Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD has since appeared to play down the general’s pronouncement, by saying that anyone linked to the PKI would have been free to join the ranks of the military or any other branch of the civil service anyway.

The senior security minister said that the Constitutional Court was actually the first to pave the way for descendants of former PKI members to be able to achieve their political rights.

“The requirements, for instance, to become candidates for the legislature or regional governments no longer have such conditions. Civil servants have also not faced it [being disbarred for family links to the PKI] for a long time, so the TNI is hardly the first in this regard,” Mahfud said on Sunday, as quoted by Tempo.co.

Nevertheless, Andika’s words have appeased the relatives of victims of the 1965 communist purge and led analysts to expect a fairer and nondiscriminatory TNI recruitment policy.

Bedjo Untung, the chairman of the Foundation of Victims of the 1965-1966 Killings (YPKP65), described the development as “a breath of fresh air”.

“I was very excited when I first heard the news. And when I conveyed this to the victims of the 1965 killings, their responses were similar – they were happy with the development,” Bedjo told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

As someone previously accused of being a communist sympathizer, Bedjo said he hoped Andika’s words would serve as the start of a shift in the military’s attitude toward self-introspection and self-evaluation for past mistakes.

Meanwhile, military analyst Khairul Fahmi from the Institute for Security and Strategic Studies (ISESS) believed Andika’s decision to be a “progressive” move toward a fair, non-discriminatory recruitment system based on capability and merit.

“Indonesia has held onto its political decision to forbid communist teachings, but even this shouldn’t be applied haphazardly,” he told the Post.

That said, Khairul also acknowledged that this move was part of Andika’s efforts to burnish his progressive credentials.

The military commander made headlines last year after he issued a directive to stop subjecting female recruits to so-called “virginity tests”. The general was also praised for publicly supporting military member and volleyball athlete Aprilio Manganang, who competed as a woman but has since transitioned to becoming a man.

Meanwhile, Andika has promised a new way to handle the bloody conflict in Papua, where the TNI has for years been accused of employing a self-righteous national security approach against separatists and the local population.

Khairul noted that the TNI still tended to enforce ideological puritanism free from communist teachings, despite the absence of specific regulations on the matter, which often take the form of screening and excluding military candidates with links to the PKI and its affiliated organizations.

“[Such candidates] usually fail in the ‘ideological’ segment of the civic knowledge test,” he said on Saturday.

Read also: Andika vows to sort out TNI’s role

Legal basis

The military commander questioned the legal basis for banning descendants of PKI members from joining the TNI during an admissions assessment meeting with members of the TNI’s strategic intelligence agency that was published on Andika’s YouTube channel last Wednesday.

At the time, the general flagged a point made by Col. A. Dwiyanto, a director at the agency, who used a 1966 provisional People’s Consultative Assembly decree (TAP MPRS) to justify excluding descendants of PKI members from the military’s ranks.

The decree prohibits “communism, the teachings of communism, communist organizations, or underbow [affiliated] communist organizations from 1965”.

Dwiyanto’s rationale prompted a rebuke from his commanding officer, who upbraided those at the meeting and said that the rules only banned the PKI as a mass organization, and communism, Marxism and Leninism as prohibited teachings.

“There is no mention underbow and all that, so let’s not make things up – I am a law-abiding citizen, after all. Remember this: If we prohibit something, make sure we have the legal basis to do so,” he said.

Since the New Order era, the MPR decree was used to prohibit PKI members or people associated with the organization from becoming soldiers or holding public office.

Officially, this practice ceased with the dissolution of the National Stability Assistance Coordination Agency (BKPPSN) during the presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid. However, screening based on identity and affiliation in the recruitment of civil servants and soldiers continues to be the norm, albeit unofficially.

Historians believe that up to 500,000 people were killed in a purge targeting members and sympathizers of the PKI after a failed coup attempt in 1965 blamed on communists. The government has suppressed alternative accounts of the events, and public discussions on this dark chapter in the country’s history are often banned.

Read also: Guilt trip over 1965 killings

‘Equal opportunities’

Andika ordered the meeting to remove this requirement from the assessment process and said that there should no longer be any prohibition for people linked to the PKI.

Among these is the 20-year-old son of Fatmawati, whom she prefers not to name for fear of reprisal, who failed selection as a Navy officer and became a non-commissioned officer (Bintara) instead, after applying for both positions in 2020.

His grandfather was once arrested in 1966 after being accused of being a member of the PKI.

“I am very happy with what was conveyed by Pak Andika Perkasa, as he provides equal opportunities for all the sons of the nation who wish to serve the country,” Fatmawati told the Post recently.

Fatmawati hopes that the decision of the TNI commander will “end discrimination against child victims of ‘65”.

“If there are children and their grandchildren whose great grandparents were involved in any forbidden organization, are they to blame for the mistakes of their elders, who weren’t even necessarily guilty?” she asked.

To guarantee such “equal opportunities”, defense analyst Anton Aliabbas from the Center for Intermestic and Diplomatic Engagement (CIDE) said the TNI would have to come up with more concrete policies.

“It is important that the TNI commander introduce a policy of periodic evaluation of the recruitment mechanism, including the civic knowledge test,” he said.