Legislative oversight and the war on terror
Bantarto Bandoro, Jakarta
"The proper office of a representative assembly is to watch and control the government." (John Stuart Mill, 1861)
"Terrorism, like war, is too important to be left to the generals and the government intelligence agencies." (Paul Wilkinson, 1977)
These quotations suggest that greater outside scrutiny of the government's counterterrorism policies, for example, by legislators, is not only desirable, but urgently necessary.
The current government's counterterrorism policies seem to reflect the involvement only of intelligence officers, either from the police, National Intelligence Agency (BIN) or the military, who happen to be generals or retired generals.
The war on terrorism cannot be executed by the intelligence services or components of the military alone. The House of Representatives should also have a part to play. What the House can do is not only react to unexpected events, but also give valuable judgments and formulate policy prescriptions.
With regards to the second Bali bombings, House members were quick to react by calling for the National Intelligence Agency and the police to appear before the House to provide an explanation. Is this as far as the legislators can go in such case? There is actually a lot more to be done by the House.
But they seem to be groping in the dark as to the causes of terrorism and their plan of actions. We rarely see legislators here involved, publicly, in heated debates as to what causes terrorism. With the second Bali bombings, perhaps it is time for them to go beyond what they think and see as their primary concerns.
Since the first Bali bombings in 2002, we have enacted a series of counterterrorism measures and policies, from the antiterror law and the establishment of antiterror detachments, to the disbursement of funds provided by donors countries. Private and formal sectors have praised the government for its efforts to counter the threat of terrorism. But there has still been a series of bombings that authorities were unable to prevent.
Now it is time for the House to develop policies as well as keep track of all government organizations that deal directly with the war on terror, particularly the intelligence services.
The House, as an oversight institution, should ensure that the government, through its security agencies, makes the best use of its tools in combating terrorism. It should also ensure that civil rights are not ignored by the need for increased security.
And given the ongoing war on terror and the threat of future terror attacks, it is clear that more policy attention on the part of the House, as well as the executive branch, is not only desirable, but urgent.
It is within this context that close supervision by the House is imperative to ensure the security agencies, in particular the intelligence services, the police and the military, use their power effectively and in a way that does not unduly compromise the civil liberties of the people.
The need for outside supervision of the government's counterterrorism policies is more urgent than ever because of the continued and perceived weaknesses in coordinating the different policies.
It is not clear whether House Commission I for security, defense and foreign relations has exercised any supervisory role over the government's counterterrorism policies.
Politicians, as many here have acknowledged, sometimes spend too much time looking after their parochial interests. Since the first Bali bombings, we have rarely seen politicians get involved in the heated public debate over terrorism, or come up with their own concept of the war on terror, or keep a close watch over the complex security sector.
The question one might ask is whether our legislators are mindful of their power over the government's conduct of the war on terror, or if they are simply not prepared to better acquaint themselves with this complex issues?
The writer is the director of scientific infrastructure and publications, and the chief editor of The Indonesian Quarterly, at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, in Jakarta. He is also a lecturer in the International Relations Graduate Program at the School of Social and Political Sciences, the University of Indonesia. He can be reached at bandoro@csis.or.id.