A reflection on military violence

By Harkiman Racheman

MEDAN (JP): Despite some of the phenomenal changes that have taken place within the current administration, the Habibie-led Indonesia is currently witnessing numerous scenes and acts of violence occurring in different parts of the country. The most recent incidents of violence would include the Acehnese and the East Timorese rebellions against the Indonesian Armed Forces.

What these cases of violence indicate is that the biggest contribution of the Indonesian Military (TNI) has been toward using legalized violence against ordinary citizens. The violence has been shrewdly identified by a staunch critic of the New Order and Habibie administrations Lt. Gen (ret) Ali Sadikin as having had a "strong culture" in the Indonesian Military for a long time. (The Jakarta Post, Aug. 25.)

Due to the increasingly besmirched image of the military, no one would for instance, question why the East Timorese Nobel co- laureate Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo accused the military of having masterminded the present anti-proindependence East Timorese aggression in Dili.

To the Catholic newspaper Avvenire, Belo said that the horrific killings in East Timor were in fact a "very real attack planned around a table by the Indonesian Military" who control "the militias like pawns" (the Post, Sept. 8).

Most acts of military violence in the country assume different shapes and sizes. They may at times appear as a sheer implementation of routine military orders, but, at other times as legalized or organized human exploitation. However, when perceived at a much deeper level, those organized crimes are simply abhorrent incidents of violence as they all implicitly reflect the same modus operandi.

Basically, there is a kind of recurrent pattern or operational mode which heavily characterizes any expressions or eruptions of military violence. This pattern, therefore, needs to be disclosed so that the anatomy of the so-called "culture of violence" in the military can become essential public knowledge.

It needs to be stressed at the outset that incidents of mass violence in Indonesia are almost always conducted by officially recognized institutions and, hence, the people associated with them. These violence-initiating institutions often possess absolute control, limitless power, as well as unrestricted authority over the majority of people.

In other words, those who take the initiative to use violence in the country are likely to be an official organization, or its elements, and could easily avoid committing the acts in the first place.

In Indonesia, as it is widely acknowledged, the only official institution which has a limitless monopoly of power is the Indonesian Military. The fact that Gen. Wiranto was capable of "forcing" President B.J. Habibie to approve a proposal for declaring at midnight on Sept. 7 the military state of emergency in East Timor, despite the Cabinet plenary meeting's opposition to the move, speaks for itself.

"It is scary to think," said the Post in its editorial on Sept. 8, 1999, "that we are giving carte blanche to an institution with a long history of human rights abuses, not only in East Timor but elsewhere in Indonesia, including Aceh".

The general assumption has now been proven: that widespread violence is likely to continue in the same frequency and intensity if the military, just like now, are maintained as the unchallenged sole holder of excessive power over the civilian populace. Like it or not, as the well-known cliche goes, if anything, power only tends to corrupt.

But why should the military continue to tread the way of violence to achieve its goals? Hasn't it been obvious enough that violence only climaxes in sheer anarchy or total destruction for all? Wouldn't it be sensible to expect peaceful mutual compromises without having to recourse to any counterproductive force? Wouldn't it be sensible to find ways that are truly acceptable by any civilized society?

The answers to those oft-raised questions are surprisingly quite straightforward even though many may not have realized them. In the first place, military firmness has all this time been traditionally associated with the seemingly necessary use of force. In addition to that, the "effective" use of violence has so far overwhelmed military personnel so additively that their external communication has been largely through the language of violence and intimidation.

The misuse of violence by especially elements of the military in solving matters is still rampant. To the general public, it is evident that the violent nature of military personnel is so spontaneous that they would not bother to curtail their behavior. However, let us not forget that the price to pay for the harm it causes is tremendous. When violence is used as "a means" in itself, by largely neglecting the humanitarian aim underlying any action, the military only inflicts unbearable long-term suffering upon the already oppressed and terrified people.

Additionally, the so far "successful" use of violence -- a false teaching handed down from the Soeharto-style military leadership -- has given rise to a great deal of addicts of violence. These trained professionals, accordingly, often find themselves overusing force in carrying out their duties to maintain peace and order. And, the worst of it occurs when excessive force is used to deal with unarmed civilian protesters such as student demonstrators. The Trisakti and Semanggi tragedies are self-explanatory indeed.

Are the general public, then, to blame if they have conjured up in their empirical minds such an ugly image of the Indonesian Military? Is it not true that the military is in actual fact a highly organized armed organization that is likely to abuse power and force? Would they be blamed for assuming that the military was, is, and will always be, behind obviously engineered social upheavals?

What breaks our heart even more as a nation is the fact that this unfavorable image of the Indonesian Military has unfortunately developed all the more aggressively in the outside world. This can be seen in the case of the British Foreign Affairs minister's statement concerning the brutal killings in post-referendum East Timor to BBC radio.

"We are all appalled and alarmed," said Robin Cook, "at the murder of innocent civilians, by the brutality that's going on now in East Timor, and the evidence is that the Indonesian security forces are not intervening and indeed may themselves be helping the militias who are carrying out the brutality" (the Post, Sept. 8).

The problem is when those continuous practices of military violence cannot any longer be rationalized by their victims, it is feared that they will undergo severe accumulative frustration. If destructive forces are continuously used by military power- manipulators who show no interest in alternative and nonviolent measures, the human casualties they cause will be so thoroughly incapable of comprehending the physical ordeal imposed on them that they may eventually explode in socially self-destructive anarchy.

In a narrower context, if innocent members of society are mistreated by military forces over a long period of time, they will surely accumulate their sense of frustration and despair in order to release them collectively in the form of colossal social riots and calamities. And, if the ruling authorities fail to again grasp the substance of the matter, a tendency to social revolt and banditry are inevitable.

That is why the acts of violence by the pro-Jakarta East Timorese militias must be stopped now before it is too late. The civilian casualties cannot be expected to endure the inhuman killings for very much longer. It is just a matter of time before the pro-independence East Timorese will come out of their closets for an equally crazed retaliation. When this happens, even United Nations peacekeeping forces may not be able to do much to end an even more horrific bloody civil war.

But what can we do to solve the East Timorese tragedy? While a perfect answer may well be difficult at this time, it is clear that deconstructing and rebuilding the violence-laden mentality of the East Timorese warring factions can never happen overnight, and certainly not through military violence.

There is an axiomatic reality that violence cannot end by violence. The East Timorese violence can only be alleviated and gradually abolished by reciprocal tolerance and gentleness. Otherwise, the violence and hatred circle will continue to roll on endlessly, but, with increasing pain and suffering on the part of innocent children, women and other civilians.

Similarly, the civil society we are hoping to establish in a future Indonesia can never be realized through similar military force or intimidation. Very strong foundations such as democracy, fully protected human rights, supremacy of law, as well as social justice, are truly essential in order to make that ideal society happen. Therefore, it would make little sense to attempt a final settlement to the age-old East Timorese problem by way of reinventing or reengineering new means of violence.

Thus, please stop all the violence now, and cease the culture of violence structurally associated with the Indonesian Military. The general public should now unite to stage mass rallies for peaceful objections and protests against any forms of structural use of force and intimidation in Indonesia.

In the mean time, the winning reformist political parties should pioneer efforts for the entire population to take measures in order to realize a nonviolent Indonesia. It is high time that we as a nation showed the international community that, despite those incidents in Ambon, Aceh and East Timor and so forth, that the majority of our people abhor violence and are in fact peace- loving.

The rightful East Timorese leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao assured Indonesia that the winning East Timorese would not project enmity toward Indonesian people. After his recent release, Xanana said from the British Embassy in Jakarta where he was sheltering that despite his struggle against the oppressive Indonesian military system that had "antagonized" the people of East Timor, "at no point, have we fought against the people of Indonesia". (The Post, Sept. 8, 1999.)

In the mean time, we must take advantage of the momentum and use the remaining opportunities and momentum quickly and appropriately in order to show the international community our true colors. We must demonstrate that despite all the mistakes and shortcomings of the Armed Forces, the majority of the Indonesian people, many of whom are also victims of violence, completely reject all kinds of violence, military or civilian, in East Timor and elsewhere. Or, we will continue to be remembered as a nation of rapists, corruptors, invaders and aggressors.

The writer is a graduate from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. Based in Medan, he is currently a freelance writer and university lecturer.