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).