Jakarta – Opposition is growing to Indonesia and Singapore's defense cooperation agreement (DCA), with a senior lawmaker and retired servicemen coming out against the pact.

"This morning we held a hearing with several senior generals... who puzzled over the DCA," a member of the defense commission at the House of Representatives, Abdillah Toha, said during a discussion hosted by the Center for Dialog and Cooperation among Civilizations.

Maj. Gen. (ret) Yogi Supardi, speaking on behalf of retired Army generals during a meeting with the defense commission, slammed the government and criticized the substance of the pact.

"The treaty's core substance is that the government permits its territory to be used by the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) to show off their war games, leaving Indonesian soldiers as observers," Yogi told commission members.

Also in the retired servicemen delegation were two former deputies to the Army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. (ret) Kiki Syahnakri and Lt. Gen. (ret) Suryadi.

"The DCA allows the SAF to conduct its own military exercises and invite third countries to join the exercises," said Suryadi, while pointing out the DCA would be binding for 25 years.

Defense Strategy Director General at the Defense Ministry Maj. Gen. Dadi Susanto, however, said allowing Singapore to use the designated training locations in the pact would not violate Indonesia's sovereignty, as long as the government maintained its control over these areas.

Article 3c of the DCA states the "SAF can conduct exercises or joint exercises with other country's military forces in Indonesia's air and sea areas upon permission from Indonesia".

"It's true that defense agreements are not a new thing for Indonesia, but this DCA is completely different from those previous ones," Abdillah said.

Dadi said the difference between previous agreements was that this latest defense pact contained two new military training areas.

These are Baturaja in South Sumatra for SAF land exercises and the Natuna Sea off Riau Islands for SAF air and sea exercises.

He said Singapore was eager to secure military training areas in Indonesia because it had to pay much higher fees to conduct exercises in places like Brunei Darussalam, Australia and Africa.

Abdillah said Singapore's proposal to conduct exercises in the jungles of Baturaja was unusual, considering there was no jungle in the area available for exercises.

According to Abdillah, the 32,000-hectare Baturaja includes 15,000 hectares of conservation forest area and 6,000 hectares of residential area.

Former Indonesian defense attach in the United States, Maj. Gen. (ret) Benny Mandalika, expressed his suspicion the US had a role in drafting the DCA since it has long been interested in building military bases in Indonesia.

He said that during his time in the US, he was approached by the US military about utilizing an islet in the Riau Islands for a military base.

"Indonesia rejected the request, the US then approached Singapore and was later allowed to set up a military depot on the island state."

The DCA was signed last April as a package agreement along with an extradition treaty that Indonesia says it has been seeking for more than 30 years.

Abdillah said the defense commission had not received official English-language versions of the two agreements.

"We only have the ones translated into Indonesian... and we did not get them from the government."