I

n deliberating a revision of the terrorism law, debate has erupted on the role of the military in counterterrorism operations.

The bill to revise the 2013 Law on Terrorism proposed by the government stipulates that the Indonesian Military (TNI) should act as one of the assisting parties to the National Police, the authorized institution to maintain domestic security, in thwarting terrorist acts.

The new stipulation has raised debates among leaders of the military and high-ranking security officials, where in the past weeks, military officials maintained that the TNI should be given a greater role in fighting terrorism.

TNI’s Strategic Intelligence Agency (BAIS) chief Maj. Gen. Yayat Sudrajat said combating terrorism should be the main task of the TNI. The BAIS, he said should be involved in operations to early detect terrorism and to interrogate suspected terror groups, especially if they were connected with international terrorist networks.

National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said both institutions had been working in harmony for years to combat terrorism with the TNI playing its role in assisting the police.

“If TNI wants a role in law enforcement, then who will bring [potential] cases to court?” he said over the weekend.

The law revision has only proposed expansion of the police’s role in investigating terrorism suspects.

Human rights activists are also concerned that the TNI’s potentially greater role in the law revision will contradict Article 7 of Law No. 34/2004 on the TNI, which grants the military authority to fight terrorism under a special presidential order but only in the circumstance where terrorism threatens the country’s sovereignty such as the emergence of militants connected with the Islamic State (IS) radical movement.

Arsul Sani, a member of the House of Representatives’ special committee revising the terrorism law, said a win-win stipulation on the TNI’s role would be made to satisfy all parties including the TNI, the National Police and human rights activists without having to contradict the 2004 TNI Law.

“No final decision has been made on the stipulation, but involvement of the TNI in terrorism matters must not deviate from the TNI law. We will make a stipulation that will not overlap other laws,” Arsul told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

The bill, which is expected to be finalized by the year’s end, is still being intensively deliberated at the House and it is expected that each party faction will submit its input on the stipulation regarding the TNI’s involvement by early August.

Arsul said the TNI’s involvement in combating terrorism was unavoidable because there were areas where the National Police could not have access to should terror acts, for example, take place on a vessel at the country’s border or on international waters, where it is the TNI’s jurisdiction.

“Also when terror acts have links to other countries the TNI has official agreements with that is why we have to craft the stipulation carefully,” Arsul said.

Critics have blamed the National Police for the failure of the Operation Tinombala joint team, comprising the police and military personnel, in apprehending the country’s most-wanted terrorist Santoso and his terror group the East Indonesia Mujahidin (MIT) in Poso.

The operation is still ongoing and has spent billions of rupiah of tax payers’ money.

Al Araf, the executive director of human rights watchdog Imparsial, said the involvement of the TNI combating terrorism could undermine the country’s criminal justice system because with the military playing an active role in domestic security, the institution could potentially conduct arrests like that of the police, which could lead to human right abuses.

“The stipulation must be called off. The TNI law already contains such a stipulation anyway. Why does the TNI want a bigger role in the terrorism law revision? Giving it such a luxury will see a return of the military’s role like that during the New Order regime where the TNI was involved in human rights abuse such as the kidnapping of activists in 1998. The TNI is not a law enforcement body,” Al Araf told the Post.