Military back into politics: Analysts

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.