Deadly Soccer Clash in Indonesia Puts Police Tactics, and Impunity, in Spotlight

For years, tens of thousands of Indonesians have faced a police force that many say is corrupt, uses brutal force to suppress crowds and is accountable to no one.

In the capital Jakarta, police shot and killed 10 people as protesters campaigned against President Joko Widodo’s re-election in 2019. The next year, officers beat hundreds of people across 15 provinces with batons as they protested a new law. And in the northern city of Ternate in April, officers fired tear gas at a crowd of peaceful student protesters, sickening three toddlers.

The world got a glimpse of that tactic on Saturday, when riot police in the city of Malang beat football fans with batons and shields and without warning sprayed tear gas at tens of thousands of spectators packed into a stadium. The police force’s methods set off a stampede that culminated in the deaths of 125 people – one of the worst disasters in the sport’s history.

Experts said the tragedy laid bare the systemic problems faced by police, many of whom are poorly trained in crowd control and heavily militarized. In almost all cases, analysts say, they have never had to answer for missteps.

“To me, this is definitely 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, rights activists and the government’s ombudsman have conducted investigations into the actions of the Indonesian police. These reports, according to Ms. Baker, have often found their way to the chief of police, but with little or no effect.

“Why do we continue to be confronted with impunity?” she said. “Because there is zero political interest in really creating a professional police force.”

After the violence on Saturday, many Indonesians took to Twitter to call for the national police chief to be fired. And as of Monday night, close to 16,000 people had signed a petition calling on police to stop using tear gas. The government moved quickly to quell public anger, suspending the Malang police chief and promising to release the names of the suspects responsible for the tragedy within days.

The police in Indonesia have never been so formidable or so violent. During the dictator Suharto’s three-decade rule, it was the military that was considered all-powerful. But after his fall in 1998, as part of a series of reforms, the government transferred responsibility for internal security to the police, giving the force enormous power.

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 solely to top officials to investigate. Most of the time, rights groups say, they don’t.

Wirya Adiwena, deputy director of Amnesty International Indonesia, said there has “almost never been” any trial over the excessive use of police force except in 2019, when two students were killed on Sulawesi island during protests.

Polls have shown a sharp drop in public trust in the police – falling to 54.2 percent in August 2022 from 71.6 percent in April of the same year, after reports emerged that a two-star police general had killed his subordinate and directed other officers in to cover it up. .

The lack of police accountability has coincided with a massive budget. This year, the national police budget is $7.2 trillion, more than double the figure in 2013. In terms of share, its budget is the third largest among all government departments in the country, exceeding the amount given to the ministries of education and health .

A large part of that money has been spent on tear gas, batons and gas masks. Andri Prasetiyo, a finance and policy researcher who has analyzed years of public procurement data, said the National Police has spent about $217.3 million over the past decade to acquire helmets, shields, tactical vehicles and other gear that were deployed during protests.

Purchases of tear gas rose in 2017 to $21.7 million, according to Mr. Andri, after Jakarta was rocked by a series of protests involving tens of thousands of Indonesians who demanded that the city’s first Chinese Christian governor in decades be jailed for blasphemy.

Experts in the police say that 2019 was a turning point in the use of tear gas by the police. In May of that year, officers clashed with protesters as protests over the presidential election turned violent, resulting in deaths, some of them involving teenagers.

Rivanlee Anandar, deputy coordinator of rights watchdog the Commission on Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, says there has been no “follow-up and investigation” into the deaths. He has visited the families of five victims and says that an autopsy was only carried out in one case and that the family has not been informed of the results.

“We don’t know who the perpetrators are until today,” he said.

The police’s widespread use of tear gas has transcended geography. When faced with mass demonstrations, officers from Jakarta to Kalimantan have done so consistently reached for the chemical to quell protesters. The budget for tear gas munitions, which had decreased after the 2017 allocation, rose again in 2020 to $14.8 million, a sixfold increase from the previous year, Andri said.

That year, police used tear gas in crowds protesting against coronavirus measures. Later in 2020, they used it again to disperse crowds demonstrating against a sweeping new law that slashed protections for workers and the environment. Amnesty International Indonesia said it had documented at least 411 victims of excessive police force in 15 provinces during these protests.

“It’s become more of a pattern now,” said Sana Jaffrey, the director of Institute for Political Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta.

Jaffrey says that over the years the police budget has been allocated to quelling many recent demonstrations, but that “the bolts and the day-to-day grassroots work of the police have been ignored.”

In January this year, the National Police bought batons specifically for officers in East Java Province, Malang Province, which were worth nearly $3.3 million, according to Mr Andri.

Anticipating violence at football matches, many police officers appear decked out in helmets, vests and shields and armed with sticks. Some fan clubs have managers who participate in physical training to prepare for matches. Several teams arrive for matches in armored personnel carriers.

Still, experts said they were shocked by the police force’s chaotic response at the stadium on Saturday as football violence is common in the country – with frequent fights between fans of rival clubs – and that police should have a playbook for any unrest.

In 2018, riot police fired tear gas at Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang to quell violence during a match with home team Arema. A 16-year-old boy died days later. There was no word on whether there was an investigation into his death or how the police had handled the unrest.

Now the authorities plan to investigate what went wrong on Saturday when thousands of supporters gathered in Malang to watch Arema host Persebaya Surabaya. After Arema suffered a surprising defeat, 3-2, some fans ran onto the pitch. Police then unleashed a wave of violence and fired tear gas, witnesses said.

The top security minister said officers suspected of wrongful violence at the stadium will face criminal charges.

On Sunday, East Java police chief Inspector General Nico Afinta said the police had taken actions that were in line with their procedures. He said tear gas had been used “because there was anarchy” and that fans “were attacking the officers and had damaged the cars.”

In a sign that Malang’s police had tried to anticipate the violence, it asked the organizers to move the match to 6 p.m. 3:30 p.m. “for security reasons,” according to a letter circulated online, the contents of which were confirmed by East Java Province police to The New York Times. An earlier time slot, it was thought, would make the event more family-friendly. But the police request was rejected. The organizers could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.

Many rights activists say that in order to improve law enforcement tactics, they have consistently made these recommendations to police: Don’t immediately reach for the tear gas; don’t swing batons at people on first instinct; understand how to control crowds; de-escalate the conflict.

“The standard operating procedure should not be for the police to jump from zero to 100,” said Mr. Wirya, from Amnesty International Indonesia.

Dera Menra Sijabat contributed with reporting.