Plan for new military commands evokes caution

JAKARTA (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights said on Thursday it would be "very cautious" in supporting the plan to establish eight new military commands throughout the country.

"It is not clear what the objectives are. It can easily be misunderstood that any kind of expansion of territorial command is going to be contrary to the trend of phasing out the military's role in politics," rights commission chairman Marzuki Darusman told The Jakarta Post.

"So we would be very cautious in allowing this to get out of hand. The principle of course would be to do away with the territorial commands altogether," he said.

Indonesian Military (TNI) Commander Gen. Wiranto said in May new military commands would be established in Sumatra, Nusa Tenggara, Maluku and Kalimantan to "maintain the country's defense, security and unity".

He said "the past mistake of allowing the duplication of functions between territorial commands and intelligence operations led to extreme excesses of rights violations involving local armed forces personnel".

During the ironfisted rule of former president Soeharto, territorial commands were his main tool to control local politics, Marzuki said.

"In the past, territorial commands played a central role and provided the military with various springboards to control local politics," he said.

Wiranto said earlier the new commands would be established in phases through 2004 because the plan required detailed preparation of human resources, tools and other facilities.

A new military command in the riot-torn province of Maluku was established on May 15. At least 350 people in the province died in violent clashes between Muslims and Christians which erupted in the provincial capital of Ambon in mid-January.

Marzuki said forming new military commands in Maluku and other troubled areas such as Aceh was an "exception" because a military presence was "clearly needed".

"In the case of Aceh, the territorial command there will be able to help Army personnel avoid excessive actions and violence. The perception of the Acehnese is that if the territorial command was there, it would have been able to control the excesses because controlling the actions of Army personnel from Medan was very difficult," he said.

The military command in Aceh is currently under the Bukit Barisan Command based in the North Sumatran capital of Medan.

"There was a need for a local territorial command (in Aceh) to control the Army personnel and not allow rogue elements to operate in the area without direct supervision from the command," Marzuki said.

Aceh has seen a decade of antiseparatist military operations against the Free Aceh Movement.

The military operations were ended last year amid accusations of widespread human rights abuses by the military. These alleged abuses have fueled widespread hatred of Jakarta and the armed forces among the Acehnese.

Violence in the province since early May has left more than 80 dead, including 41 civilians shot dead by soldiers in North Aceh on May 3.

"But our stance would be to eventually phase out the territorial commands and give back the function of integrating the territories to the government, because that is a normal function of any civilian government," Marzuki said.

He said territorial and intelligence functions had given the military "an almost total monopoly on politics and information".

"These are normal civilian functions that need to be given back to the civilian government," he said. (byg)