Tragedy in Indonesia: A deadly stampede that lays bare the endemic ultra-violence and police brutality

• Tragedy in Indonesia Criticism erupts against police for firing tear gas at stadium

James Montague

is a British writer who spent 10 years delving into the depths of the football world's ultra factions.

To give shape to his book "

", published in 2020, he traveled to 25 countries, making a direct immersion among the most radical fans, from Buenos Aires to the Balkans, passing through Indonesia, where he was persecuted by a group of supporters of the biggest team in Jakarta, who were armed with machetes.

Montague, familiar firsthand with the violence in Indonesian soccer, was not surprised by last Saturday's tragedy at an East Java stadium that left 125 dead and more than 300 injured.

"It was a disaster that was expected to happen," says the Briton.

"To the culture of violence within certain sections of ultras in a country where it is common to see coaches being attacked by fans after bad results, we must add the poor facilities and the lack of coordination between the security forces.

."

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Search for those guilty of the tragedy in Indonesia: "The mixed zone became a humanitarian corridor"

• Writing: LUCAS DE LA CAL (Correspondent in Asia)

Search for those guilty of the tragedy in Indonesia: "The mixed zone became a humanitarian corridor"

Before the assault on the Kanjuruhan stadium pitch, before the bloodbath when the police started firing tear gas and the fans stampeded, the game between Arema FC and Persebaya Surabaya had ended with a narrow victory for the visitors by 2-3.

.

Abdul Bassith Tamami, a researcher at Surabaya State University, already wrote an article last year about the "fierce, brutal and cruel" enmity between the

and the

, as the supporters of both teams are known, one from the city from Malang and the other from Surabaya, a two-hour drive away.

An encounter that other times had already left altercations with several wounded.

The authorities knew this and therefore did not allow the Surabaya fans to enter the stadium.

Furthermore, anticipating an overreaction from

if their team lost, the Malang police sent a letter on September 18 to the club and the Indonesian league regulator recommending that the match be played in the afternoon at 3:30 p.m. and not at night as planned.

In the letter, now revealed by the local media,

.

And the police request was ignored because the game was played at 8:00 p.m.

Thousands of flowers to honor the victims of the stampede.JUNI KRISWANTOAFP

The letter was signed by Ferli Hidayat, Malang's police chief, who was dismissed on Monday afternoon as the first to be singled out for the excessive response of the officers who

, who barricaded themselves in the changing rooms.

National anger against policing continues to mount with nightly vigils across the country calling officers "assassins."

.

As the identities of the victims are revealed, the last part of the Kanjuruhan tragedy says that among the 125 dead there were minors who died of crushing or suffocation.

The youngest was three years old.

The president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, has ordered

.

dismissal of police chief

The authorities have announced that,

at fans who invaded the field of play when the game ended.

They are suspected of, in the words of Dedi Prasetyo of the Indonesian National Police Headquarters, "violating the code of ethics".

This is not the first time that police in Indonesia have used these gases to disperse protests in a packed stadium, despite being

.

There are several precedents, such as a deadly one in 2012, when a fan died after fainting from tear gas.

An event criticized then because it was not investigated.

Also shelved

, when police again responded with tear gas to a brawl in the stands.

Before the tragedy with the 125 victims on Saturday, in the Southeast Asian country the deaths related to soccer were close to a hundred since 2005.

In Indonesia it is common for teams, when they play away from home, to arrive at the stadiums in armored vehicles.

The ultras

, who have been equipped with riot gear for years and are famous for using brute force to suppress crowds, regardless of the circumstances. consequences because then he is not accountable to anyone.

"There has hardly ever been a trial for excessive use of police force except in 2019, when two students were killed on the island of Sulawesi during protests," said Wirya Adiwena, Amnesty International's deputy country director. which claims to have documented more than

.

"We did a preventive action before finally firing the tear gas when the fans began to attack the police, acting lawlessly and burning vehicles," East Java Police Chief Nico Afinta has defended these days.

, which in addition all but two were blocked, where the fight to get out of the stadium became an act of survival.

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