Power-hungry military overshadows
Indonesia By Richel Langit
JAKARTA - Indonesia's fledging democracy has
come under threat as the country's power-hungry military
is seeking to regain its old powers lost to reform
movements since 1998.
In the Indonesian military
bill submitted to the House of Representatives (DPR) for
deliberations recently, the military (known as the TNI)
seeks to revive its territorial command, reintroduce its
dual functions and limit the president's authority over
the institution to approving troop deployment for war
and civic services only.
The DPR is planning to
start deliberating on the bill early next week and has
promised to endorse it on September 30, just one day
before the new members of the DPR elected in the April 5
legislative elections are to take their oaths of office.
This means the DPR will have only 45 days to deliberate
on the bill, which, if passed, will seriously undermine
civilian supremacy and jeopardize the country's young
and fragile democracy.
That the DPR insists on
deliberating on and endorsing the bill now suggests that
the military is out to fight for what it wants. The
military and police will leave the DPR by the end of
September and the DPR has agreed to endorse the bill
around that time. The military clearly wants to
participate in the deliberation and ensure that its
demands - territorial function and dual role, among
others - are accommodated in the bill.
President
Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI-P) has thrown its backing behind the bill,
despite all of its flaws. Fears are rising that PDI-P,
which badly needs the military's support to win the
September 20 runoff election, will support the bill all
the way to its endorsement in order to win the
military's backing in the election. PDI-P is the biggest
faction in the DPR; it and the military together hold
191 seats in the 500-member DPR. But with anti-military
feelings subsiding, the people at large will likely pay
little attention to the deliberations of the bill.
After the downfall of authoritarian leader
Suharto in May 1998, the powerful military embarked on a
series of internal reforms largely aimed at forming a
strong, professional military force deemed necessary to
guard the world's largest archipelagic country. This
return-to-barracks policy requires the military to
abstain from practical politics and forces the
institution to abandon its territorial command - which
in practice means deploying troops down to the regency
level - and dual functions, defense and socio-political
roles.
In 2002 the People's Consultative Assembly
(MPR), the country's highest legislative body, decided
to end the presence of military and police personnel in
both the DPR and the MPR by 2004 and 2009, respectively.
Therefore, as current DPR members end their tenure on
September 30, the military and police will also
officially quit the DPR on that day.
The
military, which undoubtedly remains the country's
strongest political entity, earned praise and respect in
the April 5 legislative elections and the July 5
presidential elections as its personnel stayed largely
neutral throughout the democratic process, despite the
fact that three retired army generals contested in the
presidential poll.
But the military's attempts
to revive territorial command and to reintroduce its
dual functions have put into serious question its
commitment to reforms as well as the democratization
process in the world's largest Muslim country.
The military's proposal to regain its old powers
also reveals its ignorance, because it goes against MPR
decree No 6/2001, which limits the military's role to
safeguarding the country from external attacks, while
leaving the police in charge of national-security
issues.
It has become public knowledge that
Suharto introduced the military's territorial function
in the late 1960s as part of his efforts to control the
political life of the people down to the village level.
During his 32 years of leadership, military personnel
spied over movements and activities of the public at
large, especially those critical to government policies,
in the name of political stability and economic growth.
Many government critics were arrested and put behind
bars on charges of inciting the people to rise up
against the Suharto government.
The bill, which
was drafted by the Ministry of Defense, also
reintroduces the military's dual functions, which
justified the military's involvement in practical
politics during Suharto's reign. Under the doctrine,
Suharto, a retired army general, mobilized military
personnel to cow people into supporting his political
bandwagon Golkar for more than three decades. In return,
Suharto provided seats in both the MPR and the DPR for
both the military and the police. Currently, the
military and police have 38 seats in both the MPR and
the DPR, despite the fact they do not participate in
elections.
The dual functions also allowed
active military personnel to take up civilian posts in
the bureaucracy and other high state institutions. Very
often active military officers were appointed governors
and regents or secretaries general and other
high-ranking offices in government departments or other
high state institutions.
The dual functions,
however, came to an abrupt end after the downfall of
Suharto in May 1998, thanks to strong public demand for
the military to concentrate on defense issues and leave
politics to civilians. Active officers holding civilian
positions were told to return or resign from the
military service. Surprisingly, most of them opted to
leave the service.
In addition to its requests
for the return of old powers, the TNI bill also aims to
limit the authority of the president over the military
to approving troop deployment for war, leaving
deployment for other purposes, including quelling social
unrest and secessionist movements, under the authority
of the military chief. Under its original version
released last year, the military was even authorized to
declare a state of emergency in certain areas and deploy
troops there without necessarily asking for approval
from the president. This clearly contradicts prevailing
laws that position the president as the supreme
commander of the country's military force.
During a presidential debate held before the
July 5 elections, front-runners Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
and Megawati Sukarnoputri gave no clear answers to
questions related to the military's future political
roles. Given the fact that Yudhoyono is a retired army
general and Megawati has turned a blind eye to the
draft, the two are likely to offer political concessions
to the military, especially if the compromises will help
them win the September 20 runoff elections.
With
the DPR already setting the endorsement date on
September 30, pro-democracy activists are worried that
horse-trading will mark the bill's deliberations. The
legislators insist on completing the TNI bill before the
current DPR tenure expires, to give legislators from the
military an opportunity to participate in the
deliberation.
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