Ismira Lutfia – The Defense Ministry is touting a pending bill on national security as a key part of the solution to the spate of violent land disputes that has erupted across the country during recent years.
Maj. Gen. Puguh Santoso, the ministry's director general of defense strategy, said the bill would give local residents a greater say in resolving the disputes as well as minimize the military's role.
"This bill recognizes that the local people are the ones with the best understanding of a particular dispute, so it treats them as the subject rather than the object in finding a resolution," he said.
The bill calls for the establishment of regional communications forums whose members will include local leaders, councilors, security and military chiefs.
Should a conflict break out, Puguh said, the forum would convene and receive input from the military and police on the security situation. It would then be better informed to make decisions on how to deal with the conflict and the subsequent steps to take.
In order to prevent the kind of recent violent clashes that have resulted in allegations of human rights abuses on the part of the security forces, Puguh said that under the terms of the security bill, the military would have to seek approval from a National Security Council before taking any kind of action.
"What we hope to achieve through the communications forums is a situation whereby military intervention is not the default response but is an option that remains on tap, pending approval from the central authorities," he said. "In the question of when the military can be called in, the potential for violence has always been a major issue.
"So that's why the military will no longer be able to take the initiative and dive headfirst into a violent situation. There has to be carefully coordination."
However, Puguh said the protocol would be different in the context of a humanitarian situation, such as in the response to a natural disaster. "In that context, the military could be directly deployed. On that front, its capabilities are beyond doubt," he said.
Security forces, in particular the police, have come under close scrutiny over the past several months for their heavy-handed crackdowns in protests over land disputes in various parts of the country.
In late December, three civilians were killed in a clash with security forces during a protest over gold prospecting activities in Bima district, West Nusa Tenggara. Earlier that same month, farmers from Mesuji district in Lampung presented a video to legislators that they claimed showed security forces murdering residents in a bid to evict them from their land.
The national security bill has previously been criticized as essentially reviving the Restoration of Security and Order (Kopkamtib), the notorious secret police created and employed by former President Suharto, but Puguh denied that was the case.
If anything, he said, the new bill was meant to support existing local laws and regulations on security.
"The national security bill is nothing like the Kopkamtib," Puguh said. "In fact, it's very different. Our hope is that the bill will help to better integrate various security sectors so that there's no more fragmentation and we can develop a more cohesive system."
He added that the unified system would be overseen by a National Security Council made up of various cabinet ministers and operate on threat analyses made by the State Intelligence Agency (BIN).
"The security council and the bill won't operate in isolation." Puguh said. "And the council's authority will only be to give recommendations of a strategic nature, not of a technical nature."