Age 'does not count' in picking military boss

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Sunday that age did not matter in the selection of the Indonesian Military (TNI) chief.

Susilo said that it was quite a normal practice for the President to extend a candidate's service beyond his or her retirement date "when the country was in need".

"According to the law, an officer's period of service can be extended by the President if the country needs the officer to lead the military. The President considers many aspects ... but age is not the deciding factor in the selection of the new TNI chief," Susilo said.

The Defense Law passed by the House of Representatives last November restricts the candidates for TNI chief to those with experience as a chief of staff.

Of the four candidates eligible for the TNI top job, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Endriartono Sutarto will reach mandatory retirement age this April. His predecessor Gen. Tyasno Sudarto and Air Force Chief of Staff Air Marshal Hanafie Asnan will only retire next year, while Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Indroko Sastrowiryono has had his service extended by a year.

Susilo also stressed that the agreement to rotate the highest TNI position between the three military forces would not be applied strictly.

"Rotation will be taken into consideration, but the quality and readiness of the respective military force is also important. The rotation does not necessarily mean that the Air Force must take over from the Navy. The post could go to the Army before the Air Force," he said.

Rotation of the top position in the military began under the administration of former president Abdurrahman Wahid in 1999, with the Navy being awarded the post through Adm. Widodo AS. If the system were to be consistently applied, it would now be the turn of the Air Force to get the top job.

In the past, the position was a quasi preserve of the Army.

Susilo said President Megawati Soekarnoputri was coming closer to submitting TNI chief candidates to the House of Representatives in the near future. The much-awaited change of guard in the military would follow the latest TNI reshuffle which affected 118 officers.

Rights activists saw the reshuffle, which was announced on Friday evening, as an obstacle for the inquiry established by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) into three incidents in 1998 and 1999 here that killed dozens of students and civilians.

Usman Hamid of the Commission on Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) told the Post on Sunday that the reshuffle would discourage the inquiry's attempts to bring in military officers allegedly involved in the incidents for questioning.

He was specifically referring to Maj. Gen, Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, who has been named the new TNI spokesman replacing Rear Air Marshal Graito Usodo.

"How could the inquiry continue its work when one of the officers being summoned for questioning now holds the strategic position as spokesman for the military?" asked Usman, a member of the Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights Violations (KPP HAM) for the Trisakti, Semanggi I and Semanggi II incidents.

But military observer Kusnanto Anggoro of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said that the appointment of Sjafrie as the TNI spokesman had nothing to do with the widely hailed internal reform in the TNI or its stance on human rights issues.

Kusnanto said that with or without Sjafrie's comeback to the public spotlight after almost four years of absence, the military's internal reform program had already come to a standstill.

"I guess the appointment of Sjafrie to the position is merely aimed at giving him lighter tasks rather than assigning him to intelligence work," Kusnanto told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

He said the public could not blame the military for its lack of accountability over past human rights violations as the House of Representatives itself had blocked the efforts to bring rights abuse perpetrators to justice.

The House said last year the three incidents were not classified as gross human rights violations.