Minggu, 23 Agustus 2009

Abstrak

PARASIT DI RUMPUN BAMBU

Jejak Operasi Intelijen Tebang Pilih


Synopsis

I am Iman Tagas, an ex expat. Chaos ended my one-year work career in Malaysia. I was working for an IT company on Jalan Bandar Enambelas, Pusat Bandar Puchong, Selangor Darul Ehsan. One time (April 27 2007) Balai Polis Puchong’s intelligence outfit raid my workplace; they suspected the company conducted misdeeds in business. Obstinately verbalizing we pirated movies on CDs, they rummaged the whole office. Hours passed and they found nothing. They didn’t find even a single pirated CD. Nevertheless, they insisted on arresting us. And I was taken aback in disbelief to find out that those netted were underlings only; four men and a woman; all Indonesia’s nationals.
Three female Malaysians, on higher rungs of the same ladder, were released without undergoing further legal inquiries, owing to a potent negotiator whose power base in the officialdom drove the police establishment. Like it or not, I did arrive at a deduction that five of us Indonesians were victims of a selective prosecution due merely to ethnicity and/or nationality. Concerning their setting all Malaysians free, the Police threatened us not to reveal it to anyone. They required us to keep all mouths shut just like clams.
Classified a commercial crime, the case was handled by the KPDN; Malaysia’s Ministry of Internal Trade (& Consumers Protection?). One more thing, as they were leaving the scene, that vicious flock of cops looted our precious belongings. We suffered lots of loss. To cut a long story short, we strongly recommended that the KPDN’s officials find workable ways of getting our lost things back. Though showing some sort of sympathy, the KPDNs didn’t seem by any means to commence face-to-face confrontations against the plunderers. They shrugged and commented, “It is normal when police precede us.” Looting ain’t a despicable act, Guru?
Actually, we got a golden chance to demand explanation for justice but we deliberately missed it. April 28 2007 a Mahkamah PJ’s registration officer raised a question, “Were there any ridiculous treatments the police did that might harm any of you?” For the question, we five lied, “No.” Because responding “Yes, there is” by that time was unlikely possible. We didn’t have the courage to tell the truth. To be bloody honest was far too risky. It could mean committing a suicide. We feared our life could get worse off radically. Getting a little paranoia that none was concerned about our case, we could hardly trust anyone outside our inner-most cluster to settle things right.
Being detainees caused us to suffer grave troubles. A continual discomfort happened to me in KPDN Petaling Jaya. To urinate was not allowed by any of their investigating officers. They reasoned there was no one available to show me the urinals in their building. As you could imagine, my urinal pouch and the whole crotch ached for hours in their very venue. (A premeditated way of inflicting pain upon suspects?) On a later angle, a KPDN staffer showed us a pack of cigarettes; acting like he was going to give it to us. But I soon realized he wouldn’t share any as he was disdainfully shouting a verbal abuse, “If (you) don’t have any money, don’t smoke!” and, “Fifty bucks a piece” while grinning like a roguish primate. Akin to an ape carrying a bunch of jungle bananas, he was playing silly games with our feelings.
Meanwhile, April 27 to May 4 2007, we were arrested in Balai Polis Puchong. The fact that all captives were naked to the waist 24/7 in its overloaded six-cell lockup stunned me very much. Shirts or any clothings that might cover upper torso were so strictly banned that a convict would expose his torso to the chilly floor when he was sleeping. What’s more, there were events in Balai’s lockup during which foreigners were abused and tortured. My impression was that almost every Malaysian was granted distinctive leeway to breathe fresher air. Even some of them gripped the power to treat foreign nationals as they wished. Furthermore, they always had the time to rummage other detainee’s belongings kept in a set of unlocked pigeon holes placed right in back of the guard desk. The pillaged things and monies were then traded with tobacco and other needs like toothpaste and soaps. For the record, tobacco was banned in lockup. They banned tobacco the way they banned ganja. Nevertheless, being legally forbidden from entering any jail and lockup throughout the country didn’t mean tobacco and drugs could not easily be found. In Balai Polis Puchong some police officer – a trading guard – was available all of the time for jailbirds badly in need of his service. Pay in advance, they could order almost anything.
One humiliating incident took place one evening some time from April 30 through May 2 2007, though. That day a pack of inmates was scheduled to be transferred to another lockup or jail. Days before, the gang ordered the trading guard a package of tobacco worth RM 1300. The gang had paid the guard the full sum in advance. The latter agreed to deliver the package before the former were transfered. But until the agreed time would critically last, the gang didn’t see any package they had been expecting.
Upset, the gang vigorously leg-kicked a poor Bangladeshi, Ulul Ulema. The latter groaned in pain and fell. Ulul was tortured for a matter he had nothing to do with. Good or bad, what a watch guard could do to protect Ulul was begging, “That guy ain’t guilty. Don’t hurt him.” Instead of hearing, the gang boasted they would take another victim to assure the trading guard to perform. Bangladeshi and Indonesians were on target. “Tobacco ain’t available ’till six morning, we’ll torture another chum – either Bangla or Indon – severely to head’s bleeding!” they threatened. Like lighting a match in a room filled with barrels of gasoline, the guard’s negligence triggered ongoing uproar in lockup at least during the last third of that anger-scorched night.
As four inquiries (once in their building, twice in a gasoline station, once in police station) proceeded, KPDN’s investigators didn’t happen at any moment to show us any evidence. For the reader’s comprehension, they had confiscated a big bundle of papers and fourteen computer sets from our office. They must have known the papers and computers were more than enough to shed light on what and whom they were seeking, and where. But instead of hunting the most responsible, they seemed like to be far more interested in finding a guarantor to bail us. I sensed the fact with ambivalent feelings; glad if released on parole, but sad and mad for having been treated unfair.
On a near lane of the spectrum, Mahkamah Sesyen Petaling Jaya’s lockup had long been a mute witness to detainees’ robbing one another. May 4 2007, not long before sent to Penjara Sungai Buloh, I had a terrible experience in the Mahkamah’s lockup. A nasty, stinky criminal – his face full of pimples – tried to rob me, his hands searching through my underwear to find anything he thought I hid in the exclusive area. He found nothing but I was determined to take revenge some time later. As mob rule was effective, detainees were forced to take side: hunter or the hunted. Here, too, the guards – a Kopral Jamil one of them – sold tobacco to detainees. Thanks to the deepest assistance of the guards, detainees smuggled things – tobacco and drugs taken in their bellies – to penjara. No measures of prevention taken by the jail management were capable of stopping illegal substance from seeping their venues.
In Penjara Sungai Buloh, every inflowing prisoner experienced two tight examinations: (1) clothes being searched manually by two officers and (2) anus being viewed with an “anus scanning” camera; displayed on VCRs scrutinized by an officer. The officers, in effect, spent their invaluable time and effort for nothing, because it was bellies that should have been searched or emptied. It was Mahkamah’s guards who had jeopardized it; they would stop at nothing from sucking juicy mucus of illicit substances. Many a time physically injured felons found much easier ways of smuggling tobacco and drugs to jail. An ulcerated internee inserted lumps of tobacco between layers of bandage swathing his whole lower leg from toes to knee. A limp crook stuffed tobacco and drugs into his hollow crutch.
In addition to a 7-day detention in Balai Polis Puchong, I was arrested in Penjara Sungai Buloh for another 33 days. On June 6 2007, the company bailed us. RM 7,000 each, we were released on parole. Being parolees, our passports were kept by Mahkamah to assure that we not leave the country. But later on, I decided to break into a run; back to Indonesia. It was surely shocking and disappointing company staffers. But they couldn’t do anything to prevent me from going without a passport in hand. They didn’t have alternatives except to escort me to an anchorage. June 11 2007 afternoon, I – along with 29 other illegal passengers, misfits on the run – was on board a trading ship anchored by a pier at the heart of Port Klang’s territory.
During an instant brief, many a time some agents and ship crews uttered, “Since chicken are munching corn, do feel no fear … Money talks … They (Port Klang’s administration) do know every time we come and go, we bring people. And they’re happy,” to convince us not to worry about. They were right. Without help from the port’s administration, there could have been no way for any ship to take fugitives across Malacca Strait from the port. Merely intruding the port’s perimeter was not a kid’s game; there had been many onlookers. But those smugglers were too brainy for average empty-headed kleptocrats. To the port’s authority, they would report they took only 3, instead of 30. So they would show only 3 passengers to the patrol attendants stationed at the port’s two check-booths and somewhere else at sea. This resulted in severe troubles to the remaining 27, including me.
For us, more than half being females, the sailing was extremely far from comfort. We were to stay in concealment. Most were crammed in a night-black, sticky, unventilated compartment of about 80 cm wide, less than 1 m high, 5 m long; located well under the roaring, roasting machine chamber. The compartment was so low and slender that everyone absolutely had no space to move about. All we could do for hours was sitting legs-bent and heads-bowed. To stand upright or lie down would be a Utopist’s day-dream. I couldn’t ignore the pains – those feelings of inflammation I most wanted to beat – on the head, neck, back, knees, in my whole body and soul. The concealment was so hot and fishbloody-stinking a room that everybody was perspiring soaking wet and was having trouble breathing. Our mental health was vulnerable; and it was another problem. A few passengers were much more doomed. They were literally canned inside motor-oil drums as the ship was leaving the waterfront of calamitous history.
In Indonesia’s territory, the ship didn’t take the passengers to their destination. In the middle of nowhere at sea of the dewy scary night, the ship anchored and all passengers were passed on two sampans. We, all shivering ill-fated passengers, were once again packed like sardines in tight cells of both sampans. Males and females were jumbled together. To fit the cells, passengers had to lay down, adjusting their torsos to the curvature of the space on board; legs jackknifed, heads bowed. Over our feeble bodies, woodbeams were secured. A filthy sheet of tarpaulin was then laid on the top of each sampan to camouflage its real appearance. Viewed from outside, each sampan now must have looked like empty except there were one crew sitting on stern and one on bow; similar to the appearance of a typical fishing sampan. The ship and both sampans then parted. The ship resumed its delayed voyage to Teluk Nibung Port, Tanjung Balai Asahan. The two sampans – like caterpillars on a dark, whirling giant pool – cruised at a snail’s pace afloat the open sea to a murky wharf someplace on shore.

The writer wishes the chronicle published and filmed. Any interested book publishers, TV producers, and film makers are kindly welcome to SMS +6285295067895, +6281320988961, email: tagas56@yahoo.comtagasiman@gmail.com

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Kisruh menandai akhir satu tahun karirku di Malaysia. Aku bekerja di sebuah perusahaan IT. Suatu ketika (27/4 ’07) satuan intelijen Balai Polis Puchong, Selangor Darul Ehsan merazia tempat kerja kami karena mensyaki perusahaan melakukan kecurangan dalam berusaha. Ketika itu yang mereka tangkap cuma orang Indonesia; empat laki-laki dan satu perempuan. Sedangkan semua warga Negara Malaysia – berkat ikhtiar seorang juru runding perusahaan yang pengaruhnya menggurita dalam pertubuhan kepolisian – dibebaskan tanpa pernah menjalani proses hukum. Sebetulnya banyak peluang terbuka bagi kami untuk mengadukannya kepada lembaga peradilan, tapi kami tidak berani memanfaatkannya karena terlalu beresiko. Karena termasuk kejahatan ekonomi, penyidikan kasus dilakukan oleh kantor Kementerian Perdagangan (& Perlindungan Pengguna?) Dalam Negeri.
Status tahanan membuat kami menjadi bulan-bulanan. Untuk sekedar melepas hasrat buang air seni pun, misalnya, tidak mereka perkenankan. Alasannya tidak ada petugas yang mengantar. Akibatnya, linu saluran kandung kemih di selangkangan harus kutanggung selama berjam-jam. Berikutnya, seorang petugas KPDN pamer rokok kepada kami berlagak seakan mau memberi tapi sesungguhnya itu hanyalah cara dia mempermainkan perasaan kami. Bagaikan bunga mengharap air ketika langit mendung hujan tak jadi; begitulah kira-kira keadaan ketiga rekanku.
Ketika melakukan penyidikan, aparat KPDN terkesan lebih tertarik pada upaya mencari pihak yang mau menjamin kami; ketimbang menggaruk siapa yang paling bertanggung jawab. Aku menerima kenyataan itu dengan hati yang mendua: senang jika ada yang mau menjadi penjamin tapi sedih karena diperlakukan kurang adil. Padahal arsip hard copy catatan manajemen yang turut mereka sita sudah cukup memberi petunjuk untuk mengungkap apa, siapa, dan dimana yang mereka cari.
Sementara itu, di Balai Polis Puchong, Selangor Darul Ehsan, ada kesan pembiaran kekerasan dan penistaan terhadap warga asing. Ada semacam hak istimewa melekat pada setiap tahanan warga Negara Malaysia. Tahanan penyamun menjarah isi loker pigeon holes yang tak berkunci tempat penyimpanan barang-barang milik tahanan. Hasilnya mereka tukar dengan tembakau dan barang-barang keperluan lain melalui tangan sipir. Suatu ketika sipir kurir ingkar janji; tidak menyerahkan pesanan tembakau senilai RM1300. Akibatnya terjadi keributan. Tahanan penyamun marah dan bertindak beringas. Seorang warga Bangladesh menjadi sasaran pelampiasan kemarahan tahanan penyamun. Ia mendapat pukulan telak sebanyak dua kali. Selain itu, tahanan penyamun juga mengancam akan menghajar warga Bangladesh atau Indonesia sampai berdarah-darah jika sampai batas tenggat yang mereka tetapkan tembakau tidak datang.
Lokap Mahkamah Seksyen Petaling Jaya juga merupakan lahan subur bagi penyamun dan oknum sipir mengeduk keuntungan. Dengan bantuan sipir Mahkamah PJ, tahanan menyelundupkan tembakau kedalam penjara dengan cara ditelan. Sipir juga tidak berfungsi optimal sehingga perampokan dan penistaan terhadap sesama tahanan terjadi. Dalam pada itu, di penjara Sungai Buloh, setiap tahanan yang baru naik mahkamah harus menjalani dua jenis pemeriksaan ketat; (1) pemeriksaan pakaian dan barang-barang bawaan lain serta (2) anus scanning – tinjauan saluran pelepasan limbah raga. Tujuannya adalah untuk menangkal masuknya anasir-anasir mudarat ke dalam penjara. Ritual itu melelahkan dan mubazir. Jika kedua cara tersebut ditujukan untuk mencegah masuknya benda laknat kedalam penjara, maka jelas itu gagal.
Adalah tekanan jiwa sebuah variabel generik yang menimpa hampir semua tahanan. Ada yang ringan dan ada pula yang berat. Yang cukup berat, misalnya, dialami oleh Raja; seorang remaja tahanan pelanggar UU keimigrasian warganegara Myanmar. Raja adalah sosok remaja yang tiada berpengharapan. Badannya kurus kering. Depresi berat, ia segan makan, tak hendak mandi, dan berpantang berak. Berbicara pun nyaris tak pernah. Konon hakim selalu menunda-nunda keputusan hukuman terhadapnya karena Raja tak pernah memberi respon ketika ditanya. Selain itu, ketiadaan lawyer yang dapat menyuarakan kepentingannya membuat kasus Raja berlarut.
Setelah kami menjalani masa tahanan tujuh hari di Balai Polis Puchong dan tigapuluh tiga hari di Penjara Sungai Buloh, barulah pihak manajemen perusahaan menjamin kami (6/6 ’07). Aku kemudian memutuskan untuk kabur; keputusan mana sangat mengejutkan dan mengecewakan orang-orang kantor. Namun mereka tak dapat berbuat banyak untuk mencegahku. Mereka lantas mengantarku ke Port Klang (11/6 ’07). Aku kabur naik kapal sayur dari Port Klang ke Tanjung Balai Asahan. Meski ada jaminan dari orang kapal, “Selama ayam masih doyan jagung, jangan kalian takut. … Mereka tahu setiap kali kita datang dan pulang, kita pasti bawa orang,” perjalanan dengan kapal dari Port Klang sungguh tidak nyaman. Para penumpang gelap dimasukkan berhimpitan dalam posisi duduk dalam ruang yang sangat sempit. Lebar ruangan sekira delapanpuluh senti, tinggi kurang dari satu meter, dan panjang kurang lebih enam meter. Ada juga penumpang yang diperam di dalam drum oli. Di wilayah Indonesia, kapal tidak mengantar penumpang sampai ke tepi. Di tengah laut tengah malam, penumpang dipindahkan ke dua buah perahu.
Dari lecah lari ke duri. Sekali lagi penumpang dikemas sardin; kini di dalam sel-sel badan perahu. Satu per satu penumpang dipasak kedalam rongga lambung perahu yang serba sempit. Tubuh terlentang membungkuk mengikuti busur lengkung badan perahu. Leher terlipat hingga dagu dan dada hampir-hampir bersinggungan. Jika mendongak ketika pertama kali masuk, tiada lagi kesempatan kepala untuk dapat tegak atau menunduk. Setelah penumpang masuk kedalam perut perahu, papan penutup dipasang. Kemudian sehelai terpal tebal dibentang menutupi seluruh permukaan bagian atas perahu. Tak ada ruang untuk bergerak; bahkan untuk sekedar merentang urat leher pun tidak ada peluang. Mereka tumpuk dan tutup manusia hidup begitu saja sebagaimana perlakuan terhadap benda mati tak bernyawa. Dan ketika perahu terkatung-katung di lepas pantai, tekong memungut biaya tambahan dari setiap penumpang untuk disetorkan kepada petugas patroli yang menyergap.