The challenge posed by TNI's political intervention

The challenge posed by TNI's political intervention

Munir, Executive Director, Indonesian Human Rights Watch, Jakarta

An article in the Feb. 21 issue of The Jakarta Post, Army
wants power again, quoted Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ryamizard
Ryacudu as saying the direct role of the Indonesian Military
(TNI) in domestic security affairs should be reinstated,
particularly given the threat of separatist movements and other
security disturbances.

This statement was then followed by a controversy arising from
a military bill proposed by the TNI, which contained the
provision that the TNI commander, in an emergency, can deploy
military forces within 24 hours and only afterward have to report
to the president.

Such views from within the TNI amount to a serious challenge
to the move toward democracy, especially the pursuit of civilian
supremacy over the military. The proposed bill can be seen as a
political maneuver and an attempt by the military to intervene in
the national political scene.

This political maneuvering should be examined in relation to
the tendency for continuous military intervention in politics in
many countries in transition, or those countries with a low
degree of political stability.

Michael C. Desch, in his 1999 book Civilian Control of the
Military, wrote that the inclination for military intervention in
politics depends on the forms of the threats to state defense
formulated by civilian political rulers, or by the military
authorities themselves.

The greater a threat of external origin, the less inclined to
political interference the military will be. Conversely, if the
internal threat is perceived as strong, the military will be more
inclined to interfere in political affairs.

Meanwhile, we can see how all the political discourse on
national security threats here have pivoted largely around
several themes of internal disturbances. They are dominated by
analyses of threat from military circles, with these analyses
raising the issues of national disintegration, communal
conflicts, lack of stability, etc.

Conflicts between civilian political forces provide continuous
legitimacy to the view that the nation's future is in danger.

Several pieces of legislation significant to the effort to
provide a new orientation for the state defense system have
instead retained military-dominated frameworks.

For instance, People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Decree No.
6/2000 and No. 7/2000 on the TNI and the National Police clearly
give considerable attention to internal threats. The civilian
political forces in the legislative body and the government have
failed to draft new frameworks -- so that important regulations
issued to renew relations between civilian and military
institutions have been distorted time after time, or even
annulled.

For example, the TNI proposed bill is an attempt to change the
provision that the right to deploy military forces rests with the
president, as stipulated in Law No. 3/2002 on state defense.

The formulation of threats to national security and state
defense will greatly affect national leadership, military
organizations, political and social forces. We also see a growing
tendency of political orientation among the military's top brass.

Further, civilian political forces tend to invite the
military's political intervention. The worsening of civilian and
military relations will also influence the doctrine and
structural models of military organizations.

The demand voiced from within the TNI to assume a broader role
and intervene in politics tends to be followed by an attempt to
maintain relevant organizational structures.

Following the Bali bombings on Oct. 12, TNI officers have
stated the need to retain territorial commands. We are told that
there are threats posed by the international environment, such as
terrorism. In Indonesia, terrorism will only strengthen the
orientation of internal security.

The state of civilian-military relations and the military's
inclination toward political intervention shows that in the
Republic's almost 60-year history there has been no proper
formulation of external threats to keep the military away from
politics.

Except for the second Dutch military invasion in 1948, our
history has shown threats only at the domestic level. During the
Cold War, many big countries formulated threats based on external
factors, which made for effective civilian control over the
military.

Yet in Indonesia in the post-Soeharto era, civilian political
forces have failed to consolidate and forge a new relationship
with the military.

Political feuds have led to security disturbances and social
conflicts, that again readily lead to the formulation of
"internal threats". This in spite of the fact that disturbances
and conflicts are dominated by the struggle between old political
forces and demands for political change, rather than the eventual
consequences of democratization.

Under such circumstances, TNI would have reason enough to
intervene as a political actor, including protecting military
structures, doctrines and views regarding national threats.

The political interests of the military leadership are also
influential in determining the orientation of threats. An expert
on the TNI, Ulf Shundhaussen, observed in 1982 that military
intervention is due to internal factors in the military,
particularly the "inclination to intervene" among military
circles.

Another factor contributing to this inclination is the endemic
inability of the political system to limit military activities to
non-political roles. This also means that the absence of a
civilian strategic political agenda to control the military, for
whatever reason, is an invitation to military interference.

Therefore, efforts to correct the political role of the TNI
should become a main factor in building civilian supremacy over
the military. The crucial need here is to eliminate all motives
for military intervention in politics through the correct
orientation of the state defense system, the concept of security
threats and the denial of opportunity for high-ranking military
officers to join politics.

This includes the rejection of any attempts to allow the TNI
to deploy its forces without prior approval from the president, a
prospect rightly feared by the researcher Ikrar Nusa Bhakti of
the National Institute of Sciences (the Post, Feb. 23).