Daeji P&I is a company based in South Korea,, which builds a range of vehicles including for domestic waste collection, tankers for transporting water, chemicals, or food, and a number of vehicles designed for use by police units, including water cannon and armoured personnel carriers. The company produces an average of 400 vehicles a year, and recorded income of over $22m in 2018, and employs around 50 people. The company has a supply contract with Hyundai Motors.

Water cannon

The company produces a wide assortment of water cannons, in different sizes and with capacities, from the DWC6500 (with a 6500 litre water tank) to the DWC15000 “mammoth”. The DWC15000 based on a modified Mercedes Benz 3344k truck, modified to carry a 5-person crew and a 150000 litre water tank. The company’s water cannons can also be armed with foam, dye sprays (used to mark protesters to make identification easier later) and water laced with tear gas. The companies promotional material claims the DWC15000 will make “the protester [feel] threatened and tremble with fear”.

The company claims to have sold over 2700 water cannons to 20 countries, including countries with concerning human rights records such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Myanmar and Algeria. In 2010 media reports in Korea reported that Daeji P&I delivered 70 water cannons to the Indonesian National Police Agency, after receiving the $16m contract in 2007. The company’s website lists a number of other deliveries of water cannons to Indonesia as recently as 2017, 2016 and 2013.

According to a website focused on the Indonesian security forces and Wikipedia, the water cannon is used by Indonesia’s “Mobile Brigade Corps” and the Sabhara Unit, both tasked with “anti-riot” duties.

Armoured personnel carriers

Daeji P&I also sell “Tambora” and “Promoter” armoured personnel carriers, which have been documented on social media as being used by the Indonesian police in their violent suppression of protests in West Papua. The Tambora can carry up to ten people and can be armed with a tear gas launcher or gun turret.