The Indonesian army will set up 22 new territorial commands in the next five years, from 2005-2009, said army chief of staff Lt General Djoko Santoso, in a meeting with Parliament's Commission I.
There will be 19 new district military commands and three new resort military commands, he said. The 19 new district commands will be in Kodam/Bukit Barisan (North Sumatra), Kodam VI/Tanjungpura (East Sumatra), Kodam XVI/Pattimura (Maluku), Kodam XVII Trikora (West Papua), and Kodam Iskandar Muda (Aceh).
The three new resort military commands will be in Riau, Bangka Belitung and Merauke. He also said that the army will set up one Kostrad infantry division in Sorong Komplex, Abepura Komplex and North Sulawesi.
He said in addition that the army will create six infantry brigade headquarters in Kodam IV/Diponegoro (Central Java), Kodam V/BRawijaya (East Java), Kodam VI/Tanjungpura, Kodam XVI/Pattimura, Kodam XVII/Trikora and Kodam Iskandar Muda
He said there will be 16 new infantry battalions, one cavalry battalion, two cavalry detachments, two cavalry companies, two field artillery battalions, two field artillery battalions, one engineers combat detachment and two military region base regiments.
He said this was the second phase of the army's fifteen year development programme.
The announcement provoked a number of comments. Happy Bone, member of Commission I, said the elimination of territorial commands would be in the spirit of the TNI reform programme, and therefore it was wrong to go ahead with creating more territorial commands.
A military expert, Andi Widjajanto of the University of Indonesia took the view that the TNI was still pursuing its old paradigm. Another critic said the creation of additional territorial commands was not in conformity with the TNI Law, which states that army forces should not run parallel the administrative governments.
"The focus should be on areas of conflict, borders regions and isolated regions", he said. He thought it would be possible for Parliament to halt this planned increase in territorial commands through its decisions on budgetary provisions. The new territorial commands would delay the reform process in the armed forces, he said.
Yesterday, Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono met the President to report on his visit to Washington. He said he met six senators and six members of the House of Representative, the UN Secretary General and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
He said agreement had been reached for the IMET programme to re-start, while the question of Foreign Military Sales had not yet been completed.
[Abridged translation from Tapol.]