Bakin chief: Power needs control to prevent cruelty

JAKARTA (JP): The power of the government and military needs to be controlled through a check and balance mechanism so as to avoid a repetition of past atrocities, chief of the State Intelligence Coordinating Board (Bakin) Lt. Gen. (ret.) Z.A. Maulani said on Monday in Aceh.

Speaking to community and religious leaders and students in the troubled province, Maulani urged people to have patience, saying they were not the only ones to have suffered over the last 30 years.

"We have all become victims of circumstances, not only the Acehnese," he said in the province's capital of Banda Aceh, as quoted by Antara on Monday.

He added that there had been victims in both the military, including high ranking officers, and in the civilian community.

For a long time, Maulani, considered an intellectual among the military, said he had been "blacklisted" by the government of former president Soeharto for his outspokenness against the military's political role.

Regarding atrocities in Aceh during the military operations from 1989 to 1998, Maulani said that as a military officer he had also condemned the "unthinkable" conduct of soldiers.

"I cried because there were soldiers who actually had the heart to do such things that I could never think of as a military officer," he said. Reported rights abuses have included abduction, torture and rape.

"What's wrong with this nation that its people had to be treated as badly as that?" asked the former military commander based in Kalimantan.

Maulani said there was an urgent need to create a mechanism to control the performance of the Armed Forces (ABRI), justice ministry, prosecutor's office and the police.

Regarding ABRI, what needs to be changed is not only its institutional organization but also its education system, doctrines, training regime and salaries, according to Maulani.

He gave the example of the planned abolishment of the post of territorial affairs assistance, as is currently headed by Lt. Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Next year there will only be a chief of staff of war, as there has been a plan to change ABRI to APRI, an acronym for war forces, Maulani revealed. By then internal security affairs would be police affairs, while the military would only protect the nation from external threats, he said.

The bottom line of the proposed changes, according to Maulani, was meant to limit the power given to high ranking officers. "The greater the power, the greater the effects of corruption," he said.

"If we have no check and balance mechanism on power, we are on the brink annihilation," Maulani said.

In the dialog, Governor Syamsuddin Mahmud mentioned some of the effects of the above military operations in Aceh: 874 civilian deaths, 1,148 widows, thousands of orphans, 677 people tortured, 792 missing and 292 who have been severely disabled by injuries.

From late last year through early this year, violence involving civilians and the military has left seven soldiers dead and over a dozen civilians killed. (aan)