Reshuffling TNI
The changes in the leadership of the Indonesian Military (TNI) as announced on Friday proved to be somewhat of an anticlimax for most political pundits. Most of their predictions, which kept the media busy over the past week, turned out to be widely off the mark.
All in all, the 102 changes look very much like an ordinary military tour of duty. None of them carry significant political implications for the institution, which has been under strong pressure to carry out thorough internal reforms and to quit the political arena.
Many of the widely rumored changes never materialized. Lt. Gen. Agus Wira Hadikusumah, the chief of the Army's Strategic Reserves Command and the target of much speculation, keeps his job. Both Army Chief of Staff Gen. Tyasno Sudarto and TNI chief Admiral Widodo AS also stay where they are. Nothing in the changes suggest a purge of what pundits call the "Wiranto clique", so named after the once-powerful TNI chief.
Probably the only instance where pundits got it right was the removal of Maj. Gen. Saurip Kadi from the post of territorial assistant to the Army chief of staff. Saurip, who has been reassigned to Army headquarters without a specific portfolio, hosted in April what has come to be known as the "Bulak Rantai clandestine meeting" after the Army officers' housing complex in East Jakarta.
While Saurip and other top Army officers have denied that there was such a meeting, his removal from a key post suggests there was more to it than his claim that the gathering was held with close Army friends to mark a recent rank promotion. In the absence of any credible explanation, his removal will likely become the target of even more speculation.
Another significant appointment announced on Friday was the selection of Col. I Made Yasa, a Hindu Balinese, as chief of the regional military command in Maluku, a province that has been raked by violent conflicts between Muslims and Christians. He replaces Brig. Gen. Max Markus Tamaela, whom many Muslims feel had not been impartial in solving the conflict.
It remains to be seen how well I Made Yasa will do in his new assignment. Indonesia cannot afford another failure. Many people in Maluku are already losing confidence in the ability of the government and the military to end the sectarian conflict. Muslims outside Maluku have sent a jihad force, and many Christians in Maluku have been urging the United Nations to send in a neutral international peacekeeping force.
While Made Yasa's appointment is very important, it has not generated as much public interest as the ongoing political intrigue surrounding the political appointments in TNI. The public fixation on the political face of TNI, especially the appointment of top jobs, is a legacy of the New Order era, when the military was an important component of the regime.
Because of the political power TNI once wielded, speculating about who is in and who is on his way out in the military has become a national pastime. The fact that this fixation still runs deeply today suggests that the military is still regarded as a powerful political institution, even after its wings have been clipped.
The power that the military apparently still enjoys makes it a target of political intervention by other political groups trying woo its support. One cannot help feel that in spite of its promise to quit politics, some TNI leaders continue to use their power to further their own political agenda. This is why rumors about the intrigues within TNI have been rife this past week.
No matter how many times TNI tries to explain that changes in its top rungs are routine tours of duty, the public will continue to regard them in political terms and think upon the consequences they have on the country's political life. Some day changes at TNI's top will be accepted by the public for what they are: routine tours. That day, however, will only come when TNI has left the political arena completely and become a truly professional military force.