Revamping intelligence
After a year of bewildering maneuvers and statements coming from state officials, the government this week announced plans to revamp the state intelligence services in order to obtain accurate information and intelligence data. The news was announced on Wednesday by Coordinating Minister for Political, Social and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Susilo told reporters the present central intelligence agency, the State Intelligence Coordinating Board (Bakin) would be given the name of National Intelligence Agency (BIN). Separately, Minister of Defense Mahfud M.D. said his office would also set up an intelligence agency outside of both BIN and the Indonesian Military Strategic Intelligence Agency (BAIS).
"With Bakin's reorganization, the government hopes to improve the capacity of the state intelligence board because accurate information and intelligence data are needed in making decisions and policies," Susilo explained, adding that BIN would have greater authority than Bakin, because the latter merely exercises a coordinating function.
That the state's intelligence services are in need of improvement, of that there is no doubt. In fact, what they need is not merely an enhancement of their performance, but a full- blown overhaul, most especially in the way they think and look at problems deemed a threat to national security.
A well known assessment by state intelligence officials of the New Order regime of former president Soeharto was that in future decades, no threats to national security are expected to come from without. Any threats to the state will come from inside the country -- in other words, from segments of the Indonesian population. Hence, the harsh treatment given to dissenting citizens.
Hence, also the power and privileged status of intelligence officers under the past regime. It was widely believed at that time that favored candidates for important government posts were adjutants of the President, officials of Bakin and officers of the Army's Special Force (Kopassus) -- in that order.
That not much has changed during the last couple of years in the way our state intelligence services look at the country's problems is confirmed by the continuing unrest in Aceh, Maluku, Irian Jaya and several other trouble spots in the archipelago. It is clear that with their outmoded way of thinking they are incapable of resolving those problems.
If further proof is needed, one only has to look at the absurd actions and statements that have come from some of our highest state officials -- remember for example the charge of Australian spies operating in Atambua, or of the American threat of an embargo, or the capture in Bandung of an alleged accomplice of the bombing of the Jakarta Stock Exchange.
In all those instances one might almost think that the government was made a victim of a conscious campaign of disinformation. Clearly, this state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue during the present era of reform. The culture of intelligence activities has become so ingrained in Indonesian society that it is now difficult to change. Every time violence breaks out, Indonesians assume that some sinister mastermind must be at work.
One last warning needs to be raised in this context: In overhauling the intelligence services, it is of the utmost importance that intelligence bodies such as the proposed BIN be led by civilians. Indonesia neither needs nor wants to recreate the kind of manipulative military intelligence bodies whose main task appeared to be to engineer incidents to provide the authorities with a pretext to clamp down on political dissent.