Military told to do more to avoid clash with police

Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Analysts have hailed the military's move to discharge 20 soldiers involved in a deadly attack on two police stations in the North Sumatra town of Binjai, but warned it would not prevent similar incidents from recurring.

The decision to dishonorably discharge the soldiers should not be the only action taken to resolve the problem. The Indonesian Military (TNI) has to address the problem so that similar clashes between troops and police, which have frequently broken out across the country, do not recur, they said.

"The dismissals were important but will not solve the problem. If the move is considered enough to prevent more attacks, it means a simplification of the problem," said Munir, a human rights campaigner and a staunch critic of the military.

Sociopolitical analyst Fachry Ali shared a similar view, saying the move to discharge the 20 soldiers was surprising considering TNI's track record in dealing with a bloody clash.

"But it will not be too effective in preventing similar cases from taking place again. The key problem is firm law enforcement against security personnel involved in illegal activities," he added.

Fachry said military and police leaders had to give a good example to their members and show that they were not corrupt and were thus sincere when taking firm measures against subordinates involved in illegal acts, like gambling, prostitution, theft, any form of trafficking, etc.

Munir said there were "unfinished issues" that the authorities had to deal with following the official separation of the military and the National Police in 2000.

"This has created an unclear division of tasks between the military and the police, which has sparked fighting between security forces, like we often see," added Munir, a cofounder of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras).

He said the TNI had been formally separated from the police, but the former had yet to follow it up by reforming its territorial and organizational structures.

"TNI's organizations that are parallel with the police's should be dissolved to prevent an overlapping of security tasks in the field," Munir cited as an example.

The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) issued Decree No. 6/2000 to separate the police from the TNI, under which the military is a state instrument whose role is to defend the country, while the police are responsible for maintaining order and security.

The decree suggests the two security institutions should cooperate in carrying out their tasks.

Fachry, Munir and military analyst Hasnan Habib concurred in saying that such divisions of tasks as stated in the decree had confused the police and the military, and called for a revision of the ruling.

"Since the tasks between the military and police remain obscure and the decree has not been revised, similar clashes between them will recur," Edy Prasetyono, a researcher from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said.

At least eight people were killed and five others injured when soldiers from the Army Airborne Battalion 100/PS attacked police stations in Binjai last Sunday.

The 10-hour clash erupted after police officers refused to release a drug trafficker said to be protected by the soldiers.

Munir said the failure of military leaders to control their personnel also caused fighting.

"The command of the TNI, particularly the Army, is extremely fractured. How could the Binjai incident last for 10 hours, with the local military commanders failing to stop it immediately. It clearly proves a lack of control by its leaders over their members.

"I suspect the troops are demoralized as they are victimized by their commanders every time the latter face charges of human rights abuses or other cases," he said.

Munir added that impunity had generally been applied to high- ranking security officers, while their soldiers often suffered the brunt of their mistakes.

Hasnan and Fachry concurred with Munir, saying the TNI faces a serious leadership crisis that has led to insubordination by troops.

The Binjai case is part of the "insubordination" in that the local military leaders were unable to control their soldiers, Fachry said.