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.