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span class="inline inline-left">JP/R. BertowedhatamaMost soldiers pave their way to the top by joining an elite squad, winning an important battle or masterminding a successful military operation, but Maj. Gen. (ret.) Nachrowi Ramli, 60, found success by staying below the radar.

The head of the National Encryption Body (Lemsaneg) from 2002 to 2008, Nachrowi was the person behind the implementation of the National Encryption System, which serves as the backbone for the country’s exchange of secret information from and to state institutions.

Under the system, launched in 2004, all ministries and state-owned companies are required to install standardized encryption devices in certain phone and data transmission lines to prevent potential leaks during transfers of secret information.

“In the beginning, it was difficult for us to convince many government institutions to adopt the system mainly because their top officials interpreted the definition of state secret in totally different ways,” the father of four daughters told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview at his home in Condet, East Jakarta.

“The state oil and gas company Pertamina, for example, would label the information about the country’s daily oil production deficit as secret so it can cover it by buying oil from overseas for a ‘normal’ price, but unfortunately, not all state bodies treat such information the same way.”

In the early 2000s, according to Nachrowi, there were only five government institutions, including the Home Ministry and the Attorney General’s Office, that had secure communication systems to “decode and encode” their secrets.

Dozens of other government bodies without such systems were prone to information theft, mainly for intelligence purposes, he said.

“A few years ago, we found a bugging device planted in a cham-ber belonging to an official at the Administrative Reform Ministry who co-assessed candidates nominated as executives in several state-owned companies,” Nachrowi said.

“We didn’t know exactly how long the device had been there but it seemed like the official was not aware that he had become a target of illegal surveillance due to his strategic position.”

Nachrowi, however, refused to identify the party behind the wiretapping incident, although he said he knew who they were.

“In the intelligence world, we don’t sue [enemies]. We just keep them in our radar,” he said, smiling.

The third of seven children, Nachrowi, who loves Betawi pencak silat traditional martial arts, was raised by a single mother following his father’s death just a few days before his 14th birthday.

Amid the economic recession and political turmoil following the 1965 attempted coup, the young Nachrowi helped his mother make ends meet by selling rice and eggs while also participating in the massive anti-communist movement, an experience that inspired him later to become a soldier.

Graduating from the Military Academy in 1973, Nachrowi started his career as an officer in the Army’s encryption agency in Jakarta before he was assigned – five years later – to study cryptography science at the National Encryption Academy, which was renowned for its high education standards.

Aside from drilling how to run intricate data encryption methods, the academy also taught its students how to design and build encryption devices along with tactics to crack opponent’s codes.

“The academy’s curriculum was difficult. A student who failed a semester would be automatically expelled from the academy,” said Nachrowi, who left the academy in 1980 as one of its best graduates.

In 1984, Nachrowi was recruited by Lemsaneg and stationed with the Foreign Ministry’s Encryption Center, which allowed him to learn about diplomacy and international politics.

Two years later, Nachrowi was posted as an attache with the Indonesian Embassy in Cairo before returning to Indonesia in 1992 and holding various executive positions in Lemsaneg.

With more than three decades as an intelligence and encryption expert, Nachrowi believes the future of national security will not only rely on military power but also on the country’s strength at managing its secret information.

“The rapid development of information technology has brought us to the era of information wars,” Nachrowi said.

“Today, you don’t need a physical confrontation to conquer a country as long as you have strategic information about its economy, security and defense in your pocket.”

Such a warning is also addressed to Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy and the world’s most populous Muslim country.

“During my six-year leadership alone, Lemsaneg found at least 20 [Indonesian] embassies that had been bugged. That doesn’t include countless efforts to tap communication between Jakarta and the presidential plane,” Nachrowi added.

Prior to his retirement from the military in 2008, Nachrowi was elected chair of Bamus Betawi, which shelters more than 100 Betawi-based organizations in Greater Jakarta.

Earlier this year, he also secured the top seat in the Democratic Party’s Jakarta chapter, a success which he admitted was partly due to his long-time friendship with party founder President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was his classmate at the Military Academy.

Although he is no longer involved in intelligence activities, Nachrowi said he still dreamt of seeing law enforcers and citizens working hand in hand to preserve national security, including winning the war against terrorism.

“Citizens should not entirely blame people in intelligence when a terrorist act occurs as we cannot monitor every inch of the country 24 hours a day,” Nachrowi said.

“[People] need to develop a sense of awareness and help us fight terrorism by immediately reporting irregularities [they observe] in their community,” he said.