Jakarta – The Indonesian Army Chief of Staff General Mulyono said that the army has formed a supervisory team consisting of an internal intelligence agency to face the political year of 2018-2019.

The team was formed to monitor the political neutrality of soldiers in the field. "[The aim is] to avoid confusion among the public in general. This reflects our commitment to maintaining the neutrality of national armed forces members," said Mulyono at the Army's main headquarters on Monday, January 15, 2018.

Mulyono said that there will always be soldiers who will get themselves involved in politics although they have been called on to remain neutral. "I will make use of our intelligence to conduct their monitoring of society which they will report back to us," he said.

The statement made by Mulyono was related to the position handovers involving nine Army high ranking officers. One of them was the Army's Strategic Reserve Forces Commander lieutenant general Edy Rahmadi. Edy decided to enter the political realm after he agreed to retire from the armed forces.

– Chitra Paramaesti

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/news/2018/01/15/055914855/KSAD-Forms-Watchdog-to-Keep-Military-Neutral