Notes on Endriartono

Notes on Endriartono

It is now almost certain that Army Gen. Endriartono Sutarto
will replace Navy Adm. Widodo A.S. as the chief of the Indonesian
Military (TNI). The announcement by the leadership of the House
of Representatives on Monday that President Megawati
Soekarnoputri has nominated Endriartono virtually ended months of
speculation about who would take charge of TNI.

Only one name was submitted to the House leadership, whose
constitutional role in this affair is limited simply to
acknowledging the nomination. They do not have the power to
approve or disapprove the President's choice for TNI commander.
And even if for some reason the House opted not to endorse the
nomination, Megawati could still go ahead and install Endriartono
as TNI chief.

The House's leadership, however, does have the right to broach
certain subjects and express reservations even as it acknowledges
the nomination. The House's biggest contribution in this process
would then be to raise questions about the commitment of the TNI,
and therefore of its new chief, to national political reform,
including the TNI's own internal reforms.

In all frankness, the TNI's commitment to reform, at least as
perceived by the public, has been waning, making it very much
worthwhile to raise this concern ahead of the upcoming changing
of the guard. As the most powerful political institution in the
country, the TNI's cooperation and participation in the endeavor
to turn the nation into a more humane, just and prosperous civil
society is imperative. Without it, we might as well kiss reform
good-bye.

Why should we extract a new commitment to reform from the new
TNI leadership? As we mark the fourth anniversary of the collapse
of the Soeharto regime this week, which also marked the start of
the reform era in 1998, we have every reason to be concerned that
Indonesia has barely made any progress, in spite of the numerous
sacrifices made during the process.

While it would not be fair to blame only the TNI for this lack
of progress, so many of its actions over the past year appear to
be anti-reformist that there is cause for concern.

The process of Endriartono's nomination itself, for example,
shows that the Army, the largest, most powerful and politically
oriented of the three armed forces, is flexing its muscles and
once again actively playing power politics.

The nomination of the current Army chief of staff for the top
TNI post defies the consensus reached at the start of the reform
process that the job would be rotated between the three services.
By everyone's reckoning, and if the TNI (and thus the Army) was
committed to this consensus, it should be the Air Force's turn.

Endriartono's formal nomination came more than six months
after President Megawati announced her intention to replace
Widodo. We know for a fact that top TNI generals ganged up to
prevent the President from exercising her prerogative late last
year; only now are they letting her have her way.

We may recall that TNI generals in July defied an order from
then president Abdurrahman Wahid to arrest his political
opponents. While that move was lauded because the order was
undemocratic, the episode served as a reminder that the TNI still
has a great deal of power, which it can use either for good or
bad.

In Maluku, local military leaders have openly defied orders
from the Civil Emergency Administration in Ambon to take firm
measures against law breakers. The TNI leadership in Jakarta
appears to have capitalized on President Megawati's weaknesses to
ensure itself a virtually free hand once again in places like
Aceh and Papua, where it has a long history of gross human rights
abuses.

The TNI leadership has also been less than cooperative in the
search for justice where senior officers are implicated, such as
in the human rights tribunals in East Timor, the trials in Aceh
and the pending investigations of the 1998 shootings of students
in Jakarta.

And now, with the ongoing international obsession with weeding
out terrorists, the TNI has even lobbied for legislation that
would virtually hand back many of the draconian powers it once
enjoyed but lost after 1998 because they had been widely abused.

All of these things suggest that if TNI is not backtracking on
reform, it is holding back where it could have helped to speed up
the process. If overall reform has been slow, we know that the
TNI's reluctance to give up political power and to leave the
political arena account for some of the delays.

The House leadership, like the rest of the nation, might not
have any say in the selection of the next TNI chief, that being
the constitutional prerogative of the President, but the House
could send a strong message to Megawati that the new TNI chief
must renew the military's commitment to reform and the goal of a
civil society. This is not only for the good of the nation, but
also for the TNI itself.