Jakarta/Brussels – A new internal security strategy for Indonesia could strengthen the democratisation process, ease institutional rivalries, reduce wasteful duplication of effort, and aid in conflict management and prevention.
In its latest report, Indonesia: Rethinking Internal Security Strategy, the International Crisis Group examines the challenges facing the government of President Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
"There is no thornier issue for the new government than internal security reform", says Robert Templer, Crisis Group's Asia Program Director. "If it tackles the issue head on, it could make a major contribution toward reducing violence and resolving Indonesia's long-standing conflicts. The key is undertaking a comprehensive review of the problem".
Indonesia faces everything from armed insurgencies to terrorism to sporadic outbreaks of ethnic and communal conflict, and it is trying to wrestle with these through institutions like the military, the police, and intelligence agencies that have emerged from an authoritarian past.
It has to cope with an unclear division of labour, particularly between the police and the military; contradictory or ambiguous legislation; inadequate oversight of internal security operations; and the legacy of previous governments that exercised no strategic direction.
It also has to contend with the fact that while the police have formal legal responsibility for internal security, they do not yet have the capacity to fulfil their mandate, making a transition role for the military essential – but the limits of that role have yet to be defined.
Moreover, there are several "grey areas" where police and military responsibilities overlap, including, among other things, counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, and outbreaks of serious violence. Only the president can trump institutional interests and guide a review process that has as its objective the formulation of a new internal security policy and the establishment of new bureaucratic arrangements that can carry it out.
A starting point would be production of a comprehensive concept paper that examines existing arrangements and identifies the process, structural and resource issues in maintaining internal security. It should reaffirm the primary role of the police; determine the intelligence role and functions of the police, military, and National Intelligence Agency (BIN) in internal security; identify the military capabilities and deployments required on land, sea, and air; identify priority areas for police development and expansion; provide guidance on political control and oversight, command and control, and conflict resolution; suggest how military commitments and structures might be adjusted over time as police capacity improves; and indicate resource allocations and management for all relevant bodies. It is essential that current realities and limitations be acknowledged as the baseline for transition processes and planning.
The measure of success in internal security should be a decline in armed conflicts and violence, improvements in respect for law and order as police performance improves, and gradual restriction of the military to very specifically defined internal security commitments, with its primary focus on external defence.