David Jenkins, Jakarta – In an attempt to rebuild the prestige of an institution which is coming under mounting public attack, the leaders of the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) have decided to cut the national police force free of military control and reintroduce conventional police uniforms and rank systems, according to well-placed sources in Jakarta.
The decision, which is expected to be unveiled on October 5, Armed Forces Day, will be accompanied by a move to "domesticate" ABRI by reducing the clout of the Chief of Staff for Social-Political Affairs (Kassospol), who exercised extensive political influence during the New Order regime of former President Soeharto.
Under the new system, greater emphasis will be placed on the Indonesian army's unique "territorial" structure, a parallel military bureaucracy which extends down to village level and is said to be designed to ensure that ABRI has "the hearts, minds and sympathy" of the people in case of external attack.
The general in charge of social-political affairs will, in future, come under a new and more powerful Chief of Staff for Territorial Affairs (Kaster), although whether this will lead to a significant reduction in the army's political influence remains to be seen.
The changes stem from a recognition by senior officers that ABRI's prestige has taken a massive pounding in recent weeks, with one revelation after another about ABRI involvement in human rights abuses, including murder and torture.
"We have to put back the dignity of ABRI and restore confidence in the institution," a senior member of the Habibie Government told the Herald. "So some tangible things must be done. This is a new-broom approach, a complete overhaul. "We will reform not just the organisation but the spirit and the doctrine."
According to this source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the ABRI restructuring was necessary "because social-political affairs deal more with power, with politics". Under the current system, the army assigns 75 military officers to sit in the 1,000-strong Indonesian Parliament and has at times placed as many as 20,000 officers and men in the civilian bureaucracy, as ministers, department heads, judges and ambassadors.
Under the new system, which will need Parliament's approval, the police force will abolish military-style ranks such as captain, colonel and major. Instead, there will be constables, inspectors and a police commissioner.
Police promotions will no longer be subject to vetting by army generals and the police force will have its own budget. The late President Sukarno brought the national police into the defence force structure in 1960, later playing his four service chiefs off against one another. His successor, former president Soeharto, put the police firmly under army control in 1969, ostensibly to reduce inter-service rivalry.
The police force is expected to welcome the new arrangements, which have been advocated from time to time by prominent retired officers. But it is unlikely that the ABRI restructuring will, on its own, satisfy the public demand for thorough-going change.
Although a succession of Australian foreign ministers have liked to claim otherwise, it is now abundantly clear that army human rights abuses in places like East Timor were not simply isolated incidents by one of two officers acting outside the chain of command but part of a systematic pattern of repression, in Aceh, in Lampung, in Java, in East Timor and in Irian Jaya.
Those calling for reform in Indonesia want to see heads roll. So far, only two heads have rolled, those of the last two Kopassus chiefs.