In Memoriam: Benny Moerdani, a hero of the Republic

In Memoriam: Benny Moerdani, a hero of the Republic

Jusuf Wanandi, Jakarta

Many Indonesians undoubtedly regard L.B. Moerdani as a hero of
the Republic.

At the age of 14-years-old he began fighting the Dutch as a
guerrilla fighter in Surakarta. Thereafter, he fought nearly
every conflict the country had, including separatist movements,
civil wars and the Dutch in West Irian (now Papua) to unite the
last remaining territory from what was previously the Netherlands
East Indies.

He was one of most decorated soldiers of the Republic, and
assumed the highest rank in the military realm, as Minister of
Defense and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces (ABRI). He has
been called a philosopher/soldier, because he was one of the best
strategic thinkers that ABRI (now TNI) ever had.

To achieve all that, General Benny had to learn a lot by
himself, and he was very erudite by nature and sharp. He trained
at Fort Benning and Fort Bragg in the United States, and that
might have helped him to develop his talent and acumen. He read a
lot, especially history and biographies, and used the knowledge
to develop his own thinking and ideas.

Above all, he was a decisive person. He was close to General
Ahmad Yani first, and later became the right hand man of
President Soeharto in the Armed Forces between 1974 and 1988.
During the period of 1983-1988 he was the second most powerful
man in the Republic.

As an intelligence czar he was closely related to the ASEAN
and Western intelligence people and worked closely with them. He
established regular meetings and cooperated with ASEAN
intelligence officers. He was very close to Malaysia and
Singapore. He was also considered to be close to Vietnam, which
he saw at that time as a bulwark against Chinese pressure on
South East Asia. He assisted Vietnam after they were isolated by
ASEAN following their invasion of Cambodia.

Domestically, he has a lot of friends among political elites,
the media and some of the most important NGOs.

His most spectacular deed was definitely his handling of the
Woyla hijacking, wherein he convinced Thailand's then Prime
Minister Prem Tinsulanond to allow Indonesian special forces to storm and
take over the Garuda plane in Bangkok.

Since that episode occurred on the exact day that President
Ronald Reagan was shot in the U.S., Benny did not get adequate publicity
in the international media except for The Asian Wall Street
Journal in an editorial that lauded the brilliant military
operation against the hijackers.

Two things in Benny's career were considered controversial.
One was the Tanjung Priok incident in 1984. It happened shortly
after he took over as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in
1983. In fact, it was police negligence in an earlier incident
that escalated out of hand, when the police took over the
authority for law and order in that case from the Army.

Try Sutrisno, the new Jakarta Commander at the time, was not
asked to be involved early enough by the police. Thus, Try came
late into the picture. The background of the incident was a
government policy to stop or merge all small forwarding
businesses (mostly in the Tanjung Priok area, which meant many
people there lost their livelihoods) into big ones during the
economic downturn in 1982 as well as the political tension due to
the imposition of the Pancasila as the only allowable ideology
for all political parties to espouse. After the incident Benny
took the responsibility and supported Try Sutrisno.

Another controversy was the so-called mysterious killings in
Indonesia, where over 2,000 criminals were arbitrarily killed and
their bodies dumped in the streets. In fact, those criminals and
thugs had indeed been a scourge and hampered security and peace
in Java, especially Central Java. He did not start the operation.

However, his main mistake was to let the operation expand.
This only showed that, while he is an enlightened man, his
political and military culture was the overriding factor in most
decisions. He had made a number misjudgements and mistakes in
dealing with political and social problems related to human
rights and the rule of law.

He was involved in the East Timor military operation, but he
was more of a proponent of putting pressure along the border and
assisting local forces of East Timorese who were pro-Indonesia
(UDT, Apodeti and Trabalista) to work against Fretilin. However,
after the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) was
proclaimed by Fretilin, the Armed Forces Headquarters took over,
and it became a full military operation, which was no longer
under his command.

He was involved again after a hiatus of two years, in early
1978, when refugees coming from the hills (taken hostage by
Fretilin) sought humanitarian assistance from the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). He assisted in the operation,
and probably saved the lives of 20,000 to 30,000 people,
especially babies and children.

He also faced two crises at the height of his power and
influence. One was his relationship with the Muslim community. As
a Catholic and the chief of the Armed Forces, in 1983, he was not
entirely trusted and had to deal with some terrorist acts, such
as the bombings at the Borobudur temple and the BCA Bank in
Jakarta.

Indeed, the military's relationship with the Muslim community
in the early days of the Republic and during Soeharto's reign was
full of suspicion and prejudice. It was due to the rebellions
against the state by Darul Islam that began in 1957 in West Java,
later in South Sulawesi, East Kalimantan and Aceh. And the
struggle in the People's Consultative Assembly between the state
ideology, Pancasila and Islam, which created real differences
between the military and the Muslim political parties.

From 1979 to 1982, a resurgence of Islamic extremism occurred
under leadership of Ali Sungkar and Basri. And when Benny took
over in 1983 and had to deal with some of the extremists, he
faced strong opposition from the Muslim community. However,
Abdurrahman Wahid was instrumental in rebuilding some of the
trust between the Muslim communities and Benny.

Another crisis was his relationship with Soeharto. Soeharto
never liked to have someone of his equal, especially among the
military. When he thought that Benny could no longer be trusted
because of palace intrigue and the opposition, he was asked to
step down as Commander-in-Chief.

Soeharto's son-in-law was also giving a lot of false
information to Soeharto about Benny's alleged opposition. In
addition, B.J. Habibie's ambition also stood in the way between
Soeharto and Benny. Later while both were healthy, in early 1999
Soeharto and Benny talked again to each other, and at least some
of the misunderstandings were overcome.

Benny is a 100 percent military man, and however intellectual
and enlightened he was, he was imbued with the military culture,
and like his fellow generals, believed that only the military had
the acumen, experience and institution to lead Indonesia.

So when deep changes occurred in 1998, and he saw the country
crumbling due to the deep crisis, his emotions gave way and he
could not stomach it. He had given his life, since he was 14 to
the Republic, to keep it together and to modernize it, and when
it was on the verge of collapsing, he also collapsed emotionally.
That is why he was never able to recover from his stroke
adequately, because as soon he was nearly recovered, his emotions
took over and his health suffered another setback.

Those of us at the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS) are his friends and we are proud of the friendship
and thank him for his support, despite the fact that we were in
the "opposition" between 1988 and 1998. He was a true friend even
in bad times. We salute him, and the best we could do in his
memory is to emulate his impeccable patriotism since
independence.

We hope that his wife and Ria, his only daughter, will find
some consolation to know that so many friends respect him, within
and without the country. Most, if not all of them, do think and
appreciate that he is a true friend, and that Indonesia should be
proud of having such a son.

The writer is a co-founder and member of the Board of Trustees at
the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)