Ambalat & TNI law

From Media Indonesia

The Indonesian Navy has played a very important role in transporting illegal migrant workers from Malaysia and volunteers to tsunami-stricken Aceh. And lately it is flexing some muscle in the Ambalat border dispute.

The question posed by most people is, will there be open war with Malaysia and, is the use of the erstwhile political motto "crush Malaysia" appropriate today?

In my view, this case is not easy to solve through the politics of confrontation. Instead, it should be handled by the legal system of state defense through the Indonesian Military (TNI) Law.

This law no longer recognizes the method of the Old Order period, which required prompt deployment of troops in a gesture of invasion.

Confrontation will spoil the nation's confidence-building measures and preventive diplomacy called for in the White Paper on Defense.

By the TNI Law, diplomacy is given prominence to discuss the defense strategies of disputing countries. In this way, confrontational encounters are only meant as a last resort to overcome the threat of invasion.

ANOM SURYA PUTRA Expert Team House of Representatives Jakarta