The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0022/00221.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 33KB | 506 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00221}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Indonesia
Chapter 5A.   National Security}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Riga Adiwoso-Suprapto}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{armed
forces
military
national
army
political
government
nation
security
economic}
$Date{1982}
$Log{}
Title:       Indonesia
Book:        Indonesia, A Country Study
Author:      Riga Adiwoso-Suprapto
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1982

Chapter 5A.   National Security

     The Armed Forces Establishment, led by the dominant branch, the army,
has been the country's premier institution since 1966 when, in its own view,
it answered the summons of the people and moved to the center stage of
national life. Comprising the three military services and the police, the
armed forces operated according to a doctrine of their own evolution called
dwi fungsi, or dual function, under which they were recognized as having a
double role as both defenders of the nation and as a sociopolitical force in
national development. Under this doctrine, legitimizing their performance of
both military and nonmilitary missions, they have become the political arm of
President Soeharto and have acted as a major executive agent of his
government's policies, with which they have been in firm agreement. They
have also continued to be an active force in the economic affairs of the
country.

     From the beginning of Soeharto's rule, the armed forces have accepted
and supported the foundation of his regime, namely, the belief that economic
and social development was the nation's first priority and that social and
political stability was absolutely essential if that goal was to be achieved.
The primary mission of the armed forces has therefore been to maintain
internal stability, often in conjunction with the powerful security apparatus
known as Kopkamtib. They have been eminently successful in this regard and
have led the nation out of a period of political and social upheaval and into
one of relatively long-lasting domestic order.

     The maintenance of internal security was considered an integral part of
national defense itself, which was seen in terms of the broader concept of
"national resilience" that stressed the importance of the ideological,
political, economic, social, and military strength of the nation. Like dwi
fungsi, this concept has also legitimized activities of the armed forces in
areas not ordinarily considered belonging to the military sphere.

     Although the internal security mission remained paramount in the late
1970s, greater attention came to be paid to conventional defense against
outside aggression. This had previously been neglected under Soeharto for
both economic and doctrinal reasons and for the reason that the nation had not
faced a serious external threat. When Indonesian troops saw action for the
first time in over a decade during the 1975-77 conflict in East Timor
(formerly Portuguese Timor), however, the armed forces leadership found their
performance disappointing and initiated extensive retraining and
reorganization programs that were still being conducted in mid-1982.
Moreover, as a result of the favorable economic conditions prevailing during
the late 1970s, the armed forces have been upgrading their military
capability, particularly that of the navy and the air force. Both had been
seriously weakened by national spending priorities that-with the full support
of the armed forces-continued to stress economic development to a degree that
worked to the detriment of the defense budget during economically straitened
times.

     Crime and the administration of criminal justice were important issues in
the nation in the 1977-82 period. Although political offenses had always been
viewed as threatening the social order and, by extension, national security
itself, for the first time the government also came to view the rising rates
of ordinary crime in the same manner. Lack of reliable data made it
difficult to determine the actual scope of the problem, but it was taken
sufficiently seriously in official circles to warrant the involvement of
Kopkamtib in anticrime campaigns. A long-promised revision of the law
governing criminal procedure was passed after much debate in late 1981. All
concerned agreed that it represented a considerable improvement over the old
code, which dated from the Dutch era. Provisions excluding its application
over economic and political offenses, however, raised some criticism from
those who wished to bring under regular legal constraints the activities of
the internal security organizations that often dealt with these offenses.

The Pursuit of Public Order

     The effort to forge a united and coherent nation that could accommodate
the natural diversity of peoples in the Indonesian archipelago was a central
theme in the nation's history and was a goal that had well been achieved by
1982. The government of President Soeharto, in firm control and without
serious challenge since the late 1960s, had given the country an unprecedented
degree of political stability. In light of the nation's early experiences with
regional rebellions and with an attempted communist coup in 1965, however, the
leadership in late 1982 remained very alert to real or potential subversive
threats. It has held that unresolved social issues and intemperate criticism
of official policies could be used by subversives to create unrest or even
social anarchy, while also disrupting the course of national development to
which Soeharto's regime is committed. The government has therefore
maintained surveillance and sometimes control over the activities and programs
of a wide range of groups and institutions.

     The government has contended, moreover, that political activity, as in
traditional times, should properly be expressed in a harmonious and consensual
manner through a government-structured framework that includes two political
parties and a single federation of functional groups, Golkar (see Political
Organizations, ch. 4). It has been acutely sensitive to any signs of political
opposition to its policies. What constituted legitimate dissent was not always
clear, and some government critics, including students, ex-military officers,
and even some opposition members of the parliament have crossed the line,
apparently without intending to do so. It appeared that in general the
government labeled as subversive anything not supportive of the national
ideology, pancasila (see Glossary), or not expressed through the official
tripartite system.

     Throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, the government
identified the potential for insurgency and subversion by numerous groups as
the most dangerous threats to national security. Most often mentioned in this
context were the remnants of the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI),
against which repeated calls for national vigilance were issued. Law
enforcement officials have claimed that former members of the PKI were
sometimes behind apparently ordinary crimes and that the communist ideology
presented a special danger to young people who had not lived through the
national distress of the 1960s. The government monitored closely the more than
30,000 prisoners taken after the coup whom it released in the late 1970s,
maintaining that they might be used to resurrect communism in the nation.

     Insurgency, however, appeared to present no serious threat to the
national security in the early 1980s. The PKI had not mounted any major
operations for at least a decade, and according to security officials only
a few PKI members were still active in the nation, though some reportedly were
in residence in Beijing and Moscow. Other very small, armed separatist
movements continued their operations in the early 1980s, however. Two of
these movements, the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor
(Fretilin) and the Free Papua Movement in Irian Jaya, were believed to
have been reduced to minimal strength by 1982 and to be confined to fairly
isolated geographic regio