TheJakartaPost
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Bring on the soldiers
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This handout photo released by Presidential Palace on May 13, 2018 shows Indonesia's President Joko Widodo (L), National Police Chief Tito Karnavian (C), Coordinating Minister for Social, Political, Legal and Security Affairs Wiranto (2nd L), and Armed Forces Chief Hadi Tjahjanto (2nd R) at the scene of an attack outside the Central Pantekosta church (Gereja Pantekosta Pusat) in Surabaya.
A series of blasts, including at least one suicide bombing, struck churches in Indonesia on Sunday, killing at least 11 people and wounding dozens in the deadliest attack for years in the world's biggest Muslim-majority country. (AFP/Presidential Palace)
I
ndonesia will soon have a new terrorism law. The House of Representatives had been sitting on the legislation for months, but on Friday, barely two weeks after a series of deadly terrorist attacks in the country, they finished their work. It took a crisis to get our representatives off their backsides.
A major point of contention was the role of the Indonesian Military (TNI) in fighting terrorism. Will they have full authority or play second fiddle to the National Police as they do under the current law? The House has settled on the former.
Ironically, it was National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian who pressed for the new law to be enacted, arguing shortly after the attacks that also killed at least six police officers that he needed more authority to more effectively fight terrorists. The new authorities include the right to detain suspects longer and with less bureaucracy.
Armed with these extra powers, which the military will also have, human rights groups must now ensure that they are not abused. It has been nearly 20 years since the military was removed from politics and then confined to dealing with national defense, leaving national security the domain of the police.
The extra powers under the new terrorism law call to mind the Subversion Law, one of the first laws the nation repealed immediately after the fall of Soeharto’s militarybacked regime in 1998, because it was widely abused to silence and jail critics of the government.
To their credit, the police have done a superb job in keeping the nation safe from terrorism, which is categorized as an extraordinary crime. The attacks a few weeks ago, including at the National Police’s Mobile Brigade headquarters in Jakarta’s suburb of Depok, were a few lapses in security. There would have been far deadlier attacks had it not been for the police, particularly its Densus 88 counterterrorism squad. This is evident in the number of suspected terrorists they have killed, arrested, prosecuted and jailed in several operations to bust terrorist networks and cells.
The nation has now decided the military and the police will share the responsibility. For the safety and security of the country, we ask that the National Police and TNI work together as equal partners. This may not be as easy as it seems, as the police were treated as the soldiers’ little brothers in the past.
One key area for collaboration is sharing intelligence. Gen. Tito says that in fighting terrorism, 75 percent of the work is in intelligence, 20 percent in developing cases and 5 percent active measures. The attacks earlier this month were clearly intelligence lapses that could have been prevented.
Sharing the field also means sharing the burden. Terrorists have targeted police officers, stations and even headquarters as for much of the last 10 years precisely because the police have gotten in the way of their struggle to establish a caliphate.
For better or worse, we will soon have a new terrorism law with all the attendant risks. There are no more excuses, and certainly no more lapses, for allowing another deadly terrorist attack to occur.
