The US Political Stance on TNI’s Reform Agenda

On these previous few weeks, the media reports the US diplomats’ lobby to match the military retirees to the former ministry of finance, Sri mulyani Indrawati (SMI), now served as Excutive Director of World Bank. The mix and match strategies is on purpose for the next presidential election. The lobby continues on, approximately since a year ago. It’s considered as a part of trial-and-error negotiation with the military cliques, to map the support of the military to SMI.

The aspects of the negotiaion could be divided into three parts : the support of US lobby to the military, the US preference to the military, and the influence of the compromise to the efforts of military reform.


Support of US lobby to the military
National history of Indonesia is strongly linked to the foreign countries intervention. Clandestinely, foreign parties often act as free riders, using the military as a vehicle to support their own goals. While, the military stands as one of the sturdiest political powers in this country.

On 1958, a group of military higher-ups lead by Commander Ahmad Husein and Colonel Maludin Simbolon, rejected the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), government centralization in Java, as well as refusing the AH Nasution leadership over the Army. The most fundamental strike over this country is to build the Republic of Indonesia’s Revolutionary Government (PRRI) on Bukittinggi, West Sumatera.

This intrusion created an open door for US intervention to crush the communist entities and President Sukarno’s leadership. Following the financial and military aid, the US government under President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, fully supported PRRI/Permesta to overthrow the Soekarno’s Leadership. However, the AH Nasution’s troops could take control over the rush.

The role of military politics on the dual function of the Army (1959-1998), has a legitimate sustain from the US government trhough the RAND’s seminars on Forth Leavenworth, Kansas on 1959. The product of the seminars is a book titled The Role of the Military Underdeveloped Countries, edited by John J. Johnson. The book depicts the role of military as the agent of modernization in developing countries. The book was even used as a reading material to the US Military schools in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Essentially, the military function like that is ignoring the fundamental philosophy on civil-military relations on the west. The relations should be an objective civil control, which placed the military as the subordinate of the civilian.
On 1965, the US involvement was re-detected to indirectly support the defeat of PKI, by providing the think-tanks for the coup d’etat attempt by the September 30 Faction. It is strange that the coup d’etat, which was executed by the military criminals, did not receive international action or embargo from the US, a human rights and democracy champion.

The support of US lobby to the military
There are motives to take the military. First, due to its anti-fundamentalism and anti-communism posture. The September 30 coup d’etat reflected the US maintain over the military role to disband the PKI. On the other side, on 50’s decade, the military was also able to contain thr Darul Islam movement under SM Kartosoewiryo. The Islamic Fundamentalism was on the spotlight of US foreign policy on southeast Asia, which also become the second front of the US national policy (Rice : 2006).

The Fundamentalist faction has uncovered again their momentum since the previous one decade, especially post new-order era. Several series of violence, including the bombing case and destroying worship buildings, stand as a serious threat to US foreign policy in Indonesia, and generally in South East Asia.

Secondly, some of the military high officers (active or have retired) had tasted the US education overseas. Eventually, some of TNI’s executive doctrine were adapted from The US under the Pentagon arrangement (Syahnakri : 2011). A fraction of the military retirees is also identified to have received US education in its school of Commanding. The Command of Special Militia (Kopassus) had ever practiced routinely in the US before it was suspended following the Santa Cruz tragedy in Dili, East Timor on 1991. The military experiences in the US are then be seen as a psychological familiarity and key to have a same comprehensive view towards the national government succession on 2014.

The TNI Military Reform
The initial move to actualize the TNI to become the professional power in this country will be conflicted if there are any retiree taking part in government jobs. As a retiree, those people are acknowledged to have political rights under the constitution. Nevertheless, the TNI might as well provide indirect support to the senior retirees who are pursuing government position. Even though there are no command powers for the retired army members, the emotional and cultural bond have the potential to draw sympathy and preservation from active military members.

The TNI reform serves as a re-maintenance of its function as a main defense component in defending the Republic of Indonesia’s sovereignity, professionally and proportionally. It should have noticed that eventhough the reform attempt from 1998-2004 in considered sucsessfull, the spirit of the reform should keep on proliferated. In the middle of its improvement, the US lobby intention to draw the military support has an oblique obstacles to the spirit of reform. The government jobs which are filled by military retirees, in a way contradicts with the courage to reform. It’s due to some possibilities to restore the military networks to draw support for 2014 presidential election.

By that means, one should view what lies beneath US agenda in the midst of Indonesian civic conducts. For the betterment of the country, each nation’s element should respect the constitution by knowing their constituted position and duty.

Hipolitus Wangge, 
Writter as a Project Officer Civil Society Advocacy-Researcher at Pacivis University of Indonesia.

Published at Jawa Pos 3rd September 2011