Experts warn of dangers in TNI bill

Experts warn of dangers in TNI bill

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Experts have warned of more loopholes in the controversial
military bill and urged the public at large to be vigilant
against the return of the military to the country's political
life.

Rizal Sukma of the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS) said on Wednesday that Article 7 of the military
bill allowed the military's return to politics.

Article 7 of the bill, which Minister of Defense Matori Abdul
Djalil has promised to revise, suggests that the Army carry out
its duties based on its doctrine and operational strategy.

This article, according to Rizal, could be interpreted by the
Army alone based on its own interests and conditions.

Some military observers said earlier that the Army has
recently drafted a new doctrine reinstating their dominant
territorial role slowly scrapped following the downfall of former
dictator president Soeharto in 1998.

Rights campaigner Munir, meanwhile, warned the public at large
that the Army's latest doctrine was strongly related to election
law No. 12/2003 which stipulates that legislative candidates
should not have been involved or implicated in the abortive coup
d'etat on Sept. 30, 1965 blamed on the Indonesian Communist
Party.

"Still to this day, the military is the only state institution
that has a complete record of all the people believed to be
involved in the 1965 abortive coup. This means any legislative
candidate would have to undergo a screening by the military to
ensure whether or not he or his relatives were directly or
indirectly involved," said Munir, co-founder of the National
Commission on Missing Person and Victims of the Violence
(Kontras).

President Megawati Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party
of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) had once rejected the clause's
inclusion in the election law but was outnumbered by the other
factions in the House of Representatives.

In 1966, the Army decided to promote dwifungsi or dualfunction
as the military's doctrine designed following the 1965 coup to
help restore political stability and democracy in Indonesia.

The doctrine essentially empowered the military both in
defense and sociopolitical roles during the 32-year regime of
former president Soeharto's authoritarian rule. It also
encompassed and brought about the omnipresence characterized by
the Army's territorial command, which goes all the way down to
the village level.

As the country entered the reform era in 1998, the public
demanded that the military's dominating political role and
dwifungsi be reduced, and such demands had won in 2002 the
support of the People's Consultative Assembly, the country's
highest legislative body, when it decided to end the military's
presence in both MPR and DPR by 2004.

Rizal, one of the civilian experts drafting the military bill,
slammed civilian politicians who tended to establish "a good
relationship" with the military ahead of the 2004 general
election, saying the move "will pave the way for the military to
enjoy its political role again."