The TNI shoots itself in the foot in Aceh

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.