Reforming TNI

Reforming TNI

The way the Indonesian Military (TNI) is going on about
defending its territorial function shows that it, or more
precisely the Army, is reluctant to give up the power and
privileges it has enjoyed all these years. Yet, its argument to
keep the elaborate Army command structures, which provided it
with power and comprehensive control over the country all the way
from the top down to villages, contradicts its own promise of
pursuing internal reform and keeping out of politics.

It also exposes an attitude which raises serious questions
whether TNI is genuine about leaving politics, or whether it is
simply buying time, retreating a little bit, and scheming to make
a comeback some day soon. Time will tell which way it is going,
but this episode serves as a warning to those behind the movement
for a civil society that they must maintain pressure to ensure
that the military is fully phased out from politics by the 2004
deadline.

As part of the national reform drive to move toward a civil
society, the nation has agreed to assign a smaller, still vital,
role to TNI. Its main and only job now is to defend the country
against foreign aggression. Internal security is fully the domain
of the National Police, which, since April 1, has been a separate
entity from the military. Even the onetime defense and security
ministry has been renamed the Ministry of Defense.

TNI has also dropped its "dual function" concept which in the
past allowed it to play politics that led to abuses of power and
human rights atrocities. One of the major lessons the nation has
learned after more than three decades of this dualism is that we
should never give political power to anyone who carries a gun.

With TNI's wings clipped and its job clearly defined, there is
really little justification for keeping the Army's elaborate
territorial command structures, from the regional level (Kodam),
regency (Korem), district (Kodim), to subdistrict (Koramil), and
noncommissioned officers assigned to villages (Babinsa).

With the nation at peace with its neighbors these last 30
years, and with the military fully sanctioned to play politics,
the chiefs of these commands have spent most, if not all of their
time, discharging the second of their dual function, the
sociopolitical role. And with weapons and troops at their
disposal, they essentially became omnipotent local rulers, far
more powerful than governors, mayors, regency, district and
village chiefs, many of whom were themselves recruited from the
military. These commands made militarization of the entire
country complete in the past 30 years. It is through these
commands that many of the abuses of power by the military were
committed in the past.

If TNI now professes to have a new paradigm and promises to
keep out of politics, then why is it so insistent on keeping the
command system which has been part and parcel of the now defunct
dual-function concept? This irony, thankfully, was pinpointed by
Army Maj. Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah, a vocal but almost lone
reformist voice within the TNI leadership who started off the
present debate about TNI's territorial function.

Agus, who was recently moved from Army Headquarters in Jakarta
to serve as chief of the Wirabuana Regional Command in Sulawesi,
has called for the abolition of the lower command structures
(Koramil and Babinsa), and the streamlining of the top
structures, cutting the number of Kodam from the current 11 to
eight. It was in response to Agus' call that the public became
privy to a TNI plan to expand the number of Kodam to 17, as
disclosed by TNI spokesman Maj. Gen. Sudrajat. The plan, which
has been confirmed by TNI chief Navy Adm. Widodo A.S., bucks the
trend to phase the military out of the political arena and from
internal security affairs.

Given that its portfolio now is limited solely to defense, TNI
does not need such elaborate command structures, especially
bearing in mind that external threats are almost nonexistent. A
few of these commands are probably needed to mobilize the
population should war break out, but five layers of command are
excessive for such a job. There may be a case for Indonesia to
build a few more bases for its Navy and Air Force fleets to
protect far-flung regions. If that is the case, then TNI should
reallocate resources, including personnel if necessary, from the
Army command structures to these bases. If TNI still cannot
accept the demands to abolish or revamp the Army's command
structures simply because it is an emotionally loaded issue, then
there is a strong case to abolish them in the name of efficiency.

Ultimately, changes within TNI would be better off if they
were initiated from inside. That is why it is imperative that
more reform-minded officers like Agus Wirahadikusumah emerge to
push for the changes which the military must take to keep up with
the times. TNI knows it faces a 2004 deadline to leave the
political arena. But if the present leadership continues to
stall, then the changes would simply have to be imposed from the
outside, by force if necessary. The civil society movement will
make sure of that.