Indonesia’s parliament today passed a suite of controversial amendments to the country’s military law, which human rights groups say will likely remove hard-won checks on the power of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI).
The changes to the 2004 Indonesian Military (TNI) Law expand the government’s ability to appoint serving military officers to civilian positions. The changes were approved by the House of Representatives’ Defense, Foreign Affairs, and Intelligence Commission on Tuesday, and were today passed by a unanimous vote during a plenary session of the House of Representatives.
The passage comes against a backdrop of criticisms from domestic and international human rights groups that the changes to the TNI Law will erode the firewall between the military and the government that was established after the fall of the authoritarian leader Suharto in 1998.
The most contentious of the changes is a revision to Article 47 of the TNI law, which governs the roles that military personnel can take in government. Prior to the changes, Article 47 only permitted active military officers to serve in 10 mostly security-related institutions, such as the Ministry of Defense and the state intelligence agency.
The new legislation has expanded this to include five more agencies: the Attorney General’s Office, National Disaster Mitigation Agency, National Counterterrorism Agency, Indonesian Maritime Security Agency, and National Agency for Border Management. (The AFP news agency, which said that it obtained a copy of the latest draft of the amendments, reported that a sixth institution, the Supreme Court, is also included.)
As under the previous version of the law, in all other cases military personnel will be expected to retire or resign from service before taking civilian positions.
While the amendments to the TNI Law were watered down by the government – a previous draft of the amendment would have given the president the right to appoint serving military officers anywhere in the government – the law is nonetheless among the most controversial changes made by President Prabowo Subianto since he took office in October.
Civil society groups fear that the revision will speed up the creeping erosion of the principle of civilian supremacy and lead to a reinstatement of the doctrine of dwifungsi, or “dual function,” which under the former authoritarian leader Suharto allowed the military to assume a dominant role in government.
Prabowo, a former general who rose through the military under Suharto and has been accused of human rights abuses of various kinds, including the abduction of anti-government activists in the New Order’s final months, has already appointed a number of active and former members of the military to his “Red and White” cabinet.
After projecting a warm grandfatherly image during his campaign for the presidency last year, Prabowo has since sought to portray himself as an energetic, military style leader who will take bold action to cut through red tape, bolster Indonesia’s security, and strengthen its economic prosperity and self-sufficiency.
TNI Commander Gen. Agus Subiyanto has defended the revisions on the grounds that the existing military law was outdated and needed to be revised to address current challenges. “Adjustments are necessary to tackle various issues in implementing the fundamental norms of state policy and political decisions,” Agus told the Defense, Foreign Affairs, and Intelligence Commission on March 13. He has also claimed that military appointees to civilian institutions would respect democratic principles and maintain a clear separation between their military and civilian roles.
Nonetheless, most human rights groups called on the House of Representatives to reject the changes to the law, arguing that the removal of the post-Suharto safeguards could lead to abuses of military authority.
“With its rapid and reckless ratification process, this amendment appears intended to reinstate the Indonesian military’s ‘dual function’ in governance,” Dimas Bagus Arya Saputra, the coordinator of he Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (or Kontras) said in a statement prior to the passage of the amendments. “The expansion of the armed forces authority in the civilian realm would be a setback for democracy in Indonesia.”
Arif Maulana of the Legal Aid Institute described the revision as “a legislative crime that threatens Indonesians and the future of democracy” criticized the “lack of transparency in the drafting process.”
According to Reuters, students and pro-democracy groups and students have promised to protest the law’s passage by holding rallies in front of the parliament building in Jakarta.