Indonesian Military and rights

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 06/28/2006 3:56 PM  |  Opinion

Juwono Sudarsono, Jakarta

No defense force in all of East Asia has been subjected to more domestic and international scrutiny about its role in the life of the country than the Indonesian Military (TNI).

Since president Soeharto, a retired general, stepped down in May 1998, the TNI's role has been periodically in the forefront of news coverage by national and international media. And none more so than that of the ""military businesses"" owned, operated by or linked to any one of the tri-services: Army, Navy and Air Force.

Most NGOs incessantly find fault with almost anything and everything the TNI (especially the Army) did, is doing and will do in the future. The anti-military tone is partly in the nature of NGOs anywhere, and is deeply rooted in the liberal Western lexicon of ""civilian supremacy"" or ""civilian control"", and the predictable language of ""back to the barracks"", ""transparency and accountability"".

Much of the reporting on the TNI -- most recently in the June 2006 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, ""Too High a Price: The Human Rights Costs of the Indonesian Military's Economic Activities"", draws largely upon events that took place in Indonesia before May 1998.

As expected, the HRW report starts with the dramatic ""front-loading"" of its title, as if all of Indonesia's military businesses were systematically linked to all human rights abuses. Words such as ""mafia-like behavior"" are laced through the report's pages, with nary a single reference to the realities that in many instances throughout Indonesia's earlier history, from the mid-1950s down through mid-2006, the cooperatives and foundations helped provide TNI tactical units with in-kind support for low-ranking soldiers, helped provide education to poor families and, in many instances outside of Java, assigned soldiers to teach Indonesian and arithmetic, and build irrigation networks, water supplies, bridges and schools.

From the outset the TNI has never had a decent budget to provide security and defense services as part of the provision of a public good to enable an environment wherein development, stability and civil liberties can flourish. Since the mid-1950s, no Indonesian government has been able to provide the police and the defense force with an adequate budget to provide that public service.

The HRW report is understandably dismissive of such realities, given that its framework rests on the assumptions of the ""professionalism and transparency"" taken for granted in developed countries. HRW was also mindful that in the wake of the TNI's exemplary role in the rescue and rehabilitation efforts in post-tsunami in Aceh in 2004-2005 and the recent earthquake in Yogyakarta and Central Java, the TNI's image at home and abroad has soared. The lifting of the U.S. restrictions on spare parts to the TNI also took the wind of the visceral anti-TNI lobby in the United States and Western Europe.

All in all, the content and tenor of the HRW report is both predictable and disappointing. When I served in London as ambassador, I had many meetings with NGOs and human rights activists (including HRW Asia) about the TNI and its role in the reform of political life in Indonesia, including the divestment of the TNI's businesses. The language and lexicon of most of the groups I met came right through a time warp of 1990-1998.

They simply could not and would not accept the notion that the TNI was the pioneer of political reform, and none more so when Lt. Gen. S.B. Yudhoyono was its chief of territorial affairs in 1997-1998. Human rights groups also would not acknowledge the UN Human Rights Summit formulation in June 1993 that human rights constituted ""civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights in an integrated, inseparable and balanced manner"".

But then HRW thrives on focusing solely on civil and political rights infringements because their bread and butter heavily is emphasizing violations that are much more politically dramatic and headline grabbing. Besides, who would want to read about the TNI's successes in separating sectarian groups from killing one another in Kalimantan, Sulawesi or Ambon.

What congressman in the U.S. or parliamentarian in Europe would care about a TNI soldier's tireless efforts in helping villagers build irrigation networks, makeshift shelters and wooden bridges in the outbacks of Kalimantan? No editor in the newsrooms of satellite TV stations and print media outlets in North America or Western Europe would dream of providing a favorable paragraph or two about the TNI. The TNI as ""serial abusers"" of human rights will for a long time remain a constant whipping boy for the ""serial accusers"" of the NGO community.

The writer is the Indonesian defense minister. The views expressed here are personal.

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