No reason to give power back to the Army

No reason to give power back to the Army

Philips J. Vermonte, Centre for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), Jakarta, pjvermonte@csis.or.id

The statement made by the Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ryamizard
Ryacudu last week clearly showed the lack of understanding on the
part of the Indonesian Military (TNI) about the nature of
objective civilian control over the military.

The main reason for this is that the statement had bypassed a
chain of command within the military, and may have disrupted the
state of our healthy civilian-military relationship. Such a
statement, which entails a supposedly formal political stance of
the TNI, should have first come from the highest in command.

In a democratic country, a civilian government would only
discuss important matters with the Armed Forces' highest in
command, not with the chief of staff, and not during a press
briefing. Of course no civilian authority has the right to
prevent the Army from holding a meeting to discuss the fate of
this country. But it needs to be understood that the TNI, be it
the Army, Air Force or Navy, should channel its ideas to the
civilian authority in a democratic manner.

It was reported that the statement was made after Gen. Ryacudu
held a closed-door meeting that brought together hundreds of
active and retired top Army officers (The Jakarta Post, Feb. 21).
Since it seems that those who attended the meeting were officers
that were building up their career during the New Order regime in
which the Army enjoyed a great political role, it can be said
that the Army's current leadership, despite all its rhetoric that
it was committed to gradually reforming itself, is still longing
for the power that once gave them so many privileges.

It is interesting to note that instead of consulting with
younger Army officers, such as colonels, Gen. Ryacudu chose to
discuss the matter with his former superiors. To a certain
extent, the statement does not mean anything but the fact that
our Army has not really adjusted itself within the new democratic
environment that has been gradually installed in this country
since the fall of Soeharto's authoritarian regime in 1998.

Although Gen. Ryacudu stated that the Army's security role had
to be reinstated due to threats of separatism and other
disturbances, he seems to forget the very important fact that the
two issues were adequately dealt with by two laws that were
enacted last year by our legislature, namely the laws on defense
and the National Police.

We clearly need to first differentiate the role of the
military, not only the Army, during times of peace and war. Law
No.3/2002 on defense stipulates that during peace, it is the
regional governments that are given the role to continuously
prepare the resources and infrastructure necessary for national
defense.

In other words, the territorial function is being seen as a
governmental function carried out by regional governments, and
not by the Army as it was in the past. In August 2001, a seminar
organized by TNI Headquarters and attended by military officers
and civilian academics concluded that even if the Army needed to
continue its territorial function, it would have to be limited to
only training and preparing the soldiers without any right to
reach the people in any way.

The two laws also regulate how to position the military during
an emergency. If an emergency, such as a separatist movement,
escalates to an open-armed conflict and becomes a military threat
to the country, the military might be given a role in handling
it.

Nevertheless, the right to define an emergency is held by the
democratically elected civilian authority, not the TNI. In the
case of Aceh, for example, the Megawati government has so far
decided to pursue diplomatic channels, instead of taking military
action, to solve the problem.

With regard to disturbances, as long as it concerns
maintaining law and order within society, it is the police who
have been authorized to deal with them. However, Law No.2/2002 on
the National Police stipulates that police officers have to
assist the military during an emergency situation.

Several civilian experts on defense and security-related
issues helped draft the two laws, which set a very good precedent
in our effort to establish democratic civilian control over the
military. However, some circles in our Armed Forces tend to think
that the two laws greatly undermine TNI's power on the one hand,
while giving more substantial power to the police. In fact, the
two laws are only following the commitment of the TNI to reform
itself.

In the early days of reformasi, TNI announced what it called a
"new doctrine" that, among other things, guaranteed it was ready
to share various roles with other state components. It is in this
spirit that the two laws were agreed upon, tasking the police
with maintaining domestic security, while the TNI has the
responsibility of safeguarding our country's sovereignty and
territorial integrity and to deal with external threats.

Therefore, it can be concluded that at the political level,
the issue raised by the Army chief of staff last week had in fact
been settled long before the statement was made.