Power Politics and the Indonesian Military

Damien Kingsbury

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781134432141
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Politics & International Relations
• Categoría: Politics

Throughout the postwar history of Indonesia, the military have played a key role in the politics of the country and in imposing unity on a fragmentary state. The collapse of the authoritarian New Order government of President Suharto weakened the state and the armed forces briefly lost their grip on control of the archipelago. However, under President Megawati, the military has again begun to assert itself, and re-impose its heavy hand on control of the state, most notably in the fracturing outer provinces. Based on extensive original research, this book examines the role of the military in Indonesian politics. It looks at the role of the military historically, examines the different ways it is involved in politics, and considers how the role of the military might develop in what is still an uncertain future.

1 The problematic role of the TNI

If a military campaign does not have popular support behind it, it is bound to fail.

(Pour 1993: 260)

The Indonesian National Military (Tentara Nasional Indonesia – TNI)¹ has played and continues to play a role in the politics of the Republic of Indonesia that begs the distinction between a civil and a military state. The balance between civil and military authority has, at times, varied. But the civil state continues to be so fundamentally weak, and the military relatively so strong, that the continued existence of the state without the active intervention of the military is at least improbable and perhaps impossible.

In the early years of the twenty-first century the military establishment in Indonesia was involved in many affairs of state that, other than in totalitarian countries, would not normally be associated with military forces, and which were at odds with the claim of civilian political supremacy. The military, led by its dominant branch, the army, has been the country’s premier institution since 1966 when it assumed a central position within the state. From the declaration of independence on 17 August 1945, the TNI has had a prominent and often leading role in the state’s political life; during the period of the war of independence it rarely considered itself to be under civilian control. A significant number of cabinet members have been serving or former generals, a situation that continued, albeit to a lesser extent, well into the post-Suharto era. Furthermore, active and retired officers have occupied a large number of seats in the legislature, the People’s Legislative Assembly (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat – DPR), and, consequently, the supreme governing body, the People’s Consultative Assembly (Mejelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat – MPR), which they continue to do although in reduced numbers. It is worth noting here, however, that although the number of TNI/national police representatives in the DPR has been reduced, when each seat in the assembly represents around 400,000 people, the TNI and police, with 38 seats and a combined personnel of approximately 500,000, are still grossly over-represented. In August 2002 a special session of the MPR voted to remove TNI representation from the DPR and MPR entirely in 2004, a move that the TNI only grudgingly accepted. Conversely, due to a process of political and economic decentralisation which started at the beginning of 2001, the TNI’s grip on the provinces has grown stronger, especially through provincial funding of TNI activities. Commanders of the various Territorial commands have also continued to play a highly influential role in the affairs of their respective regions, although, except for regions affected by separatist sentiment, their function is not as predominantly repressive as it once was. In the post-Suharto period, most civilian and some military leaders have advocated the removal of the TNI from politics, but this call has not been met by concerted action. As a consequence, although the political role of the TNI has changed since the fall of Suharto, it retains significant political influence and the demonstrated capacity to direct or subvert the affairs of state if and when it chooses (as is discussed in later chapters).

Within the TNI there is a long-standing belief that civilian officials are fundamentally incapable of running the state and too easily fall prey to sectarianism based on self-interest. This belief grew during Indonesia’s first years, when various governments rose and fell as a result of factional infighting, and was reinforced through the process of impeachment and removal of President Abdurrahman Wahid in mid-2001, continuing into the post-Wahid period.

A common factor in the politics of post-colonial states is that the extent to which independence was achieved through persuasion or through military force has directly affected the constitution of the resultant institutional political structure. Commonly, where post-colonial states have gained independence through military pressure, the military has retained a relatively greater role in post-independence politics. Similarly, where independence has been achieved without the aid of a military force, the tendency has been for the military to play a lesser role in the political affairs of state.² As a state that came to independence through revolution and in which the military retained close links to members of the elite, or in some cases were the elite, Indonesia’s experience has approximated that of a number of other postcolonial states.

Yet since the mid-1960s Indonesia has been a state with military personnel in government, not a state with a military government. In some respects this is a fine distinction and might easily obscure the active political role that the TNI has played and continues to play. But an example of the TNI’s resourcefulness is the way in which it was able to both formally and informally insert itself into political life, and the fact that this has become if not an accepted outcome then at least an acknowledged political reality.

The services

The TNI comprises three military services and, formerly, the police. There are approximately 317,000 personnel in the TNI, including the army (TNI-Angkatan Darat, TNI-AD, or TNI-Land Force); about 47,000 in the navy (TNI-Angkatan Laut, TNI-AL, or TNI-Sea Force), including about 1,000 navy air-arm troops and 13,000 marines); and about 27,000 in the air force (TNI-Angkatan Udara, TNI-AU, or TNI-Air Force). The army is by far the largest and thus the dominant service, with around 243,000 active-duty personnel. The air force is a generally politically inactive branch of the armed services, although its senior officers have sometimes held posts at formally high levels of the TNI, most notably during the presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid and his successor Megawati Sukarnoputri, as a less belligerent alternative to army personnel. Prior to the events of 1 October 1965, the air force was extremely loyal to Sukarno and relatively more sympathetic to the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, or PKI). The air force was subsequently ‘purged’ of its pro-Sukarno and leftist elements by the army in the post-1965 period, and was long afterwards considered by the army to be a politically suspect organisation. The navy was similarly purged by the army in the post-1965 period, although, given Indonesia’s archipelic nature, it retained an obvious necessity. The navy’s marines branch was viewed by many Indonesians as being a similarly equipped but far more benign and civilian-friendly organisation than the army. As a consequence, the marines were called out to help restore peace after the rioting of May 1998, which saw Suharto’s resignation from the presidency. However, the marines were especially active in East Timor, Ambon and Aceh, and their presence in the outlying regions was far less benign than was their presence at the heart of the state.

An International Crisis Group report noted that with the resolution of the problems in Aceh, Maluku and West Papua, and assuming no changes to the regional strategic environment, army numbers might be halved to approximately 100,000 (ICG 2001: 20). Although relatively small, if understood primarily as a civil guard or paramilitary police then the army is relatively large for its actual, as opposed to nominal, function. That said, overall numbers were reduced between 1966–82, reflecting Indonesia’s need to reduce military spending and a bid to ‘professionalise’ the army, while enlistment was maintained at existing levels.

While the conscription of civilians into the armed forces is provided for by the law, because of a high level of unemployment and underemployment the armed forces have been able to attract sufficient voluntary numbers to maintain mandated strengths. However, some specialist officers such as doctors are occasionally conscripted for short periods of service. Reflecting the continuing prominence of the Territorial system (discussed in Chapter 3), most enlisted personnel are recruited, trained and serve in units near or in their own provinces.

The armed forces officer corps numbers approximately 50,000, with less than 1 per cent at the rank of general officer. Retirement age for officers is 55 and, other than in rare and exceptional circumstances, is enforced. This has helped to clear the way for the promotion of younger officers, especially from the backlog built up from the high level of officer recruitment that occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Officer training at the Armed Forces Academy of the Republic of Indonesia (Akadami ABRI – Akabri) and its successor organisation, the Staff Training Command College (Sekolah Staf dan Komando – Sesko), has engendered a relatively high level of institutionalised esprit de corps, despite earlier regionalism, rivalry between the services and factional competition in particular within the army.

Indonesia’s armed forces also link to, in a variety of related capacities, paramilitaries (or militias) of different types, most of which are poorly trained and equipped. Some of these paramilitaries are officially recognised; others are not but still receive varying levels of covert support from branches of the TNI. Examples of such covertly supported militias include the thirteen militias that were operating in East Timor in the run up to, and immediately after, the referendum on independence in August 1999; a militia organisation operating in West Papua; and an ethnic Javanese militia in central Aceh. More shadowy support has been given to the extremist Islamic Laskar Jihad (Holy Warriors) who are primarily from Java but who were operating in Maluku and Central Sulawesi, and later in West Papua and Aceh, until October 2002.

The official government budget for the TNI is relatively small by international standards – at only 1.8 per cent of GDP – but it is supplemented by revenue from many military businesses and foundations (yayasan), which, it is estimated, quadruples the TNI’s overall income (both legal and illegal).³ The Indonesian National Police (Polisi Republik Indonesia, or Polri) was a branch of the armed forces from the early 1960s until they were formally separated on 1 April 1999, a process which was completed in July 2000. This separation was intended to ‘civilianise’ the police, which had been under military command, and to contribute to the ‘civilianisation’ of Indonesia’s numerous conflicts. The separation occurred under the auspices of the TNI’s ‘New Paradigm’ (paradim baru), which was intended to formally depoliticise the TNI.⁴ With 190,000 personnel (but growing quickly), the national police forms a much smaller portion of the population than in most other states. However, this figure does not include provincial and local police, although it does include the paramilitary Mobile Brigade (Brigade Mobil, or Brimob), which acts as a supplementary military force in particular in Indonesia’s trouble spots such as Aceh and West Papua, and which had a high presence in East Timor until Indonesia’s formal separation in October 1999.

Two functions

The TNI’s primary and all-encompassing doctrine is known as dwifungsi (‘dual function’). The dwifungsi is a doctrine of the military’s own making and has continued to evolve ever since it was first enunciated within General Nasution’s ‘Middle Way’ speech at Magelang in 1958. According to this doctrine, the TNI performs an avowedly double role both as defender of the state and as an active component of the social and political life of the state. In its role of defender of the state the armed forces portrays itself as performing defence duties common to most other states. Yet in this capacity the TNI’s primary purpose is not focused on external threats to the state but on actual or perceived internal threats, and is therefore highly political, albeit in a decidedly minatory sense.

However, the unique element of dwifungsi is the role of social and political actor that it bestows on the TNI. The broad and ambiguous charter of dwifungsi formed the means by which military personnel, until the presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid, were assigned throughout the government to posts usually filled in other countries by civil servants or politically appointed civilians, such as governorships and heads or senior officials in government agencies or departments. The most prevalent of these assignments for active-duty and retired military officers were as provincial governors, district heads, legislative members, numerous functionaries within civilian governmental departments, and as ambassadors abroad. Since October 1999, however, TNI staff have been required to choose between civil appointments and active military duty. While this has ensured that the number of active officers occupying civil posts has fallen dramatically, there remain very close links between retired or non-active officers and those who remain on the TNI’s active list. These links have always been dominated by the active officers, and this relationship was formalised by an internal decision by senior TNI officers in February 2001. That said, there is usually such close agreement between active and non-active or retired officers on political issues that the formalisation of the seniority of active officer status over non-active or retired officer status failed to mark a significant shift in the TNI’s political orientation.

Beyond the development of its civil function, perhaps what is of greater significance is the morphing of the TNI’s defence role, which is internally focused, into that of arbiter of political life, both geographically through its Territorial structure (Teritorium) and centrally as the guarantor of government. The TNI has been the mechanism by which the state has survived more or less intact, and it has arbitrated, in an often brutal fashion, over what is and what is not acceptable political activity or expression. Under the New Order, Indonesia’s military culture had the capacity to regard almost any form of political activity as a security threat to which it could and should respond. Although having stepped back a little from this domineering position, the TNI continues to assume that it is automatically involved in all internal security matters, even if that is by way of handing over authority to the police. Thus the TNI has retained the view that it is the arbiter of what constitutes a security threat.

Except for a brief period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Indonesia’s government could not be characterised as military in nature, and it has become less so into the early years of the twenty-first century. Not all top national, provincial, regional and district jobs are held by the military, and the number of military personnel assigned to dwifungsi civilian positions at all levels of the government was probably fewer than 5,000 officers in 1992 and had declined thereafter. In 1992, approximately one half of the country’s district (kabupaten) heads (bupati) and one-third of the twenty-seven provincial or region governors were military officers. Nevertheless, under the dwifungsi doctrine, which legitimised the performance of both its military and non-military missions, the TNI became a dominant factor in the political life of the country and has acted as an executive agent of government policies, with which it both agrees and, in areas of state security, directs.

The close relationship between President Suharto and, as it was then, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia (Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia – ABRI) dominated the leadership dynamics from the beginning of Suharto’s New Order government in 1967. But by the 1990s, the personal tie between Suharto and many of the generals had diminished as a result of the growing age gap between them and an increasing desire on the part of the new armed forces leadership to resist personal ties to the presidency. Since Suharto’s resignation ABRI’s and then the TNI’s links to the presidency have been troubled. The TNI under Habibie was in practical terms unaccountable, and most of its senior officers actively worked to undermine the presidency of Indonesia’s first genuinely democratically elected president, Abdurrahman Wahid. Only under Megawati Sukarnoputri might it be said that the TNI has a more comfortable relationship with the presidency, but this is most likely due to the fact that Megawati has long been close to the TNI’s core group, that she reflects their values and interests, and that she has not attempted to limit them.

Indonesia’s importance

Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous state, with about 232 million people from 10 major and more than 300 minor ethnic groups living across approximately 1,000 islands within a 13,600 island group over an area of a little over 5 million square kilometres. It is the world’s biggest Islamic state, a major oil producer and occupies a strategic location at the crossroads of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. During the Cold War Indonesia was regarded as a lynchpin for regional security, and in the early twenty-first century it was again being courted by the US both to assist in building an informal coalition to contain China and then as an important part of the US ‘war on terrorism’.

Furthermore, Indonesia has an economy that is linked with the rest of East Asia and the US and, since 1997, has been one of the world’s greatest economic basket cases and a major recipient of IMF payments. Since the resignation of President Suharto in May 1998 the political process in Indonesia has become quite unstable, and indeed was already unstable prior to his resignation (such instability in part precipitating that resignation). Political instability is cited as the primary cause for the country’s continuing economic malaise. It has also been suggested that the state could break up into its component parts, in a process of ‘Balkanisation’. Despite its claim to being a stabilising force, the TNI has been a significant contributing factor to this instability.

Symbiosis: Indonesia and the TNI

The central thesis of this book is that the state of the Republic of Indonesia is not viable without the active involvement of the TNI in its political and security activities, which are inextricably linked. This in turn reflects the relatively arbitrary construction of the state from a non-homogenous colony, or set of linked sub-colonies that had separate pre-colonial histories. Indeed, the TNI is constructed not as an external defence organisation but primarily as an internally focused source of state cohesion, and regards the maintenance of the contemporary unitary state as its reason for being. The state and the TNI’s current role within it are mutually dependant; the state cannot maintain its territorial integrity without unity being imposed by the TNI, and the TNI cannot exist in its present form without the demands of a potentially or actually fragmented state. That is, if one side of the relationship were to fundamentally alter its structure, the diminution or dissolution of the other would follow.

In this respect, the present work conside...