Ambalat & TNI law

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