Security Challenges and Military Reform in Post-authoritarian Indonesia: The Impact of Separatism, Terrorism, and Commun
For over a decade, observers have witnessed the development of military reform in Indonesia. This reform is a significant part of the country’s political transformation, one that was precipitated by the end of Suharto’s long dictatorship (1966–1998). The
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Security Challenges and Military Reform in Post-authoritarian Indonesia: The Impact of Separatism, Terrorism, and Communal Violence Jun Honna
Introduction For over a decade, observers have witnessed the development of military reform in Indonesia. This reform is a significant part of the country’s political transformation, one that was precipitated by the end of Suharto’s long dictatorship (1966–1998). The evaluation of military reform is, however, mixed. There is a consensus that the military elite has contributed significantly to the dismantling of the authoritarian political system by accepting the public demand for military withdrawal from politics and supporting a peaceful transition to democratically-elected civilian governments during the post-Suharto period. Unlike in Thailand and the Philippines, where civilian political elites use the military in everyday power struggles, and generals intimidate and pressure civilian governments, the Indonesian military (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, or TNI) has succeeded in maintaining a degree of institutional autonomy vis-a`-vis political elites. This perception fuels opinion that TNI is seriously committed to institutional self-reform with a goal of professionalizing the organizational orientation. Critics and skeptics argue, however, that the apparent military withdrawal from political participation does not necessarily signal the success of military reform. TNI no longer dictates, but, as critics usually emphasize, Indonesia does not yet have effective civilian control over core military policies, including TNI’s budget and organizational design. Clearly, parliamentary oversight of defense affairs has been weak. Civilian bureaucrats in the Defense Ministry defer to, and are directed by, active-duty generals who dominate top strategic positions within the ministry. Military spending, in addition to “off-budget” fundraising typically conducted by TNI’s territorial commands throughout the archipelago, lacks transparency. It is these factors that support pessimistic evaluations of military reform in Indonesia
J. Honna (*) Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan e-mail: [email protected] J. Ru¨land et al. (eds.), The Politics of Military Reform, Global Power Shift, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-29624-6_9, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
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where a decade of democratic governance has failed to establish a viable mechanism for civilian control of the military. Thus, there are objective reasons for positive and negative evaluations of military reform; the former focuses on the historical trend in civil-military relations while the latter focuses on the everyday policy level. The discourse on TNI reform is robust and features the three following points. First, after a decade of post-Suharto politics, TNI is no longer a major political player in democratizing Indonesia. Second, civilian leaders are mostly indifferent to the problem of past atrocities committed by the military, as evident in the fact that not one high-ranking army officer has been bro
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