TNI to embark on hearts, minds mission
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Claiming that security threats will remain high in 2005, the Indonesian Military (TNI) is planning to send personnel to conflict-prone areas to engage in what it calls a "non-physical civic missions" (hearts and minds missions).
TNI chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto said here on Thursday that officers would brief people in conflict-torn areas about, among other things, national unity, nationalism and defense concepts.
"Through the program we expect that people living in conflict- prone areas will come to understand the meaning of brotherhood. Besides that, we want to prevent people from engaging in various kinds of agitation that will only lead to physical conflict," Endriartono said on Thursday.
During former president Soeharto's regime, TNI often sent troops on civic missions focusing on building bridges and opening up new roads in the countryside. The practice, however, was halted following strong public demand for the military to return to their barracks.
Endriartono hinted on Thursday that the civic missions would be revived and would be held simultaneously with the "hearts and minds" missions.
He did not reveal the areas where TNI would deploy its troops, but Maluku, North Maluku and Central Sulawesi have been plagued by prolonged ethnic and religious conflicts.
The four-star Army general said he expected the Ministry of Defense to allocate some funds for the project and that "local administrations are also obliged to cover budgets for civil missions."
Endriartono was referring to the military law which allows the military to embark on both military operations and on missions "other than war".
The concept of "non-physical civic mission" has yet to be made clear, but a military officer told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that the TNI would make their missions effective by giving briefings to villagers at local mosques or holding gatherings at village heads' offices.
Citing TNI's socio-political function -- widely referred to as dwifungsi, or "dual function" -- the TNI has maintained its presence in society, with the military becoming deeply involved in people's everyday lives, including the way that people perform their religious duties and the way they raise their families.
In the 1980s, TNI was actively involved in the government's campaign for family planning. At that time, troops were deployed to certain remote areas to brief people about the use of contraceptives.
Following the downfall of the dictator Soeharto in 1998, the public at large demanded that TNI return to its barracks.
A series of bloody conflicts across the country, however, has forced TNI to stay put in may areas in order to take actions aimed at "restoring the security situation."
Critics have often said, however, that the presence of TNI personnel in conflict-prone territories only worsened the conflicts, making efforts to stop them futile.
An assessment of TNI's territorial function has come from Indonesian human rights monitor, Imparsial, saying that the territorial concept has lost its legitimacy following the end of independence war of the 1940s that adopted guerrilla war strategies.
"Even in the troubled province of Aceh, where the secessionist movement uses guerrilla warfare strategies, the TNI's territorial concept has no basis -- and in fact has failed -- with soldiers' behavior causing hatred to actually increase among the Acehnese," said an Acehnese sociologist -- who is also Imparsial's program director -- Otto Syamsuddin Ishak on Thursday.