Juwono Sudarsono, currently Republic of Indonesia Minister of Defense since October 2004. more
Military Businesses and the Reform Process
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Friday
23
June
2006
No defense ministry and defense force in all of South East Asia has been subjected to more international scrutiny about its role in the life of the country than the Indonesian Defence Force (Tentara Nasional Indonesia). Since President Soeharto, a retired general, stepped down in May, 1998, the TNI reform process has been periodically in the forefront of news coverage by national and international media, none more so than the of the ”military businesses” owned, operated by or linked to any one of the tri-services, Army, Navy and Air Force.
Most domestic and foreign analysts, particularly NGOs, incessantly find fault with almost anything and everything the TNI (especially the army) did, is doing and will do in the future. The anti-military tone is partly in the nature of most NGOs anywhere, and is deeply rooted in the liberal western lexicon of “civilian supremacy” or “civilian control” and the predictable language of “transparency and accountability. Much of the reporting of the TNI__most recently revealed in the June 2006 Human Rights Watch Report entitled “Too High a Price: The Human rights Costs of the Indonesian Military’s Economic Activities” is coloured in the HRW report, the phraseology of which draws upon events that took place in Indonesia before May 1998.
As expected, HRW’s report starts with the predictable “front-loading” of its title report, as if all of Indonesia’s military businesses were always systematically linked to human rights abuses. Words such as “mafia-like behaviour” are laced through the report’s pages with nary a single reference to the realities that in most instances throughout Indonesia’s earlier history in the mid-1950s down through mid 2006, many of the cooperatives and foundations (not all of them outright businesses such as the title of the report ominously insinuates) helped support TNI tactical units in providing in-kind support to low-income soldiers, help provide education to poor families and, in many instances outside of Java, provide soldiers as teachers of Bahasa Indonesia and arithmetic, the building of irrigation and water supply, bridges and schools.
From the outset the Indonesian Defense Force has never had a decent budget to provide a security and defence service as part of the provision of a public good to enable an environment wherein development, stability and civil liberties can flourish. Since the mid-1950s, no Indonesian government has been able to provide the police and the defence force with an adequate budget to provide that public service.
The HRW June 2006 report is understandably unsympathetic to such realities, given that its framework and paradigm rests on the assumption of standards of “professionalism and transparency” taken for granted in developed countries. HRW Asia was also mindful that in the wake of the TNI’s exemplary role in the rescue and rehabilitation efforts of the post Tsunami in Aceh in 2004-2005 and the recent earthquake in Central Java, the TNI’s image at home and abroad had soared. The lifting of the US restriction of spare parts to the TNI also took the wind of the anti-Indonesian lobby in the US and Western Europe.
All in all, the content and tenor of the HRW 2006 report is both predictable and disappointing. When I served in London as ambassador, I had many meetings with NGOs and human rights activists (including HRW Asia) about the TNI, its role in the reform of political life in Indonesia. Including the divestment of the TNI’s businesses. The language and lexicon of most of the groups I met came right through a time warp of 1990-1998. They simply could not and would not accept the notion that the TNI was the pioneer of political reform, and none more so when under Lieut.General S.B. Yudhoyono during his tenure as TNI chief of territorial affairs in 1997-1998. Human rights groups also would not acknowledge the UN Human Rights Summit formulation in June 1993 that human rights constituted “civil, political, economic, social cultural rights in an integrated, inseparable and balanced manner”.
But then HRW thrives on focusing civil and political rights infringements because their bread and butter heavily relies on emphasising those infringements that are much more appealing, dramatic and headline grabbing. Besides, who would want to read about the TNI’s successes in separating sectarian groups from killing one another in Sulawesi or Ambon. What Congressman in the US or parliamentarian in Europe would care about a TNI soldiers toils in helping villagers build irrigation, shelters and wooden bridges in the boondocks of Borneo. No editor in the newsrooms of satellite TV or print media in the liberal press would dream of providing a favourable paragraph or two about the TNI. The TNI will remain whipping boy for many NGOs and western media for a long time to come.
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In an earlier posting, I wrote about how Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono became the first Indonesian Minister to blog. One of his postings takes on the Human Rights Watch’s report Too High a Price: The Human Rights Cost of the Indonesian Milit... [Read More]
Tracked on July 14, 2006 07:55 AM
Comments
Pak Juwono, in my point of view, we have to own a strong army to protect our country and citizen from any enemies come from both externally or internally.
I strongly agree than the lack of budget giben to the defense sector had forced TNI to self funding their necessities by founding what so called military business. Therefore, despite of critisizing the military business without suggesting any solution to overcome the problem, I agree to increase the budget for defense sector so that we can modernize our defense equipment.
I am, not like any NGO's, very sad to find that our military equipment are becoming obsolete and won't operate when needed. Indonesia has to stand proudly and play a greater role on the international playground. Without a strong military, even a small country like Singapore will underestimate us.
But, after all of support from our country to the defense sector, military has to be the state tools only. Military shall have no pressing power to the political sector. Military also shall not behave as if they were a hingh class citizen by only one reason, they get weapon on their hand.
I do wait for a strong TNI that protect me against any threatening enemy.
For the sake of human rights....
but whose human rights?
Indeed military reformation is neeeded, to create soldiers with muscle, brain, and.. heart.
Semoga Sukses bapak menteri...dan jadikan negeri ini menjadi negeri kuat dan bermartabat....
I work for an international NGO, and I lived together with many TNI soldier at a bordertown of Indonesia. In many ways, I feel lucky because the organization I work for provide much better support for my team compared to what's been given by TNI to their soldiers.
A lot of time, we have to ferry some sick soldier to the nearest Puskesmas (public health post). Mostly caught malaria or many other small illness that should have been preventable if their living condition and nutrition are guaranteed.
I think, before critizing the NGO who critize the TNI, TNI should look inside first, as there are many dissapointment brewing. It's not for a reason that many low rank soldiers sell their service outside. As one of the soldier put it: "The generals stole our food, we now have to steal to live!"
NGOs - thankfully you've realized what many of them are. I think it'd be wise not to take them personally - just take the good bits (for people's sake), and ignore the rest.
But indeed there's something that can be done about the soldiers welfare. We have friends that happen to be TNI soldiers, and I think it's fair to say that they do need to live frugally to survive. Some of them got lucky and enjoyed positions in the DPRD (local parliement), and its salary helped them to finance their kids education up to university, and so on. But the rest are not so lucky.
I agree with gie - TNI should be strong. But not oppressive to those that it should protect.
Arif - "I do wait for a strong TNI that protect me against any threatening enemy."
I think what would be even better is to enable all Indonesian to protect themselves. An army of 200 million strong, that'd would bring chill down the spine of any would-be invaders.
So, here's the recap :
1. wamil (wajib militer) for the people.
If done properly (no abuse, enlighten the people about the country, make them stronger both mentally and physically, etc), it may resulted in the strongest army in the world.
No reliance to hi-tech equipment; just high quality, highly motivated soldiers - 200 millions of them.
2. if wamil is a success, TNI may be able to save a lot of money.
The money saved then can be used to ensure the professional soldiers' welfare.
Enthusiasm is infectious - when the soldiers are enthusiatic about their job, so will the wamil under their supervision.
Here's an article about wamil.
Just my 2 cents.
The Department of Defense and TNI Headquarteers routinely get only 49% of the minimum military budget to provide "essential force deployment" throughout this vast archipelagic state (curently 26 trilion rupiah from 56 trillion rupiah proposed to the Finance Ministry. The public provision of defense and security therefore can only provide for less than half of the population
and less than 46% operational readiness, since more than 60% of outlays are reserved for personnel, maint.enance and repairs. Off budget support is structurally expedient; the key issue is to make them accountable
Pak Menhan,
saya juga baca hasil risetnya HRW itu. Kata Lisa dan Brad dalam diskusi yang Bapak tidak jadi hadir, riset itu diadakan 2-3 tahun terakhir, apakah itu benar melihat comment Bapak di atas?
Trus, pada wawancara dengan wartawan setelah diskusi, Brad Adams juga menjelaskan bahwa menurutnya Pemerintahan saat ini dan kemajuan demokrasi di Indonesia saat ini adalah saat yang tepat bagi HRW memberikan masukan pada TNI?
Memang sich, NGO Asing maupun lokal kebanyakan menggeneralisasi kesalahan oknum aparat menjadi kesalahan institusi.
Gimana ya Pak? saya berusaha netral saja.
Menurut saya, reformasi dan profesionalisme TNI memang sudah terasa dan menuju ke arah yang lebih baik. Tapi mungkin tidak ada salahnya untuk menjawab dan membuktikan bahwa TNI dan Dephan serius, ekspos saja terus kemajuan proses transformasi bisnis TNI.
Karena menurut beberapa kalangan dan diskusi teman-teman yang sering nongkrong di Supriyadi, proses itu terasa sangat lambat.
terimakasih, senang rasanya Bapak akhirnya membahas masalah ini.
I think it is a lame excuse to say that TNI could justify their business because "From the outset the Indonesian Defense Force has never had a decent budget to provide a security and defence service as part of the provision of a public good to enable an environment wherein development, stability and civil liberties can flourish."
If TNI felt that they needed more in their budget why not propose for such budget increase via the politically correct way? What TNI did was to run 30 businesses like a mafia - and their business was conducted by force and coercion.
If TNI generals are so smart, they should use their brains to present their case in a lively debate, instead.
Can we see that happening?
Pak Juwono, TNI has reborn recently after more than 30 years during New Order almost lost its vitality and its soul. It need more time to place TNI in people's heart again. My generation probably witness superiority of TNI but in sense of force not as protector.
Pak Juwono,
What a tough job you are currently facing. I wish you well no matter how difficult the task you are doing. My opinion is not the best at all but perhaps it may help. From my experience, Indonesia is lacking in PR or marketing in the world of foreign press. We may, as well, see very many news about Indonesia (mostly negative, unfortunately).
This sort of news combined with natural disasters definitely will not help our efforts to regain image. So it is crucial to have a good PR or marketing team doing this job very well. Good PR had made a bad company like Enron looks pretty, prosperous and ‘handsome’. We should counter the negative news and intesively let the world knows with pictures and news about TNI and the economic progress we have been greatly making.
It’s very very important to have great looking image (through good communication) as it will make things easier. It is also important to know the world’s standard expectation and measurement and whether the standards have been used properly in making those reports. The choice of words in countering those sort of news plays important parts as English language has much broader range of vocabularies.
As for the lack of budget and the outnumbered units, perhaps, the engineers in the discipline of Management Science, Computer Science, and/or E.E. may help to not only reduce man hours but also simplify things. Many developed countries invested heavily on these engineers to find the right formulas in military unit operations.
If done well, this formula will help military and police units to gain morale as they know what they are doing and how they can do them well. Of course, technology is a great help in this manner and they don’t cost that much at all. I hope this penny may help.
I share the same opinion with Dave who emphasizing the importance of building a good image of TNI . “Image” is small things that can make a big difference
But, building an Image is not easy and Cheap. Where the budget come from?
Its come across in my mind that movie producer might be able to help TNI with the budget by making sellable Heroic / true story Movie of TNI’s operation / missions in defending the country.
Making a good “true story” heroic movie could be an efficient and effective way to boost both good image and morale of TNI . Efficient in a sense of : the cost will be borne by the Movie producer , and effective in a sense of : a good movie will leave a last long impression in viewers mind. Lets take Hollywood movie, for instance. After watching Hollywood war movies like “Rambo”, “We were soldiers”, “Platoon” and another American Version of Vietnam war, I almost forget that US troops actually was defeated in that war.
I do believe, there are so many heroics event from TNI mission/operation in defending the country that we can bring it into surface through an heroic/ dramatic / colosal / high quality Movie.
I’m looking forward to watch one of the upcoming TNI –related heroic movie soon.
PR is more than just good communication skills and projecting the right pitch at the right time. With the TNI and low-pay soldiers on the ground, my biggest problem is how to get professional performance without professional pay.
It's always a quesion of how much longer must the soldier go through perjuangan (struggle) phase before keuangan (finance) matches basic needs.
I salute all TNI soldiers who do their duty with the limited resources that are availabe to them. I will in the meantime fight for more efficiency at the Department of Defense.
Pak Menhan yang saya Kagumi.
Saya rasa saat ini TNI untuk tidak berbisnis sulit rasanya, pemerintah kita masih sangat berat dalam memenuhi anggaran belanja TNI. Dalam memenuhi salary saja sulit bagaimana dalam memenuhi anggaran pemenuhan kabutuhan belanja minimum?
Belum lama terdengar berita bahwa dirumah seorang brigjen yang telah meninggal diketemukan ratusan senjata dan ribuan amunisi. Santer terdengar bahwa amunisi tersebut untuk kudeta terhadap pemerintahan, tapi menurut saya amunisi tersebut bisa saja dijual ke black market untuk menambah pendapatannya.
Pak Juwono,
First of all I would like to congratulate you for your courage to dive into the open-for-all sphere of blogging. That is a huge leap forward in terms of openness and communication.
I would agree with you that for an NGO (and media) it is tempting to reflect over-negatively on the TNI as negative news draws much more attention than good one. A sad fact, but true. The best way to counteract such negativism is open communication and transparency.
A good example are the military foundations. If the TNI is sick of all the negative headlines about its foundations, why not be more transparent about them?
Most often it is claimed that the military still needs the foundations because the budget allocation is not enough. If that is really the main reason, why not hand the controll of the foundations over to the government and at the same time increase the military budget by the profit of the foundations? Then the military still get the same amount of money as before.
The only difference would be that before it would get part of the money from the budget and part from the foundations, now it would get all from the budget. Furthermore, it would help the military to concentrate on its real tasks.
Dear Pak Juwono,
The military business and defense reform seem far away from the facts that we just found packs of weapons in one of high-rank military officer, and by what Defense Dept just recently submit, the bill of State Secrecy. I think with those situation, i am not sure we will lead to reformed defense system, and even it wont lead to any democratic system.
What do you think?
Human Rights Watch issued a report highlighting the many serious problems associated with military business, including violence, intimidation, lawlessness, and corruption, because we want the Indonesian government to end this dangerous practice.
The military's business activities are an obstacle to real reform. Civilian and military leaders have said they are committed to cleaning up the military's finances in order to bolster civilian control, and Law 34/2004 gives them a deadline of 2009 to withdraw the military from business.
Unfortunately, Minister Sudarsono seems not to recognize the urgent need for reform. The criticism of military business does not rest on Soeharto-era practices; the problems of military profit-making are ongoing, as we carefully document in our report.
Military foundations and cooperatives in principle exist to support soldiers' welfare, but government investigations have repeatedly shown that these "charitable" entities are used as a cover for corrupt and illegal businesses.
The government's budget constraints are no excuse for allowing military units free rein to raise funds. Instead, officials should focus on developing an appropriate and affordable military budget, monitor it to eliminate waste and corruption, and ensure it provides a decent living standard for defense personnel.
Indonesia's citizens have made it clear that they want a professional military, under effective civilian control, and funded by the government. Many soldiers want to see an end to military business because it taints their reputation and distracts them from their duties. They are looking to Minister Sudarsono for leadership to tackle this crucial issue. So is the international community.
Lisa Misol
Human Rights Watch
Letter published in The Jakarta Post, July 3, 2006.
The full HRW report, and summary and recommendations in Bahasa Indonesia, are available at http://hrw.org/reports/2006/indonesia0606/
I do believe that one of many other things that caused our "losses" in Aceh, Timtim and Irian is the fact that TNI top brass have forgotten what their founding fathers have taught them: Guerilla warfare.
Why would I spend days and nights in the thick jungle if I can sit comfortably in my office controlling my businesses?
These generals, colonels etc are/were more interested in enriching themselves through somtimes-not-so-legal businesses (that really hurts/hurted local people) instead of really "winning the hearts" of the locals.
Unfortunately, once they are rich, these commanders forgot to "distribute" their profits to law ranking soldiers who then have to make their own mostly-illegal way to meet their needs.
The commanders always say the business are for "kesejahteraan prajurit". The irony is, they always also say "Sebagai prajurit yang baik, saya siap ditempatkan dan ditugaskan di mana saja".
So, it seems that what the commanders really mean as "prajurit" is themselves -- a bunch of very high ranking prajurit -- instead of the real low-ranking prajurit under their command.
If these commanders really cared about the low ranking prajurit through their business, we would not see so many soldiers becoming beking, centeng and bodyguards for those who can pay their services.
OOT: Weapons procurement
-- I hope you can publish your thoughts on weapons procurement. So far, this is the closest topic available. --
Why do we have to retain the so called rekanan in procuring the weapons? Why can't we just invite the principals to submit their offers?
So instead of calling PT Rindu Order or PT Dapur Ngebul to buy fighter jets, why don't we directly call Dassault Breguet, Boeing, EADS, whatever to bring their proposals based on our needs? Just like what Singapore did in choosing their latest fighters.
Therefore, we can reduce the costs of intermediary people who do nothing more than raking up profits from our own limited budget.
Another problem is why do we have to buy M-28 Skytruck while we do have the capability of making CN-212 Aviocar? Finance, i guess as the Polish provided soft loan. Fine, but securing only 3-6% offset term for PT DI? C'mon sir, you can do better than that.
It should be 30-60% instead.
Although George Wacko Bullshit has lifted embargo, we cannot trust his forked tongue. We do have to improve our own military industries by buying their products.
PT PAL is doing good. PT Pindad already has its chances and PT DI needs more support.
Some may say that the qualities are not satisfactory but inputs from user will surely help. If TNI don't buy their products, what inputs can they get?
Another OOT, the presidential airplane. Let's call it AURI Satu. If Malaysia and South Korea already got several CN-235 planes for their VVIP transport, why on earth are our own leaders do not want to use these locally-made planes?
Pak Yuwono,
I am disgusted with what the government in supporting PINDAD stealing property's right belonging to other.
Please have a look at this thread.
http://www.tnial.mil.id/forum/viewtopic.php?topic=1004&forum=2&4
But you do a good Job in Dephan
I am behind you
God Bless
Kadang2 NGO memang terlalu membelenggu kita Pak. Apalagi NGO asing. Cerewetnya minta ampun, padahal di negara mereka sendiri masih banyak masalah.
Dalam banyak hal saya lihat sekarang ini TNI ataupun Polri terlalu lemah, ragu-ragu dalam bertindak karena khawatir diserang media dan NGO ini.
Pesan saya dan mungkin banyak masyarakat yang lain: "Jadikanlah TNI & Polri kuat dan tegas. Jangan terlalu lembek! Tapi juga jangan sampai menyalahgunakan kekuatan itu!"