ABRI and the people

Since former president Soeharto was forced to step down in May, the Armed Forces (ABRI) has been forced to stand back and watch while demands for total reform rise to a fever pitch.

The demands of the reform movement, articulated so vociferously by university students, is nothing but normal in a nation that has only recently managed to free itself from the yoke of an iron rule lasting for more than three decades. The recent escalation in demonstrations calling for reform stems from a growing feeling among students that the new administration, which consists largely of former Soeharto errand boys, is reluctant to respond to their demands.

It would appear that the students' garishly colored university jackets may have blinded some of the military's top brass, while their clamorous chants, which have become somewhat excessive, may have rendered the generals deaf.

ABRI Commander Gen. Wiranto has repeatedly vowed to take stern action against the pro-reform movement, but he went too far when he sent a volunteer Moslem militia onto the streets to police student demonstrators during the Special Session of the People's Consultative Assembly. Political observers lamented the move and said that it set a bad example to a general public desperately in need of a political education. Islamic scholars have repeatedly deplored the move and branded it as an attempt to pit Moslem against Moslem.

Wiranto's recent statement to the House of Representatives Commission I on defense and security clearly demonstrates the deficiencies in the Armed Forces' attitude toward the student movement and its unwillingness to heed the people's demand for reform.

The general appeared irritated by demands for the results of an investigation into the fatal clashes of Nov. 13 to be made public. The same dismissive attitude has greeted those who have called for new inquiries into a 1984 riot in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, and many unsatisfactorily resolved incidents in Aceh in recent years in which hundreds of innocent people are thought to have lost their lives.

Wiranto said these proposals were designed as an attack on the Armed Forces and denied the public their constitutional right to know the truth. The victims' families must be allowed to find out what became of their loved ones and the authorities' reluctance to observe this most basic courtesy cannot be commended.

ABRI has always claimed it belongs to the people, but the current military leadership's reaction to political aspirations voiced by the general public shows that a wall divides the two. The military has lost touch with its roots and tradition and has forgotten that it was as an army of the people that it became the proud and respected institution that it once was.

We fully understand that explaining the myriad tragedies of recent months presents Gen. Wiranto with a Herculean task. Furthermore, his inability to keep at bay the mysterious troops armed with fatal bullets that allegedly fired into the crowds at Trisakti University in May and at the Semanggi intersection earlier this month has left him facing mounting calls to resign. But this unprecedented pressure should not make the Armed Forces the nemesis of reform and the enemy of the people.

The public still views the Armed Forces with patience and understands that its present guise is inseparable from the old system and mentality, under which Soeharto enslaved the military and used it to meet his own personal ends.

However, there are striking similarities between contemporary Indonesia and Iran under the Shah Reza Pahlevi, where the military showed loyalty only to the ruler and ignored the national constitution and the people.

Even in Iran, with what was said to be the strongest army in Asia, it took only 36 hours for the country to fall to its knees before a wave of angry revolutionaries.

The difference between Indonesia and Iran is that the people here actually want to see the Armed Forces remain solid and take their side in the crisis, although there is a consensus that its dual function must be reduced. So the military leadership should not regard the reform movement as an enemy intent on confrontation, but should instead reflect on where the Armed Forces came from and where it would be without the people's support.