Berets and pens: Civil-military ties in SE Asia

Berets and pens: Civil-military ties in SE Asia

This is the second of two articles by Southeast Asian historian
Hermawan Sulistyo, Ph.D, the executive director of the Research
Institute for Democracy and Peace in Jakarta.

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian history has so far only emphasized
the political aspects of dwifungsi or dual function, while the
term also touches on societal issues such as ethnicity and
religion.

Ethnic relationships were one of the major problems facing the
new country. The "imagined community," as Ben Anderson dubbed it,
had more than 200 ethnic groups and 450 languages and dialects.
Nation building was far from easy for any administration,
including the military.

As the sole agent of a state with a monopoly on the legitimate
use of violence, the armed forces had to deal with ethnic related
problems. And with a membership made up of various ethnic and
religious backgrounds, the military itself was not free from
these ethnoreligious issues.

In March 1942 the Japanese defeated the Dutch in the East
Indies. The three-year Japanese occupation provided the first
opportunity for Indonesians to arm themselves. The establishment
of military auxiliary bodies continued to provide more
opportunities for youths from various backgrounds to "imagine"
that they shared some similarities to unite as a big family.

More than previously realized, the process of nation-making
was sped up by such military training, a process that encompassed
ethnoreligious divisions. The result was armed Indonesians
prepared to seize freedom in the power vacuum at the end of World
War II.

The Japanese occupation therefore served not only as an
interregnum between the Dutch colonial state and modern Indonesia
but also as a bridge to imagining a society of multiculturalism.

After independence was proclaimed on Aug. 17, 1945, Indonesia
entered two stages of armed struggle, in 1947 and 1949, to
maintain independence.

During these two independence wars the new armed forces
comprised of various elements. The first were those who had
trained together as cadets in the Dutch colonial army (KNIL).

The second were those who had trained in various armed
institutions during the Japanese occupation in the Defenders of
the Fatherland (Peta), and also auxiliary armed forces that were
actually civilian vigilante groups such as Heiho.

The third were those who joined the armed struggle with no
military training at all. They were ordinary people who called
themselves lasykar rakyat or people's militias.

All these groups played an important role in the independence
wars, especially in the guerrilla battles when founding fathers
Soekarno and Mohammad Hatta, who led the civilian government,
surrendered to the returning Dutch colonial powers.

After the Dutch transferred sovereignty to Indonesia in 1949,
the newborn state did not have enough money to pay its armed
forces. Adding to the situation was the irregular structure of
the Indonesian Military (TNI).

Many officers decided to assign their own ranks. Units of
combat troops fighting in the guerrilla wars were almost
independent of each other. A leader of a small group would assign
the rank of, say, lieutenant, for himself.

He then would assign to his men the ranks of sergeant,
corporal, private and so on. Rationalization of TNI's
organization was then considered a must. The government's
rationalization scheme resulted in mass layoffs, and
disappointment toward the central government.

In the regions, mounting centralization of power caused
resentment, finally erupting in at least four large separatist
movements: PRRI (the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of
Indonesia) in Sumatra, Permesta (Charter of Inclusive Struggle)
in North Sulawesi, DI/TII (Darul Islam/Indonesian Islamic Army
led by Kahar Muzakkar in South Sulawesi, and DI/TII led by
Kartosuwiryo in West Java.

To gain popular support, the separatist leaders manipulated
traditional and primordial affiliations. PRRI/Permesta used
regional interests and ethnicity as their issues, while DI/TII
used religious (Islamic) issues.

Learning from the past, during the era of Guided Democracy
(1959-1965) under President Soekarno TNI continued trying to
eliminate the potential of ethnoreligious conflict. But the new
political format also opened up new a prismatic structure of
conflicts. National pillars of power centered on the military,
the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and President Soekarno
himself.

The abortive coup in October 1965 was the peak of factionalism
within the armed forces. Traditional dividing lines of
ethnoreligionism were added to by competing components in
volatile political parties. The post-immediate period of the coup
was one of the bloodiest in the history of violence; about
300,000 people were killed within only 10 months.

Soeharto came to power with strong support from the armed
forces. Among the policies adopted in his first years was a shift
from nation-building to economic development. Its requisite was
stability; and with traditional ties such as ethnicity and
religion as the social foundations of relationships, political
stability could not be achieved.

Diversity, particularly in ethnoreligious fields, was denied
as a potentially positive element in nation-building. Diversity
was suppressed and treated more as a divisive factor in social
and national integration.

Thus, values and norms were imposed through coercive
instruments rather than consensus. In the armed forces, there
were unwritten norms to prevent ethnoreligious sentiments among
officers.

At the lower levels of the military hierarchy, tours-of-duty
programs effectively eliminated or at least reduced the potential
of ethnoreligious sentiments becoming a divisive factor inside
the TNI.

Continuing the tradition in the military academy, young
officers were almost constantly moving station from one area to
another. Partly due to financial constraints in moving a large
number of personnel, the lower the rank, the less the chance of
being moved to another area.

In Aceh and Irian Jaya, the armed forces took a different
approach from its policies in other ethnoreligious conflicts.

The military believed that the Free Aceh Movement and the Free
Papua Movement were purely separatist and therefore treated them
as traitors against a legitimate central government.

The two causes have seen less international attention than
East Timor because of the absence of territorial sovereignty.
East Timor, however, has been internationally designated as a
"nongoverning territory".

Realizing that ethnoreligious issues in its internal structure
could had a divisive impact, TNI has been trying, with some
success, to eliminate them.

But it was also a potential supporting factor that was
believed by armed forces' leadership to help restore social
order.

A striking example is the policies that TNI adopted as a
reaction to student demonstrations. The demonstrations started in
the first quarter of 1998 and were only halted temporarily in the
immediate-post Soeharto era.

By November 1998, when the People's Consultative Assembly
(MPR) held its general session, student demonstrations were
mounting again. Unable to control the rallies without being
blamed as human rights violaters, TNI adopted policies to shift
the nature of "confrontation" from the vertical to the
horizontal.

Throughout its history, the TNI has adopted a civil mission
paradigm toward the outside world. And since it has the monopoly
over legitimate coercion, it believes that solving problems means
legitimately applying coercive measures.

Unfortunately, in many cases, TNI cannot control the excessive
use of this monopoly. For more than three decades, the rights
over the use of coercion have been transformed.

Initially designed as an effective tool to protect national
integration, it was in later years abused to serve the interests
of the power holder.

Now, unprepared for the dramatic and rapid changes the country
is going through, the military moves hesitantly.

It has to redefine its political doctrine, particularly in its
perceptions and practices of civilian-military relationships;
otherwise the nation will be in dangerous situation.

Unfortunately, what the military sees as too-rapid internal
reform is seen by most prodemocracy civilian activists as being
too slow.