Military-police ties, remnants of the New Order

Benny Subianto, Sociologist, Jakarta

There have been numerous bloody clashes between the army and police in various places over the last two years. The attack by Army Airborne Battalion 100/PS on the Police Mobile Brigade headquarters and Langkat Police station in the early morning of Sept. 30 was the bloodiest to date. The incident claimed eight lives and caused serious damage to offices and motor vehicles. The clash between the two state apparatus, responsible for maintaining order and security, turned the town of Binjai into a ghost town and made its residents deeply anxious for several days.

The clash was reportedly triggered by the arrest of a civilian found in possession of drugs by the police. Apparently, a soldier of the Army airborne battalion was upset and wanted to free the arrested civilian. The Langkat Police resisted and shortly after a group of soldiers attacked the Langkat Police station and Mobile Brigade headquarters in Binjai.

Such clashes are not uncommon following the separation of the police from the military (TNI). Nonetheless, the Binjai clash was intriguing owing to its location, which is only a half-hour drive from the city of Medan.

Medan and its surrounding areas are notorious as a hoodlum (preman) stronghold. It difficult in Medan to conduct legitimate business without protection from the preman underworld.

Despite the presence of the police and military in Medan they apparently have never been able to control the underworld and many have alleged links between the hoodlums and both the police and military, though it has been hard to prove. But there is no way the underworld could have been so well entrenched in the city without any connections with the police and military.

Such a phenomenon, a highlight of the New Order regime, earned Indonesia the title of a "messy state" in comparative studies. Indonesia has become known as a negara preman (hoodlum state), where organized criminal gangs offer services to protect both legal and illegal businesses as well as to protect political parties/forces. In exchange for such services they receive quasi- legitimate protection from the state apparatus.

These organized criminal gangs have therefore survived due to the protection of the military, police and civilian authorities. The case of mysterious shootings in and around 1983 is an excellent illustration of this "messy state". During the election campaign of 1982, Golkar, the government party fully backed by the military, allegedly recruited a big number of criminal gangs to support the party and to attack the other two political parties, the United Development Party (PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI).

In return, aside from being paid, those criminal gangs received the "blessings" of the authorities to operate. Understandably, within a few months crime became so rampant in the 1980s, forcing the authorities to take action. Having realized that the criminals had gone beyond the bounds of tolerance of the authorities who had blessed them, then president Soeharto himself, as he admitted in his autobiography, ordered the long-running series of murders of alleged criminal gang leaders and ex-convicts as a shock therapy.

Apparently, such a "messy state" did not create serious tensions at that time between the military and police, since the New Order was a strong military-backed regime that was able to control its apparatus. The police at that time were subordinate to the military. In the field, a soldier would consider a policeman his "younger and powerless" brother. The downfall of New Order regime changed such asymmetrical relations between the police and military. In 1999 the police were officially separated from the military (TNI).

Furthermore, MPR Decree 6/2000 concerning the separation of the police from the Indonesian Military (TNI) stipulates that the police are responsible for maintaining order and security, while the military is a state instrument whose role is to defend the country.

Meanwhile, Law 2/2002 on National Police provides the legal basis for the police to break away from the military's sphere of power. In short, the police were impowered and confident that the military should not interfere in their area of authority.

The rising power and authority of the police coincided with the declining role and damaged image of the military after the fall of Soeharto's regime. Until 1998, most Indonesians still considered the military a "hero" for the service it rendered to defend the nation during the revolution (1945-1949), fighting against separatist movements in the 1950s, and crushing the communists in the aftermath of the September 1965 coup attempt.

Nonetheless, political changes in 1998 have demystified the military's "heroic" role. The military has become the target of public condemnation for its wrongdoing under Soeharto's authoritarian rule. The dismantling of the military dual-function has forced the Army to quit its previous powerful social and political role.

Despite the denial by the military top brass of allegations that their soldiers are protectors of both legal and illegal businesses, various investigative reports and academic studies have revealed that a huge amount of protection money is paid to both military soldiers and policemen.

Political volatility after the fall of the New Order, the increasing role of local administrators due to the enactment of regional autonomy law, and the strengthening of radical groups have resulted in a higher need for protection of almost any kind of business activity.

Some soldiers apparently have had a hard time in dealing with the new political terrain that has systematically dismantled their power and privileges.

Some may have viewed this as a disappearing opportunity to make a lucrative side income as the protectors of legal and illegal businesses that they have enjoyed for a long period of time. On the other hand, the soldiers' low salary encouraged many of them to seek a substantial side income.

The "messy state" created by the New Order is in fact still going on and even getting worse. Gangsterism has become increasingly rampant and more visible in the last four years. The burgeoning political parties during the reformasi era has led to the trend toward military-like political party supporter groups, the satgas partai politik, whose members wear militaristic uniforms. They are supposed to maintain social order at the local level, but become virtually the politicians' protectors.

The separation of the police from the military has helped change the police's mind-set as the "younger and powerless" brother of the military. The police members are now convinced that they deserve to play their role as protectors, and are no longer under the shadow of their "big brothers".

Hence, the series of police-military clashes since early 2001 is not surprising. The root of such clashes is related to the turf war for sources of lucrative protection money between the two.

Just as during the New Order, the role of the police and soldiers as protectors for business is a necessary evil for the business community. It is not the businesspeople's wish to hire protectors, which is quite costly, but it is essential for survival.

It is time for the police and military to clearly divide their functions to prevent further bloody clashes between them, which worsens the already bad impression of Indonesia's security situation.