The government has urged Southeast Asian police forces to forge closer links in the fight against transnational crime with the advent of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) at the end of this year.
Fedina S. Sundaryani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | World | Wed, August 05 2015, 7:33 AM
World News
The government has urged Southeast Asian police forces to forge closer links in the fight against transnational crime with the advent of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) at the end of this year.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Tuesday that police forces should work together to share their skills and experience in order to create a safe environment for the people of Southeast Asia.
“The ASEAN Economic Community will soon be implemented. Although [the AEC] will affect [the region], [police forces] must continue to protect and serve the public in terms of problems that we would all like to solve,” Kalla said in an opening speech at the 35th ASEANAPOL conference in Central Jakarta.
“A country’s stability can only be ensured if there is security in the region and a country’s security can only be guaranteed if there is stability in the region.”
The AEC, which will be officially launched on Dec. 31, 2015, will provide freer movement of goods, services and skilled labor among ASEAN member countries.
Kalla noted that Indonesia was experienced in the field of terrorism, but said that the country could not work alone, as experience had taught the National Police that militant groups received much of their equipment from abroad.
“Terrorists in Indonesia have also trained others in the region, which may have contributed to similar conflicts abroad,” he said.
Meanwhile, National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti explained that ASEANAPOL had already decided on several crimes that they would like to focus their cooperation on, including illegal fishing, drug trafficking, human trafficking, economic crimes and wildlife crimes. The cooperation for the past 35 years, Badrodin said, had proved fruitful for investigations and increasing the skills of officers.
However, he acknowledged that different laws in each ASEAN member country sometimes presented an obstacle to tackling transnational crime.
“There are always certain technical difficulties when cooperating in the field to solve a transnational crime. The different laws in each country can get in the way,” Badrodin said.
He added that he hoped that through the conference — with all 10 ASEAN member states in attendance, along with dialogue partners from six countries, two international organizations and four observer countries — regional police forces could find ways to overcome legal differences.
“Although we have different legal systems, we also have good relations and we can cooperate to overcome the differences,” he said.
The most recent high-profile transnational crime was a case of slavery in Benjina, Maluku, with more than a thousand foreigners and Indonesians allegedly forced and tricked into working long hours for little pay for fishing firm PT Pusaka Benjina Resources (PBR).
Police officials claim that many of the slaves had been trafficked from Thailand. Seven men have been named suspects in Indonesia.
Badrodin said, though, that the Benjina case was not scheduled for discussion during the conference.
“However, we may speak about similar cases in bilateral meetings,” he said.
