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$Unique_ID{bob00222}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Indonesia
Chapter 5B.   Political and Administrative Role}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Riga Adiwoso-Suprapto}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{armed
forces
military
national
officers
defense
early
late
1980s
government
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{1982}
$Log{}
Title:       Indonesia
Book:        Indonesia, A Country Study
Author:      Riga Adiwoso-Suprapto
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1982

Chapter 5B.   Political and Administrative Role

     ABRI's perception of its political role in the 1980s was that of a
national institution that was above partisan interests and closely tied
to the people, with a duty to foster conditions of order and security in
which the habits of a stable and institutionalized political process could
develop. Political excesses during the first two decades of the republic
had, in ABRI's view, discredited party politics as a proper outlet for
grass-roots expression in the nation and had forced the armed forces to act
as the principal guarantor of internal security and political stability.
As officially expressed in 1966, the armed forces "have an interest to
participate in the efforts to form and manage a government with authority,
a strong and progressive government."

     In consequence, throughout the 1970s and early 1980s the armed forces
were intertwined with the civilian side of government at every level. Military
officers, active duty and retired, served in the highest organs of policy
and administration (see the Power Structure, ch. 4). As a major functional
group, the military was allotted blocs of appointive seats in both the
People's Consultative Assembly and the House of People's Representatives (see
Legislative Bodies, ch. 4). Active duty personnel were not enfranchised, but
retired members were; and most of the latter belonged to an association of
retired officers that formed one of the functional groups under Golkar.
Military officers in mufti sometimes served as heads of territorial and
administrative divisions at the province and district levels.

Participation in the Economy

     Total military expenditures as a percentage of gross national product
(GNP-see Glossary) have declined steadily since the 1960s, and the military
has never been as dominant in the economic sphere as it has been in the
political. Nevertheless, because of historical circumstances, economic
necessity, and some doctrinal predisposition, the armed forces were deeply
enmeshed in the workings of the national economy in the early 1980s. They
had a pervasive and, critics charged, a sometimes detrimental influence
over economic life.

     The armed forces' economic role had its beginnings when some military
personnel were assigned managerial or advisory positions in Dutch enterprises
and agricultural estates seized by the government in late 1957. This projected
the army, in particular, into a new sphere of activity by which it acquired
entrepreneurial expertise, a vast patronage, and a source of personal
enrichment for many. The role of the armed services in the national economic
life greatly expanded under conditions of a rapidly deteriorating economy
during the Sukarno era in the 1960s, when the services, like many other
government departments, were caught in a tightening fiscal squeeze between
costs and depreciating monies allotted them in a period of serious inflation.
Nominal military pay, for example, depreciated to a point well below
subsistence for privates and generals alike; commodities and other tangible
emoluments were what counted. Left largely to their own devices to find
support, local military units secured their needs by operating business
enterprises, levying unofficial "taxes," smuggling, and other methods
suggested by human resourcefulness and available opportunities. At the
central command level, the preferred procedure was to divert to military
use funds from state corporations in which military officers held
controlling positions. In the early 1980s extrabudgetary resources still
were believed to account for substantial portions of the annual fiscal
needs of the armed forces (see Defense Spending and Defense Industry, this
ch.).

     The armed forces also played a hand in the selection of the economic
policies of the Soeharto regime through their ties with its most important
economic technocrats. In late 1962 the curriculum at the Army Staff and
Command School was broadened to include lectures on a wide range of
nonmilitary subjects. In 1965 some of these lectures were presented by a
group of economists trained at the University of California at Berkeley,
including Widjojo Nitisastro (see Role of Government, ch. 3). It was to
these technocrats that Soeharto turned when seeking economic guidelines for
the New Order and when setting up and running his government. The armed
forces have strongly supported their programs, and many analysts refer to
the military-technocrat alliance as providing one foundation of the
Soeharto regime.

     Although not the only state institution that engaged in business in
order to generate extrabudgetary income, the armed forces certainly were
the most energetic and successful in that regard. Commercial activities
under the various territorial commands in the early 1980s commonly included
the use of military trucks for the transport of passengers and freight for
hire. Military-owned companies that operated in the open market, much as
any private company, were a common form of enterprise. The Dharma Putra
Foundation, a holding company connected with the Army Strategic Reserve
Command (Kostrad), included a film company, an airline, and the Volkswagen
assembly franchise. Another company, under the sponsorship of the Department
of Defense and Security (Hankam), controlled affiliates involved in logging,
trade, industry, and textiles. In late 1980 a report issued by the provincial
assembly in East Timor, whose members were appointed by the central
government, charged that an enterprise controlled by the local army command
had developed a forced monopoly on the province's main export
commodities-coffee and sandalwood-and was reaping profits at the expense of
local producers.

     Another kind of military enterprise was the command-integrated factory,
which had as its primary purpose the production of ordnance and equipment for
the armed forces. In a category by itself was the state-owned National Oil and
Natural Gas Mining Company (Pertamina). Under the managing directorship of
army general Ibnu Sutowo from the late 1950s until 1976 when he was eased out
of office following the spectacular near-collapse of the company, Pertamina
became a commercial colossus and Ibnu Sutowo himself one of Indonesia's
richest and most powerful men.

     Although they could not be singled out in this respect from other actors
in the national economy, the armed forces of the 1980s continued to face the
problem of coping with a legacy of corruption. The government has recognized
the special military aspect of this national problem and has made repeated
calls for military officers to act with special care in their business
dealings and to avoid the appearance of nepotism when engaged in civilian
duties. In late 1979, in an effort to limit ABRI's influence in the economy
to retired personnel and thereby to cleanse the image of the armed forces,
General Jusuf announced that a 1974 directive banning active duty military
officers from engaging directly in business would thenceforth be enforced.
Some 150 officers were given the choice either to retire and continue in the
positions they held or to be reassigned elsewhere: fewer than 10 stayed in
ABRI. At the same time officers above the rank of captain were told they could
only be regular stockholders without voting rights in private economic
enterprises-a directive that also specifically applied to the spouses of all
flag rank officers.

National Defense and Internal Security

     ABRI's operations relating to its military function were based on a
well-developed doctrine of national defense that was grounded in the
experiences of the TNI during the National Revolution. That doctrine
proclaimed that Indonesia could neither afford to maintain a large armed
forces establishment nor would it compromise its hard-fought-for independence
by sacrificing its nonaligned status and depending on other nations to provide
its defense. Instead, the nation would have to defend itself using the
strategy of territorial guerrilla warfare in which the armed forces, deployed
throughout the nation, would serve as a cadre force to rally and lead the
entire population in a people's war of defense. Military planners envisaged
that this strategy would entail a three-stage war, comprising a short initial
period in which an invader would defeat Indonesian resistance and establish
its own control, a long period of unconventional regionally based fighting,
and a final phase in which the invaders would be eventually repelled.

     The success of this strategy, according to the doctrine, requires that a
close bond be maintained between the citizen and the soldier so that the armed
forces would enjoy the support of the entire population and have the ability
to manage all war-related resources. In trying to attain these goals, ABRI has
maintained a territorial organization run mainly by army personnel who
guaranteed public order in their locales and also exerted substantial
influence over local decisions regarding such matters as population
redistribution, the production of food and strategic materials, and the
development of air and sea transport, as well as anything else that could
immediately affect the course of a war of national defense. Armed forces
personnel have regularly engaged in large-scale civic projects involving
community and rural development in their areas in order to draw closer to the
people and to ensure the continued support of the populace. These efforts
notwithstanding, the ABRI leadership and its critics alike agreed in the early
1980s that portions of the population believed that some ABRI personnel have
at times acted arbitrarily or have achieved financial gain through the
performance of their duties and that such perceptions detrimentally affected
national defense. Repeated calls have been issued to ABRI personnel to avoid
conspicuous consumption and to maintain the image of well-respected freedom
fighters who remain men of the people.

     The strategy of territorial warfare, or Total People's Defense, became
operational in the early 1960s and provided the rationalization for
territorial management by armed forces personnel and for the general
deployment of the nation's military forces; however, it had not played a
major role in the conflicts Indonesia had engaged in as of mid-1982. In the
confrontation with Malaysia and the dispute with the Dutch over the western
portion of the island of New Guinea in the early and mid-1960s, ABRI forces
fought in territories outside the effective jurisdiction of the national
government where they did not enjoy the support of the entire civilian
population. Because the framers of the 1945 Constitution had declared these
areas as naturally belonging to Indonesia, however, national authorities have
stated that to a certain degree these conflicts were anticolonial wars and
represented the completion of the war of independence (see Territorial
Acquisition, ch. 1). Following the renunciation in 1966 of claims against
Malaysia on the island of Borneo and the extension of the national
administration in 1963 over western New Guinea (now the province of Irian
Jaya), Indonesia had no further known irredentist claims, and national
leaders categorically stated that the nation had no expansionist aspirations.

     The East Timor conflict in the mid-1970s represented a somewhat
different case. In December 1975 Indonesian "volunteers" landed in Dili, the
capital of the Portuguese-held eastern half of the island of Timor, after
fighting had broken out among various political factions in the colony and
the leftist, anti-Indonesian group, Fretilin, had declared the area to be
independent. The Indonesian government took the position that because
Portugal was not able to reestablish effective control over its colony,
Indonesian forces had acted to restore order at the request of local
political groups said to represent the majority of the area's population. A
provisional government, enjoying the support of the estimated 30,000 to
35,000 Indonesian troops who came to be stationed in the territory, then
petitioned Indonesia for incorporation, and East Timor became the nation's
twenty-seventh province in July 1976. Thereafter, ABRI's military campaign
against the Fretilin forces in the province-a special military district until
it was integrated in the regular military command network in early 1979-was
treated as an internal security operation to subdue armed insurgents.

     As of the early 1980s the aspect of the armed forces military mission
dealing with defense of the homeland continued to take second place behind
that of maintaining internal security. This was primarily owing to a relative
absence of any serious external threat to the national security. The Soeharto
government maintained close and cordial relations with its nearest neighbors
who, in any case, possessed little offensive military capability. The
surrounding ocean provided a natural protection against any potential invading
force. Moreover, although common land borders did exist in two resource-rich
areas-with Malaysia on the island of Borneo and with Papua New Guinea on the
island of New Guinea-these borders were far from Indonesia's main population
and industrial centers and in such isolated, inaccessible, and inhospitable
regions that even small units of ground forces found the going difficult.

     During the late 1970s military planners began to observe certain
developments they believed might present a potential threat to the nation. In
particular, they maintained a watchful eye on the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam (Vietnam) and its allies, including the Soviet Union, following the
expansion of communist forces in Indochina and, as a result of Vietnamese
claims made public in the late 1970s, over sections of the South China Sea
considered by Indonesia to be part of its own territory. The possible presence
of foreign submarines in national waters and the problems of illegal fishing
and smuggling were also accorded increased attention, particularly after
Indonesia in March 1980 declared a 200-mile exclusive economic zone. The
gradual move toward a forward deployment strategy that began in the late 1970s
appeared to be at least partly motivated by these changed perceptions. That
strategy entailed the use of paratroop, long-range transport aircraft,
transport and attack helicopters, and attack jets.

Defense Spending and Defense Industry

     Having fully supported the basic concept of the Soeharto regime, namely,
that national defense and security depended on the country's economic
development, the New Order armed services have endorsed the principle that
scarce domestic resources and foreign aid cannot be diverted for military use
without slowing the growth in the national income. The armed forces have
voluntarily accepted being assigned a low priority in the national budget.
Although currency reforms undertaken in the late 1960s and general accounting
practices under both the Sukarno and the Soeharto regimes make absolute
comparisons impossible, it is evident that military expenditure dropped
dramatically from 1965 to 1967-perhaps by as much as 75 percent-and that
defense spending continued to be held to fairly low levels well into the
mid-1970s. This resulted in a rapid decline in inventories of functioning
equipment in all services and an overall decrease in armed forces manpower
and combat readiness.

     In the late 1970s national and military authorities became convinced that
the armed services must be upgraded, although on a gradual basis because
national priorities stressing economic development remained unchanged. During
the 1977-82 period national allocations to Hankam doubled in absolute terms.
In the same period, however, the total budget rose at a higher rate, so the
military share actually declined each year-from 14 percent of the total in
fiscal year (FY) 1977 to 12 percent in FY 1982.

     The armed forces budget was divided into two categories of expenditure:
one for routine matters, such as pay and allowances, maintenance, and travel,
and the other for development of forces and infrastructure, including the
purchase of new equipment. In the early 1980s routine expenditures accounted
for some 70 percent of the total. A more detailed breakdown of the budget was
not made public, but statements issued by Hankam officials indicated that
during the late 1970s and the early 1980s development funds were largely
consumed by the construction of new housing complexes and barracks and by the
provision of new training grounds. The balance covered installment payments
for several naval vessels and for a squadron of F-5E/F Tiger fighter aircraft
purchased from the United States under the nation's Foreign Military Sales
program.

     Figures indicated in the budget did not reflect actual military
expenditures, but the degree to which actual spending was understated was a
matter for conjecture. Extrabudgetary funds were used to purchase a squadron
of A-4 Skyhawk combat aircraft and four landing ships-tanks (LSTs) in the late
1970s. Moreover, most observers agreed that the portion of the budget devoted
to routine matters was insufficient to maintain the armed services at even a
subsistence level. The shortfall of funds between actual expenditures and the
official budget plus foreign military credits appeared to be made up by the
earnings of the business enterprises that interlocked with the various
elements of the armed forces. Military-business establishments have also
sometimes provided personnel, especially higher ranking officers, with
additional compensation that the donors believed would raise their living
standards to a level suited to the dignity of their profession.

     Parliamentary mandate in 1978 encouraged the development of a domestic
defense industry to lessen dependence on foreign manufacturers and to avoid
having to spend scarce foreign currency reserves on weaponry. In keeping with
these guidelines, domestic capacity to maintain, repair, and produce military
equipment was greatly improved between 1978 and 1982. Large naval vessels and
fighter aircraft continued to be purchased abroad, but the local aircraft and
shipbuilding industries, both officially designated as branches of the defense
and security industry, were upgraded. They began to produce helicopters, light
aircraft, transport aircraft, landing craft, and patrol boats, sometimes under
license agreements with foreign firms. Over the same period the army offered
increased orders of maintenance; for instance, reporting success with
installing new engines in East European-made helicopters and combat vehicles
that had been retired from service because of a shortage of spare parts. In
late 1980 the air force test-fired a domestically produced rocket. As of
mid-1982 plans had been announced to establish several electronics firms to
support defense materiel production, and national officials continued to seek
defense-related technology from the United States, Japan, and several European
nations.

     Despite these efforts the nation was far from self-sufficient in the
production of weapons and defense-related materials. Domestic facilities
remained inadequate for the repair of certain complex weapons systems, and
equipment inventories often represented considerable overstatements of what
was in functioning order. Moreover, although the 1978 defense guidelines also
favored the standardization of weaponry and defense materiel, the armed forces
still possessed and continued to procure equipment that varied widely in kind
and origin, presenting serious problems regarding obtaining and stocking spare
parts and training technical maintenance personnel.

Manpower: Source and Quality

     The size of the armed services-some 440,000 including the police in late
1982-was small in comparison with other nations of comparable population and
with other Asian countries. Manpower in the army was gradually but steadily
reduced over the 1965-82 period, and average annual intake in the other
services was limited to maintenance of existing force levels. This was more a
function of economic necessity than of demographic conditions or recruitment
capacity. The 1980 population census indicated that the country had
approximately 28.5 million males ages 20-54. Even when factoring out those not
physically fit for military or police duties, personnel serving in the armed
forces did not constitute a drain on the civilian labor force; on the
contrary, significant reduction would exacerbate the nation's unemployment
problems.

     The officer corps was estimated to comprise some 53,000 in early 1981.
About 0.9 percent of these were of general office rank. Slow rates of
promotion at the highest levels in the early 1980s and the large numbers of
officers reaching the retirement age of 55 in the same period suggested that
the percentage would fall in the future.

     Under the Constitution every citizen is entitled and obliged to defend
the nation. Conscription is provided for by law, but in light of the limited
employment opportunities, almost all service members as of mid-1982 were
volunteers who had met the selective criteria established by each service.
Such specialists as physicians, however, were occasionally conscripted for
short-term service. Most enlisted personnel were recruited in their own areas
and generally served most of their time in units near their homes. In the
early 1980s the armed forces drew up three new pieces of legislation
addressing voluntary service, conscription, and reserves, but these had not
been considered by parliament as of late 1982. Each service had small
women's units.

     Entry into the officer corps was traditionally very competitive. In the
late 1970s, however, the armed forces began to experience difficulties in
attracting qualified candidates to the Armed Forces Academy of the Republic of
Indonesia (Akabri), which trained most of the military and police officer
corps. Of the approximately 500 slots available at the academy in the years
1978-80, fewer than 300 were filled. Of those who graduated, almost 50 percent
were the children of serving or retired armed services personnel. A report
issued in mid-1981 by the commandant of Akabri revealed serious academic
deficiencies among cadets. Armed forces personnel blamed the better civilian
pay available to the highly qualified young people who could meet the
academy's stiff requirements and complained that many entered Akabri because
it was free and they could not afford an education otherwise. Shortages of
junior officers have also been reported in the navy and the air force.

     As of mid-1982 the nation's armed forces and particularly its officer
corps appeared to be fairly united-a remarkable achievement in light of the
deep-seated and persistent factional strife and interservice rivalry that
characterized the defense establishment in the two decades after independence.
Largely responsible for the change were the integration of the armed forces
after 1969 and the concomitant strengthening of the power of the central
command over each service and over regionally assigned units. Purges conducted
in the aftermath of the abortive 1965 coup were also critical because they rid
the defense leadership of large numbers of officers who were accused of
radical leanings or who were regarded as being overly devout or as having
strong regional ties. Retirement, reassignment, and banishment of officers to
overseas posts during the late 1960s and early 1970s completed the process.

     The officer corps in the early 1980s was composed mainly of ethnic
Javanese. This was especially true of those holding the highest positions in
the defense ministry and in each service: 80 percent of the top 70 or so of
these positions were filled by Javanese in the 1978-82 period. Almost all the
Javanese officers were nominal Muslims (abangan-see Glossary). The armed
forces had developed an institutional distrust of devout Muslims (santri), in
light of their experiences in putting down numerous armed challenges to the
national leadership by Islamic separatist groups. Close ties to the president,
however, often outweighed other variables in personnel placement. Moreover,
sometimes non-Javanese or Christians were chosen for particularly powerful
positions specifically because their ethnic background or religious beliefs
precluded them from developing independent power bases. Nonetheless, in 1982
Javanese monopolized control of the nation's line units, including those in
the Outer Islands; they headed three of the military's four regional defense
commands (Kowilhan) and 15 of the 16 army area commands (Kodam).

General Succession

     The issue of leadership transition within the armed forces continued to
concern planners in the early 1980s as increasing numbers of the Generation of
1945-the name given to the large numbers of veterans of the war of
independence-began to reach retirement age. Many of these officers were the
children of small tradesmen or minor officials and had been motivated to join
the armed forces by deeply felt ideals of nationalism and patriotism rather
than by any desire to pursue a military career in the conventional sense. In
other circumstances they might have sought careers in business, politics, or
government and so did not constitute a "barracks military." Most were fairly
young when the National Revolution ended-the army commander in 1950 was only
32-and by weight of numbers they maintained exclusive control of positions of
responsibility well into the late 1970s, often to the frustration of younger
officers. A generational shift has since been under way, however. As of
mid-1981 members of the Generation of 1945 retained only about one-quarter of
the upper level positions in ABRI-although these included almost all of the
most powerful slots. Moreover, the government has promised that the transfer
of power in ABRI to the younger generation will be substantially accomplished
in 1983, presumably following the reelection of Soeharto.

     Younger officers who were moving into positions of leadership in ABRI in
the early 1980s have themselves been identified as belonging to one of two
groups-either to a small interstitial generation trained after 1950 in various
national and foreign military schools, or to the larger academy generation,
graduates of the National Military Academy at Magelang, which produced its
first graduating class in 1960 and became part of Akabri in 1966. Many of
these officers were members of the national elite, who had entered ABRI
because they believed that acquiring an academy education and becoming an ABRI
officer was one sure way to enter national ruling circles. Members of the
academy generation had not experienced the events during the National
Revolution and the early 1950s that had led their elders to distrust civilian
politicians. Few if any had extensive experience in performing purely
nonmilitary tasks, and most had received more professional military training
than had their elders. During the early 1980s numerous members of the
interstitial generation and even a few members of the 1960 and 1961 classes at
Magelang assumed upper level positions in ABRI.

     The character of middle-level and junior officers and the effects of an
Akabri education versus that given more senior officers at Magelang remained
unclear as of mid-1982. It appeared, however, that a generational
discontinuity had developed between those officers who began training in the
late 1970s or later and their predecessors. This generational shift occurred
primarily as a result of a change in the aspirations of younger members of the
national elite, who in increasing numbers began to pursue careers in business
or private enterprise rather than in the military (see Urban Society, ch. 2).
Accordingly, more and more members of the middle class began to enter Akabri,
which experienced growing difficulties in filling its slots with qualified
applicants. This last generational shift held potential ramifications for
ABRI's role in the national life at least equal to those presented by the
transition of the early 1980s.

     The armed forces began preparing in the early 1970s for the turnover of
leadership from the Generation of 1945 after a survey conducted at the Army
Staff and Command School revealed certain differences in motivation and
outlook between younger officers attending the school and their superiors. In
1972 high-ranking officers met with representatives of students attending the
school to decide which values of the Generation of 1945 should be fostered in
order to prevent a discontinuity of leadership when the older officers
retired. Those values, which centered on the dual role of ABRI personnel as
defenders of the nation and as a force for promoting the national development,
were raised to the level of ABRI doctrine, then disseminated throughout the
services and made the subject of subsequent ABRI curricula. After 1978 younger
officers were also required to attend pancasila indoctrination programs (see
Pancasila, ch. 4).

     Despite these efforts to rationalize the status quo and to prepare for
succession by ensuring that younger officers would follow in the footsteps of
their elders, in mid-1981 the commandant of Akabri noted that he and other
members of the older generation were dissatisfied with the younger officers,
considering them inexperienced, poorly trained, and some even dangerously
elitist. Many commentators both in Indonesia and abroad have questioned the
willingness of the Generation of 1945 to relinquish its power completely (see
The Power Structure, ch. 4). They have noted that members of the Generation of
1945 considered themselves to possess three qualities necessary to run the
nation and to fulfill ABRI's nonmilitary mission-expertise, discipline, and
order. Older officers feared, however, that younger generation officers had
only the requisite order and discipline, while civilians, who lacked those
important qualities, possessed the necessary expertise. A new government
regulation signed on Armed Forces Day, October 5, was apparently enacted in
response to these fears. It stated that the government could selectively
extend the service of any officers past the age of 55 and could decide what
compensation they might receive in that service.