SBY slammed over slow military reform

SBY slammed over slow military reform

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was criticized on Friday for
showing lack of commitment in pushing through the military reform
program during his first year in office.

Al Araf, a researcher at human rights and democracy watchdog
Imparsial, said the President seemed to have no control over the
military's maneuvers in the field of politics, business sector
and domestic security.

In politics, Imparsial noted the participation of several
active military officers in this year's direct regional
elections.

"The policy of Indonesian Military (TNI) Chief (Gen.
Endriartono Sutarto) to allow servicemen to join the political
race at local level is, indeed, against Article 39 of Law No.
34/2004 on military reform, as the article strictly bans the
military from involvement in practical politics," Al Araf said on
Friday.

"The President, however, failed to warn the military from
reentering the political arena," he added.

In May of this year, the TNI headquarters suspended six active
military officers to allow them to contest the direct regional
elections in June for regents, mayors and provincial governors.
The suspensions apparently took advantage of loopholes in Law No.
32/2004 on regional government that does not specifically ban
active military or police officers from being nominated for
regional government posts.

Another Imparsial researcher, Otto K. Pratama, noted that the
government was dragging its feet in removing the military from
the business sector as mandated by the law.

He said that Susilo had failed to create a corridor for the
military to accede to the reform demands.

"Law No. 34/2004 on the military has mandated the government
to take over business entities run by the military in order to
create professional soldiers. With the process under way for
almost a year, we only see officials assigned to evaluate the
business entities. They are only talking about whether or not the
companies are profitable and should be taken over by the
government," Otto said.

He was referring to the ongoing verification held by four
related ministries -- the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of
Finance, Ministry of Justice and Human Rights and the Office of
the State Minister of State Enterprises -- during which officials
have said the government would likely take over only 10 to 12
companies belonging to the military.

This means the military would likely retain many other
business units held under its 219 military cooperatives and
foundations.

As a comparison, Otto noted the Chinese government under Deng
Xiao Ping had been able to accelerate the state takeover of all
the Chinese military's business units within only six months.

Al Araf said the President's order to the TNI to be involved
in handling terror threats nationwide through a military
operation had violated the Constitution because "any application
of the military operation should be discussed with the lawmakers
in the first instance."

He referred to the request for the military to become more
involved in countering terror threats in the nation made by
Susilo in his speech during the commemoration of the TNI's 60th
anniversary. In response, Endriartono pledged to reactivate the
TNI's much-criticized territorial function.