and embassy attacks in Jakarta in 2003, 2004 and 2009 and other acts of terror plaguing the country only underline the fact that such heinous attacks could take place anywhere.

Only recently, most-wanted 2002 Bali bomber Umar Patek was reportedly captured in Pakistan. But, as seen in the latest bombing and a hatful of attacks preceding it, the terror group has never fallen short of recruits ready to die for their cause, no matter what happened to their leaders.

Countries such as Australia have been on alert for fresh attacks in Indonesia following the arrest of Patek, which has so far remained unconfirmed by the Indonesian police. It comes as no surprise, actually, that terrorists targeted the police as happened in Cirebon on Friday, in the bank heist in Medan and the killing of two police officers in the Central Java town of Purworejo last year. Since the twin hotel bombings in Jakarta in July 2009, the police’s counterterrorism squad has stepped up its efforts to clamp down on terror networks across the country.

Top operator Dulmatin was killed, and big names like Abdullah Sunata and alleged spiritual leader Abu Bakar Ba’asyir were arrested during the relentless crackdown on terror suspects.

The tough enforcement of the anti-terror law, including capital punishment and lifetime imprisonment for convicted bombers, however, has not offered enough deterrence against the extraordinary crime. We may have overlooked the most important homework we need to settle to win the war on terror: Our zero-tolerance of radicalism as against our full commitment to moderation.

It goes without saying that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned the Cirebon bombing and asked his security officials to thoroughly investigate the attack and those behind it. As the head of state, the President needs to show that the government gives no room for radicalism, the seed of terrorism.