Companies urged to stop paying soldiers

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono has told local and international companies not to make direct payments to the military officers guarding their operations as the practice is illegal.

He said a Ministry of Defense policy issued in 2000 stipulated that voluntary direct payments for security arrangements should be disbursed to related government agencies, such as the upstream oil and gas regulatory agency BP Migas in the case of contributions made by oil and gas firms.

"When I was first appointed as minister of defense in 2000, I issued the policy, which does not allow local and international companies to make direct payments to security personnel who are assigned to guard the companies' compounds.

"If such practices are continuing, I suppose we must design a clear policy to stop it, and if there is evidence in the form of documentation, I guess the military's inspectorate general can start examining the violation," Juwono told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Juwono's remarks came following reports -- which first appeared in The New York Times on Wednesday -- that according to authentic documents, military and police personnel in Papua had received direct payments worth US$20 million from U.S. gold miner Freeport-McMoRan between 1998 and 2004 to provide security at the latter's mine in the conflict-prone province.

The reports were confirmed by Maj. Gen. Mahidin Simbolon, a former commander of Trikora Military Command overseeing Papua province, who told the Post that the money from Freeport was used to cover military expenses, including meals, transportation, clothing and medication.

He also confirmed that on-duty soldiers received daily allowances, the total amount of which was set by Freeport.

With the Freeport payments, the military benefits from extra income as the government also covers soldiers' needs and basic expenses.

Mahidin, the Army's inspectorate general, is one of the senior TNI and police officers named in the Times investigative report as having received many thousands of dollars.

He, however, dismissed the accusation, saying that Freeport directly provided the funds to officers in the field.

The practice has raised criticism from the National Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), which has called on the government to establish an independent team to examine the cash flow of Freeport's security funds.

"The state has to design a mechanism to supervise the disbursement of funds in a bid to evaluate the social responsibilities of the private companies, as well as to examine whether civilian authorities, the military and police officials have misused the funds," Kontras coordinator Usman Hamid said.

"It is the responsibility of the state to provide security with its territory," he added.

Usman further said the close relationship between businesses and security officers had in some cases led to "criminal activities."

"The clearest case is seen in the murder of businessman Boedyharto Angsono, president of a company called PT Arena Sarana Bakti, in 2003," Usman said, citing the murder case in which Navy soldiers were found culpable.

Human rights activists have accused security officers in conflict-prone areas such as Papua and Aceh of intentionally maintaining instability to secure funding from businesses.

"Even a top-ranking intelligence officer like (Maj. Gen.) Muchdi (Purwoprandjono) has admitted that the bills for his official cell phone were voluntarily paid by PT Timber Pacific," Usman said.