INTEL: Examining RI's intelligence services

INTEL: Examining RI's intelligence services

Imanuddin Razak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

INTEL: Inside Indonesia's Intelligence Service
Ken Conboy, Equinox Publishing, Jakarta, 2004
253 pp

Any book offering a new perspective and information on its
subject is always interesting, and even more so when it discusses
the activities of an intelligence agency, usually closed to the
general public.

It inevitably draws people's attention, leaving them
anticipating the chance to learn a bit more about the cloak-and-
dagger activities of spies and secret agents.

That is part of the attraction of this work by Ken Conboy, who
previously authored a book on the Army's Special Forces
(Kopassus), and it does turn out to be an intriguing read.

Written in a non-scholarly, layperson-friendly style, the book
reveals the wide range of activities of Indonesia's state
intelligence agency, under its changing names, from BPI to KIN,
Bakin, LIN and BIN today, and the "revolving door" of its
officials and leadership.

Conboy provides a chronological detailing of the history and
major events in the intelligence service, from the establishment
of the agency, its development and covert activities, and the
many reorganizations.

There is more interesting information, including "side"
activities not directly related to state espionage, such as the
rescue of a son of a pharmaceutical company tycoon and the
investigation into the currency counterfeiting activities in the
country.

The book also reveals the rivalry between the institution, at
that time called Bakin, and the military's intelligence body,
Bais, especially during the leadership of Leonardus Benjamin
"Benny" Moerdani in the Indonesian military.

All of this makes for captivating reading, but the book fails
to identify the grand strategy of state intelligence, especially
during the turbulent Soeharto presidency, and crucially lacks
first-hand accounts from the two prominent intelligence chiefs,
Yoga Sugama and Leonardus Benjamin "Benny" Moerdani, from the
1980s.

Conboy did secure information about the two figures'
leadership from books on them, media reports, through Bakin's
case files and interviews with their subordinates; it's an
admirable effort in itself but not quite the same as sitting down
for one-on-one interviews.

It would have been a tall order anyway: An intelligence
official to the core, Yoga has never swayed from a refusal to
discuss the agency's activities, while Benny is ailing (and would
be unlikely to open up anyway).

The book reveals the involvement of the state intelligence
agency in monitoring and bugging the North Vietnam Embassy and
the information office of the communist National Liberation Front
(NLF) of South Vietnam in Jakarta in the early 1970s, securing
information which was of particular interest to Washington.

Other controversial involvements were of Bakin's Special
Operation (Opsus) Unit's surveillance activities in Cambodia's
internal political affairs, as well as on the embassies of the
North Korea, Cuba, China and the Soviet Union.

Similar activities were directed at embassies and
representative offices of Arab countries, especially in the wake
of increasing international terrorism.

Although the lack of transitions between the subjects is
jarring, Conboy's work is an interesting read as it complements
the limited information about BIN, especially regarding foreign
intelligence bodies and foreign agents. The author's previous
position as deputy director at the Asian Studies Center, an
influential Washington-based think tank on South Asia and
Southeast Asia, helps him fill the "missing links" of the local
intelligence agency's reports.

The development of the state intelligence body has been
inextricably shaped by the involvement of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), whose instructors declared Indonesia's
intelligence agents in 1980 as the most capable they had tutored
in the past half decade; Israel's Mossad; and Britain's MI6.

The growth of the state intelligence body also could not be
separated from the fight against communism during the Cold War
years because, according to Western intelligence reports,
Indonesia was a "fertile breeding ground" for the ideology.

In reading the passages about the 1950s and 1960s, it must be
remembered that there were two opposing Indonesian institutions
-- now defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the military
-- that won the praise of many political and military analysts
because of the strong discipline of their members and their
organizations' good management.

Still, it's important for all readers to bear in mind that any
divulged information -- reports, news, etc. -- is still part of
intelligence activities, and it's always difficult to tell what
is the truth from carefully constructed misinformation. Failure
to use a fair dose of skepticism in reading some of the accounts
may end up with us accepting a grand ruse.