ABRI and the people

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.