T

he bill proposing to reform intelligence will be incomplete unless the chief of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) is an independent professional.

So far the leaders of BIN have been appointed by sitting presidents who selected close confidantes within the Indonesian Military (TNI) or the National Police to run the nation’s spy agency.

The selection process has undermined BIN’s professionalism and independence in carrying out its main task of providing early warnings of threats to state security, defense and national interests.

Incumbent BIN chief Sutanto, a retired police general, and his predecessor, Syamsir Siregar, a retired Army general, are close supporters of Presdient Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Former president Megawati Soekarnoputri appointed her close aide (and former commander of the Kopassus special forces) AM Hendropriyono run the spy agency.

The bill has not proposed a mechanism to appoint the BIN’s chief that has passed muster with civil society groups and human rights activists.

The House of Representatives’ Commission I overseeing defense, information and foreign affairs has been deliberating the bill and been divided on how to appoint BIN chiefs.

Legislators from the President’s Democratic Party and from the House’s military/police faction maintain that BIN chiefs should be directly appointed by the President in a manner similar to appointing ministers.

Other parties want the President to nominate several candidates who would be sent to the House for fit-and-proper testing to ensure their professionalism and independence.

The appointment camp argues that the President must have the freedom to name a close professional confidant as the job hinges on trust.

The nomination camp (and human rights watchdogs) have instead proposed establishing objective criteria for selecting a BIN chief to prevent the agency from being misused by the government to maintain the status quo, as was done during the New Order era.

A BIN chief could be still appointed by the President, according to the nomination camp, but only after securing approval from the House as is the current practice for selecting the chiefs of the TNI and the National Police chiefs.

Soeharto, during his 32-year tenure, directly appointed intelligence chiefs chosen from the ranks of senior military officials to detect anti-government underground movements, through, among other things, abducting democracy activists.

In the reform era, BIN has failed to provide early warnings of terrorist bombings that have rocked embassies, churches and nightclubs in Bali. Meanhile intelligence agents were allegedly involved in securing the victory of Yudhoyono and the Democratic Party in the 2009 general election.

The bill reforming BIN would proscribe the agency from being ordered (by the President, for example) monitor political parties and their leaders without evidence of a threat to national security or the Constitution.

However the President has to deploy BIN to detect terrorist networks as early as possible since terrorist acts might disrupt the state security, create political instability and undermine national interests.

Under the proposed bill BIN and other state institutions with intelligence units, such as TNI and the National Police, would no longer be able to arbitrarily abuse their power.

The intelligence community’s remit would be synchronized with the human rights law, the freedom of information law, the state secrets law and a proposed bill on national security.

The appointment of an independent and professional BIN chief will ensure that the agency will detect all activities, including transnational crimes, that threaten state security and national interests.

A professional chief will encourage BIN to coordinate with the Indonesian Military chief, the National Police chief and the Attorney General to provide information and intelligence analysis to the President.

An independent BIN chief will help the agency conduct its operations professionally, especially in preliminary investigations. Special authority will be given to allow the spy agency and relevant institutions to work rapidly and professionally to detect terrorist threats and transnational crimes.

An independent and professional BIN chief will ensure that the intelligence agency will not be misused by the ruling regime to crackdown on its political foes in its attempt to maintain the status quo.

To monitor potential abuses of BIN’s power, the bill also limits the retention of classified information to 20 years and authorizes courts to obtain classified information to prosecute intelligence community officials for misconduct.

Unfortunately, the bill does not mention if the limitations on keeping material classified are retroactive or not. If it is retroactive, many documents, such as Sukarno’s Supersemar letter, which supposedly authorized Soeharto to suppress (bloodily) the Indonesian Communist Party in 1965, can be revealed. The move would allow the nation to rewrite its history and prevent us from teaching lies to our children.

The establishment of a national intelligence council and code of ethics and the imposition of harsh sanctions on rogue intelligence agents is no guarantee that BIN will not abuse its power.

The Agency must be led by independent professionals nominated by the President and approved by the House.

The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post