Dr. Sundhaussen has an affection for ABRI
By Dewi Anggraeni
MELBOURNE, Australia (JP): Dr. Ulf Sundhaussen, the author of The Road to Power: Indonesian Military Politics 1945-1967, is genial and oozes compassion. Not only does he have an intimate knowledge of the Indonesian Armed Forces, he also has an obvious affection for the institution.
Currently Associate Professor in Comparative Government at the University of Queensland in Australia, Dr. Sundhaussen stumbled into studying the Indonesian military by accident.
Born in Frankfurt and brought up in Berlin, Germany, he went to the only university in what was then West Berlin, The Free University.
"It was an improvised university, because the only Berlin university was in East Berlin. By 1948, students and professors from the university walked out and set up The Free University in West Berlin," he explained.
Young Sundhaussen had been forced out of school by poverty brought about by the war, and was a bricklayer and coal miner for eight years before resuming his studies.
He majored in International Relations and Comparative Government.
His first contact with Indonesia was when his comparative government professor spoke about different styles of government and mentioned Indonesia. Sundhaussen found the method of musyawarah (deliberation) very interesting.
"Before then I had no knowledge of Indonesia, apart from where it was geographically."
He then began to seek out articles about Indonesia in newspapers. It was towards the end of the Guided Democracy in the early 1960s that he became increasingly captivated, despite the lack of encouragement from fellow students and professors. Academic attention to Southeast Asia then stretched only as far as what is now Myanmar.
After his First-class Honors thesis on Konfrontasi, he decided to do his Ph.D on Indonesia also. Unable to obtain any supervision in Germany, he went to Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, in 1965.
While he intended to look into parliamentary systems, everyone suggested that he study the Indonesian army. Sundhaussen thought that every second American scholar would have been working on the army, but discovered it was regarded as too hot a topic and decided to have a try. He sent in his visa applications to the immigration, and waited. No answer was forthcoming.
Sundhaussen laughed at the suggestion that back then visa applications took a long time to process.
"If you were an immigration officer, would you be brave enough to give a research visa to someone who wanted to study the role of the army in politics?" he asked.
He was about to give up when the late General Suwarto (check name), then Commandant of Seskoad (Army Staff and Command College in Bandung), visited Melbourne. The two men met, and the general asked Sundhaussen about his current project. Sundhaussen told the general his plans.
Luckily the two men became friends and a short time later Sundhaussen arrived in Bandung for a two-year stay. He traveled to other cities in Indonesia, meeting and talking to those in the military. They provided him with unusual insight into the military psyche.
"It was a very good learning experience," commented Sundhaussen.
Apart from The Road to Power, Sundhaussen has also written monographs, numerous articles, and collaborated with another writer on the biography of General Nasution. He has published numerous academic papers on systems of governments in other countries. He avoids confining himself to one country and tries to view each country in the global context.
"I feel that my interest in other countries has taught me more about Indonesia," he said.
Currently he is writing a book on the collapse of military regimes.
Q: In your opinion, when did ABRI gain power in Indonesia?
A: In Indonesia, the military moved gradually into a position of power. In many countries you have a military coup, crushing through the gate of the presidential palace, so to speak. In 1950, the military in Indonesia made a decision they were not going to do just that, because it would have started a string of violence brought about by a coup, a counter coup, a counter counter coup and so on.
Simatupang and others wanted to develop a professional army, support parliamentary democracy and stay away from politics. However, the politicians began to harass them, so by 1955, they fought back. They demanded that the politicians behave professionally as well.
In 1957, after several attempts at forming coalitions, the politicians fell out without forming another.
Q: That was the end of parliamentary democracy.
A: Yes. The army did not want to do much at all. But Sukarno was saying then that parliamentary democracy did not work at all, so they had to do something. So he selected another cabinet under Djuanda, who was not connected to any party, and the army would provide the backbone. Martial law was introduced where Sukarno made decisions in the center and the army implemented them. No toppling of government. There was a vacuum, and they stepped in to help out. By 1959, the 1945 Constitution was reintroduced. It was Nasution who proposed it at the end of 1957. Sukarno should have liked to come up with something himself, but neither he nor his friends from Murba came up with anything.
Q: So the 1945 Constitution was reintroduced by default?
A: Yes, because they couldn't think of anything else.
The army was then filling a vacuum, and afterwards became a junior partner in the Guided Democracy set up. There was the president, then the army, then the PKI. The other parties did not do much at all.
Q: By your definition, the army also filled a vacuum in 1965.
A: Yes. Here was a president who had ruined the country, not listening to the people, wanting to go on with konfrontasi, a war he could not win, using up all the resources. He also refused to accept the policies of the MPRS. So he had to go. There was no coup. Probably a creeping coup, if anything.
Q: There was, nonetheless, a bloodbath.
A: Yes, but the bloodbath had nothing to do with the power change. The bloodbath occurred because the PKI was seen to have masterminded the alleged coup of 1st October. So Soeharto and Nasution wanted to bring the culpable ones to justice. Then Sukarno said, "The deaths of the generals were just ripples in the sea of revolution. We will not have any trials." So the army and many other people as well, took the law into their own hands. Hence the bloodbath, as the situation got out of hand. A great number of innocent people were killed at that time.
Q: So during Sukarno's rule, the military role was not as prominent as it became under Soeharto?
A: No, it was not. The relationship between Sukarno and the army was not an easy one, when the army was created back in 1945.
Q: What happens now under Soeharto?
A: Soeharto has done what many military leaders who became heads of governments did. He wanted the military to obey him yet have no way to interfere in politics. Officers were given positions in the public and diplomatic services, yet they were not allowed input in the process of decision making.
Q: Is that what is meant by professionalizing the military?
A: Yes. They were trained to be obedient to the hierarchy and their seniors.
Nevertheless there is inconsistency. He tells the military to be a professional military, yet he gives the officers jobs that are not military in character.
When you were trained to give orders and obey orders, yet had to socialize in an environment where negotiations and gentle persuasions are practiced, wouldn't you find yourself in a difficult situation?
Q: What is lost in the process of professionalizing the army?
A: During Nasution era, he emphasized that those in the rebellions such as DI-TII, Permesta and others were fellow citizens. They were not to be eliminated, but won back. In the professionalized military, that has been unlearned.
Q: The dwifungsi has been an uncomfortable dual function then?
A: Yes. There is an inner contradiction that is very difficult to overcome. The architect of the New Order or Pancasila Democracy can hold the system together because he himself is an enormously prestigious man. But when he goes, this system is unlikely to survive in its present form.
Q: What will happen then?
A: I can't say exactly, not being a prophet, but I can speculate a little. We have to accept that the military is not fully in control. A coup is impossible unless the incumbent government has already lost legitimacy. A government who seems to be doing its job will have the support of the people. In order to make a coup you need the cooperation of civilians.
On the other hand, the military is not the master of its decision when it comes to the question of what to do next. Should we pack up and return to the barracks, stay on and coopt people into our ranks, what should we do? It's not only up to the military men.
Q: We don't have any civilians ready to take over government?
A: Exactly. What we need is a civilian counter elite ready and willing to take over. People who have ideas and policies, and who are acceptable to the military.
Q: The criterion of acceptability to the military is crucial?
A: Certainly. We have seen in many parts of the world, where the military elite is ready to go, and the civilian counter elite is ready to take over. But then the military elite finds out that as soon as the civilian elite takes over, military officers will be arrested and charged with human rights violations and so forth. Naturally they refuse to hand over. These people have a sense of survival.
The way I see it, even if the military in Indonesia is ready to return to the barracks and they want to strike a deal with a civilian elite, who is there to negotiate with them?
Q: Haven't the military elements in Golkar been eroding?
A: Yes they have, but to what extent? Twenty-five years ago there were all sorts of people saying they were going to take over Golkar. It hasn't happened.
Q: Who is a likely candidate?
A: I would say neither Golkar nor PPP are capable of devising a stable government. The one interesting phenomenon is the seemingly good relationship between PDI and NU. If that holds, that could be the nucleus of a civilian counter elite to form a government. There are all sorts of organizations, forums and so on, who are doing good things. But they are essentially a group of intellectuals with very little mass support. We have seen what happened to PSI.
While many groups are doing good and valuable things, they are still not beyond personal animosity. If you want to work towards a democratic government as a common goal, you must put that behind you and work towards that common goal.
Note:
Murba: A socialist party founded in Yogyakarta on Nov. 7, 1948. In January 1965, it was disbanded, but the New Order government rehabilitated the party in October 1966.
PKI: Partai Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party). It was banned following the abortive coup on Sept. 30, 1965.
Konfrontasi: confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia in 1963 as Indonesia accused Malaysia of being a British neo- colonialism project.
MPRS: The Provisional People's Consultative Assembly, established by President Sukarno in 1959. In 1971 the first general elections under the New Order Government took place to elect members of the House of Representatives (DPR) and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).
DI-TII: Darul Islam-Tentara Islam Indonesia or Islamic Troops. This hard-line group was formed in 1948 and had continuously tried to topple the government until it was totally wiped out in 1965.
PRRI/Permesta: Pemerintahan Revolusioner Republik Indonesia (the Indonesian Revolutionary Government of Republic Indonesia), proclaimed on Feb. 15, 1958 by Achmad Husein, who was not satisfied with the existing government. The rebels were outstripped in the same year but it was not until 1961 that the group was totally eliminated.
Dwi fungsi: or Dual Function, a concept on the dual role of the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) which allows its members to hold seats in the government and take part in administering the country.
Golkar: Golongan Karya, literally meaning the workers' group. It is the ruling faction.
PPP: Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (United Development Party), one of the three political groups in the country.
PDI: Partai Demokrasi Indonesia (Indonesian Democratic Party), the smallest political group in the country.
NU: Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Moslem organization with about 30 million members.
PSI: Partai Sosialis Indonesia (Indonesian Socialist Party), a political party founded in 1948 by Sutan Sjahrir, the first prime minister. It was disbanded in 1960.