Servicemen should not go into business, Hasnan says

JAKARTA (JP): A top military thinker has balked at the idea that servicemen should go into business.

"If they're retired, it's a different story. But they should never do so during active military service." said Lt. Gen. (ret) Hasnan Habib in a discussion.

According to Hasnan, there is a fundamental difference between servicemen and businessmen.

"(No one) does business (for reasons other than) to profit. There's no way that servicemen should follow this way of thinking," said Hasnan.

Servicemen, he said, should be ready at any time to defend the country, never questioning superiors' orders, and should even be willing to give up their lives to accomplish their tasks.

"So there is a totally different mentality between the two (occupations)," he said in a discussion to mark the launching of his book at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies on Tuesday.

The 600-page book, titled Kapita Selekta: Strategi dan Hubungan Internasional (Major Selection: Strategy and International Relations) is a compilation of 37 papers he presented at various seminars.

"The entire image of the institution would be tarnished if soldiers are allowed to go into business," he said.

Hasnan acknowledged, however, that such a thing occurred in other countries, like Thailand for example, which he said had the most commercialized armed forces in the world.

He also reminded the audience of Indonesia's experience in the early years of its existence when soldiers took over Dutch companies.

"Look at what happened to all those companies," he said.

He said he was not sure whether a few officers of the Armed Forces or the majority agreed with his line of thinking.

The discussion, moderated by political scientist J. Soedjati Djiwandono, was attended by more than 100 scholars, servicemen and government officials. They included Maj. Gen. (ret) Sahala Rajagukguk, C.P.F. Luhulima, Cosmas Batubara, Nana Sutresna, Franz Magnis-Suseno, Onghokham, Fikri Djufri, Sabam Siagian and Djafar Assegaff.

Hasnan, who is now an assistant to the state minister of research and technology and chairman for strategic industries at the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology, has served as ambassador to Thailand and the United States.

Apart from the discussion, participants lauded Hasnan's bearing as a military man and a thinker.

"He is one of the moderate military men in the country whose attitude we all respect and follow as an example," said Rajagukguk, who once served under Hasnan. (hbk)