Transfer of TNI's territorial role could take years

Transfer of TNI's territorial role could take years

The Indonesian Military, through its territorial affairs chief
Agus Widjojo, revealed last Tuesday that it would gradually hand
over its territorial function to local administrations and the
National Police. The Jakarta Post interviewed Agus over the
weekend to get his insight into the plan. The following is an
excerpt of the interview.

Question: Former chief of the Army's Strategic Reserves
Command (Kostrad) Lt. Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah once aired his
idea about abolishing the Indonesian Military's (TNI) territorial
function. At that time, the Jakarta Military Command was named
the pilot project. How would you evaluate the project?

Answer: Generally, it was only part of the whole process to
obtain as much input as possible from the lower levels of the
military, and at the time was conducted by the Army. All the
input was then presented to the higher level, the TNI
Headquarters.

Q: Is there any difference with his concept and yours regarding
the abolishment of TNI's territorial function?

A: First, it must be understood that we are not going to abolish
TNI's territorial function, but to hand it over to local
administrations. Such a transfer is necessary as there have been
overlapping functions between the TNI and the local
administrations or between the TNI and the National Police
because of duplication of responsibility, especially in security
and defense.

Q: Could you elaborate?

A: We must distinguish between the use and the development of
national potential in the regions for defense purposes. In this
case, the development of national potential in the regions
constitutes one of the local administrations' functions because
they have the authority to deal with civilians. Someday TNI must
release its development function to local administrations and
focus on defense only, such as training and preparing combat
units in the regions and preparing defense plans for the regions.

Of course this will have consequences. TNI then must dissolve
its territorial institutions below military resort commands
(Korem), including the district military command at the regency
level (Kodim) and all military units at lower levels, including
subdistrict military command (Koramil) and military officers in
charge of village security (Babinsa).

Q: The dissolution of such lower-level military commands would
have implications for military personnel with positions there.
Has TNI Headquarters anticipated that?

A: One of our concerns in the restructuring is that the process
does not create internal rifts because of the reduction of
positions. Therefore, the program we design must be able to solve
this problem, by channeling the people concerned to other places,
or following natural reduction in that they eventually retire;
but of course the latter option is the least favorable.

Q: How would you evaluate the old territorial function of TNI?

A: All of TNI's civic missions, as stipulated in People's
Consultative Assembly Decree No. VIII/2000, are principally aimed
at accelerating development. Such civic missions, however, are
only carried out following a request from local administrations.

In the past, TNI's civic activities -- including TNI's
involvement in village programs (AMD), TNI's labor services
(Bakti TNI), the promotion of family planning, the health care
campaign -- were all initiatives of the TNI, decided upon and
carried out by the TNI. In the past, there were also many
deviations of TNI's territorial function, for instance being used
as a political vehicle to ensure that Golkar won elections.

That's one of the reasons why many people wanted TNI to hand
over its territorial function so as to avoid any partisan stand
being taken by the TNI, which at that time was called the Armed
Forces (ABRI).

We are now conducting internal reform based on a new paradigm
of the TNI, that is to give our best contribution to our beloved
country to meet the challenges of the new global era, marked by
tight competition among nations. To realize this, we must create
an effective and efficient national management system in a state
structure that is modern and democratic, with no duplication of
function and authority.

Q: When you reintroduced the idea, did you at any time
objectively observe each region?

A: We've tried to collect input from many parties, including from
the regions. There are some circumstances that prevent us from
generalizing the regions. We must identify and accommodate all
differences based on local conditions, so that the program can be
implemented specifically in each region.

Q: Does that mean that the handover of TNI's territorial function
will take some time to complete?

A: It is not the TNI's own decision as it is an intersectoral
program. We definitely need input from the institutions that will
eventually take over this (territorial role). The handover of
TNI's territorial function will also depend on the real situation
and conditions in each region across the country. For Java
island, for example, full realization of the program may be
completed in 12 years, but for Irian Jaya, it may take 19 years.
It may be completed in Sumatra and Sulawesi within 14 years, and
Kalimantan 17 years. (Tiarma Siboro)