On Tuesday, the Indonesian Military celebrated its 69th anniversary with a big bang, with air shows and a display of its latest warships, jets and other improved armory equipment at the eastern naval base in Surabaya. Its chief commander, outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who presided over the ceremony, could feel proud that his tenure of 10 years since 2004 had resulted in much progress regarding defense equipment to protect this vast archipelago.
We have also advanced one more step in improving the professionalism of the TNI; the 2004 law on the military defines a professional soldier as one who is trained and educated, is well equipped, not engaged in business or politics, guaranteed in welfare and who follows state policy based on democracy, civilian supremacy, human rights and national law.
The definition itself lays out the work and the challenges facing the incoming government of president-elect Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, particularly as the TNI envisions its soldiers as “true patriots, professional and loved by the people,” as the slogan of this year’s anniversary goes.
Scholars have pointed to much of the unfinished business of military reform since 1998, from accountability for past involvement in human rights violations to “defense transformation,” which entails overhauling the mind-set of the military, its education and its structure.
Jokowi, slated to become new chief commander in a few weeks, will need all the public support he can get to continue facing the challenge of the TNI’s professionalisation. Public support is crucial not only to face the old guards steeped in the sense of entitlement and obligation that the military safeguards the nation against anything it deems a threat to national security.
The larger challenge to a more professional military may lie in Jokowi’s fellow civilian politicians, including his Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) under former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, who, like other presidents since Soeharto, sought the support of high-ranking officers in her bid for power.
Therefore, while President Yudhoyono has improved the equipment of the TNI, we have not seen progress regarding some other promises of the military; that in ending the traditional doctrine of dwi fungsi (double function) of safeguarding the nation in defense and all other imaginable spheres of life, the TNI would phase out the military commands that propped up the ruling parties from the national to the village level.
The result of neglected progress in overhauling the military has led to its continued habit of perceiving itself as the main guardian of the nation as happened when the military issued the highest level of security alert on the eve of the General Elections Commission’s announcement of the presidential election results on July 23. It is not always clear to the public that the TNI follows procedure in handling security only at the request of the National Police in line with the 2002 law on the police.
(Editorial, The Jakarta Post)
(Asia News Network)
