Military back into politics: Analysts

Aan Suryana and Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government's decision to reestablish the military command in Aceh and internal conflicts in nearly all major political parties would do harm to efforts to end the military's role in politics, military observers warned on Friday.

The decision on the military command's reestablishment exemplifies the revival of the military in the political arena, while internal conflicts within the parties endanger civilian supremacy in politics because it creates the image that civilians are incompetent.

Hermawan Sulistyo of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) lashed out at the decision on the military command reestablishment, saying that "it would only revive old social wounds."

The government insisted on announcing the decision on Thursday despite objections from the Acehnese and human rights campaigners.

"The decision will only revive past bitter experiences in which the Acehnese were gripped by fears about insecurity for years," he said.

Kusnanto Anggoro of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said the reestablishment of a military command in Aceh was a sensible indication that they might have been preparing to come back to conquer the country's politics.

He further said the internal conflicts within the parties also made the politicians busy with their own interests, thereby forgetting to further encourage strong civilian institutions.

"Their busyness can be seen from the current internal conflicts at Golkar, the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the United Development Party (PPP)," Kusnanto said.

Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, another observer of LIPI, urged the political parties to settle their internal conflicts by themselves.

"This is important to avoid any possible intervention from outsiders, including the military, which might manipulate the conflicts for their own interests," Ikrar told The Jakarta Post.

This will only add credence to the perception that the military is better than civilians.

After years of privilege under Soeharto's rule, the military's role in politics has faded away since 1998. Freedom of speech, which began to flourish in that year, has stepped up intellectuals' pressure for the military to gradually leave the political stage.

The military finally relinquished their grip on the police force in April 1999, when the police force was separated from the military. The number of military seats in the People's Consultative Assembly was reduced from 75 to only 38 seats, and they will no longer have any seats at all by the year 2009.

Kusnanto said that the civilians, including political parties, had to be able to create, establish and use strong democratic institutions to prevent the military from coming back to politics.

Also, the civilians should have "the consciousness to rule."

"The legislators in the House of Representatives should be more active to oversee and to investigate military activities, including business and human rights activities, to improve transparency within the military," he said.

Ikrar said this situation was harmful for the development of democracy as the public would question the ability of civilians to rule and to maintain stability in the country.

This would be more dangerous to democracy if the public then looked to the military whom they regarded as being capable of maintaining political stability in the country in the past, he said.

Both Ikrar and Kusnanto said politicians should avoid parties' internal conflicts and work together to build strong democratic institutions.