The TNI shoots itself in the foot in Aceh

Ong Hock Chuan, Maverick, Jakarta

It is too early to say who will win the war in Aceh but one thing is for certain: the Indonesian Military (TNI) is taking a licking on the public relations front. Ironically, its biggest enemy here is neither the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) or the media, but itself.

Barely two weeks into the war, the TNI is realizing that it is anything but all quiet on the Western front. GAM, it has realized, shoots back not only bullets but also verbal missiles aimed at destroying the TNI's morale, credibility and whatever support it has for the war. The TNI, however, is reacting in the worst possible way to this attack: It is now trying to introduce curbs on journalists covering the war against quoting GAM leaders and calling the media irresponsible for reporting news from the other side.

If this keeps up, all the TNI will achieve is to alienate and anger the local and foreign media, prompting them to be more sympathetic toward GAM and eroding any support it might have among reporters.

What the TNI should do, instead, is to realize that in modern warfare the media is a fact of life and the technology that makes the media a pervasive presence is part of life. You either deal with it skillfully with a modern, sophisticated communications strategy or you can, like what the TNI is doing now, twist in the wind and blame the whole world for going against you. Then you sound churlish and the whole world really starts to turn against you.

What the TNI can do to dig itself out of this mess is to consider whether it has the expertise and skill among its personnel to implement its communications strategy, if it has any.

Whether it has a communications strategy remains a mystery but one obvious media strategy it has adopted is to "embed" journalists among TNI troops. This is a strategy that by and large served the Americans well in Iraq and can potentially work for the TNI.

Why? Consider the parallels. The U.S. went to war with doubtful media support, even from its domestic media. Overseas reporters were unprepared to believe anything coming out of Washington. The TNI has similar credibility problems, both with domestic and foreign journalists.

Faced with this situation, the U.S. was in a vulnerable position. Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein could have easily eroded any media and popular support of the war by playing the victim, blaming any atrocities on the U.S. and claim -- as he tried to do -- that the allies were suffering serious setbacks. GAM can easily do all these things and erode whatever support the TNI has locally and overseas.

Faced with this situation, observed Clarke S. Judge, the managing director of the White House Writers group in the Asian Wall Street Journal, the U.S. opened its operations to "the kind of risks that no one would take if he were planning to lie. Spin was out of the question. Good or bad, the story is there for the reporter to see."

Hence the embedding of journalists among the troops. What went largely unnoticed by the public, however, was the number of trained and skilled media handlers the U.S. military had on the ground, in its field headquarters and in Washington itself. These were soldiers who had been highly trained to handle the media and execute their communications strategy. This is where any parallels between the Pentagon and the TNI diverge.

Recall, for instance, that the U.S. soldiers never seemed flustered when leveled with even the most hostile of accusations from the media. When the media misreported they did not lose their cool but sought to correct the "facts" as they saw them. And when they were faced by inconvenient questions they "bridged" (a technique for avoiding tricky questions in the world of PR) their way to the key messages Pentagon had carefully crafted. They also staged daily briefings which were made for TV.

In contrast, the TNI overreacts to even when the media quotes the other side. It lectures journalists to be responsible, implying that they are not. And it tries to put curbs on what and who the reporters can quote or write. And where are the daily briefings which are excellent opportunities for the TNI to reach every Indonesian household via TV?

To experienced PR practitioners, Pentagon's performance is a reflection of how seriously the Americans take their communications battle, while the TNI's performance to date is a reflection of how low communications is placed on the priority list of the TNI.

The TNI must realize that with a free press in Indonesia and the pervasive presence of foreign reporters control is not an option where the media is concerned. Influence is, but to be effective you need specialized skills born out of a realization that the media exists as a neutral force that can be made to work for or against you.

Maverick is a public relations consultancy that specializes in crisis and issues management as well as brand strategy. It also trains corporate executives in media handling skills.