Military-police ties, remnants of the New Order

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.