Fifty years after declaring themselves a free Nation, Indonesians are celebrating the journey from downtrodden Dutch Colony to emerging Asian Giant.
But while their Imperial Overlords have long gone, many Indonesians believe that the promises of independence have yet to be realised - that the heavy weight of the Military and the state have left their dreams of liberty unfulfilled.
Throughout the twists and turns of the past five decades, the armed forces have never been far from centre stage. As an institution its power is unrivalled... having staked a claim at the very heart of Indonesian society and politics. Few armies in the world wield such power and those which do are under growing pressure to confine themselves to a conventional defence role.
In Indonesia, similar pressures are building. But with the Armed Forces’ position now so deeply entrenched it is by no means certain that Indonesian soldiers will eventually agree to confine themselves to barracks.
ADNAN BUYUNG NASUTION, LEGAL AID FOUNDATIOn: The army, and all the families of the army are the Super Citizens of Indonesia, having their own role and rights in the politics of Indonesia. I am very against Soeharto in this case.
GENERAL SOEMITRO(Retired General): Everyone is criticising them. Even retired soldiers like me are criticising them. I am criticising the Armed Forces, yes.
The passage of the Indonesian Armed forces or ABRI’s passage from liberating nationalist army to its present stronghold in the country’s civic life can be traced to the tumult of the decades following independence.
From the outset the military’s role in expelling the Dutch laid the foundation for those claims on a share of power.. for a time at least, the country’s charismatic first president - Sukarno - managed to keep the generals at bay. But in 1965 Sukarno’s balancing act fell apart.
The so called Communist Coup attempt of that year unleashed a bloodbath of staggering proportions.. paving the way for the military to seize control. The man who emerged to take the mantle of leadership was the 44 year old Javanese general... Soeharto.
ACADEMY Form their very first days of training these young officer cadets are inculcated with the role and virtues of Dual Function. Foreign Correspondent was given a rare insight into ABRI’s training methods when our cameras were allowed into Military Academy in Central Java.
MAJOR GENERAL PURWANTO, GOVERNOR OF THE MILITARY ACADEMY: The role of the military in Indonesia is a bit different to other countries. ABRI has two functions here - as a defence force and as a social political force here. For that reason, in terms of the educational policy in the academy, we always try to give our students the aptitude to become an officer ready to fulfill their two functions.
The first part of that Dual Function is a conventional one - defence of the Nation from external threats. But one of the distinguishing features of the Indonesian Army is that their defence efforts are not confined to external enemies.
CADET 2: My name is Luki Avianto. My father was a soldier.
CADET 1:I have to defend my country from any form of threat which endangers the nation’s integrity. From internal and external threats, physical and non-physical, direct or indirect.
Much of ABRI’s efforts are focused on internal threats. Many of its perceived enemies are fellow Indonesians. And time and again ABRI has shown that it is prepared to use force to defeat those enemies.
This is the kind of image which much of the West has to come to associate with Indonesia. These demonstrators in Central Java were demanding justice for farmers removed from their land. It’s the brutal and sometimes lethal end of ABRI’s Dual Function. But for the most part more subtle methods are used to exert control over ordinary Indonesians.
Lt Colonel Darizal is the regional Commander for the City of Tangerang, just outside of Jakarta. He regularly meets with his civilian counterpart, the mayor and other civic leaders, to discuss issues, offer advice and give directions on the city’s administration.
It’s a system which has been entrenched over the years through a process which has seen almost every civilian level of Government mirrored by a military equivalent.
LT. COL. DARIZAL: It all depends on the day to day activities. Basically up to 70% of our activities are used in co-ordinating and working with related organisations such as government authorities and communities.
The breadth of Darizal’s authority is revealed even more starkly in the villages in his area.
As the leader of his village, Pak Rochwi is one of thousands of local officials who form the base of Indonesia’s political and administrative pyramid. He oversees public works, social services, permits for residency and the issuing of employment papers to those deemed to be of sound personal and political character.
His position is paralleled by a military officer assigned to his region.
Rochwi often meets with and reports to his village military commander and the local police chief.
The people of his village are effectively governed by a triumvirate of a civilian, a policeman and a soldier.
SUNARDI: Our strength actually lies in our organisation. We have grassroots, we have a vertical organisation that can help to promote every government programme - be it family planning, be it re-forrestation programme, be it rural area programmes. We did it all. We gave all the help we can give them.
ABRI sees itself as a People’s Army, as a helping hand, guiding Indonesians down the path of economic and political development. While that guiding hand may help build roads and schools, it’s also proven an effective and at times oppressive tool of social control.
Amidst the hoopla of the 50th anniversary the Government and the Military are doing their best to revive the spirit and aspirations of 1945. But for some the catch calls of ‘Freedom’ and ‘Independence’ are taking on a new meaning.
STUDENT DEMO (Megaphone): Indonesia has been a free nation for 50 years. But there are still basic problems which have not been solved. Freedom of opinion is an essential right of a free person. Even in the educational institutions - the last oasis of democracy in this country - we often see little kings like Rectors or Institutions, that curb and supress the free speech of intellectuals and academics.
EROS DJAROT: I will drink for Indonesian Independence - but what of the day after.
But in Indonesia the line between protest and subversion is thin indeed. So broad is the definition of what constitutes a threat to the state that little room is left for dissent. Even the spectre of Communism, so firmly rooted out in the years following 1965, is still advanced as a key justification for ABRI’s strong internal role.
REAR ADMIRAL SUNARDI, Senior Adviser to Minister of Defence: Communism as an ideology is dead. It has become a factor. We can accept that. But communism as a philosophy is still there, it still exists and it has a very nice ring amongst the poor, among the underprivileged. Therefore communism as a philosophy although it can be classified as knowledge, it must be carefully watched.
SOEMITRO: 25 years of economic development and political engineering since 1965! I think we have to respect the result of all this effort - that the communist illusion is actually gone already. If you’re talking about the past, you’re repeating the past, you become conservative. You see. You’re not open minded. What we need is fresh perceptions. Fashions! Ideas!
Indonesia’s burgeoning economy is creating new interests and new career opportunities for the ambitious and the educated.
As a financially independent middle class grows, the stature and importance of the military is beginning to lose a little of its lustre.
A new generation of Indonesians are impatient for change. And cases like the sacking of prominent dissident Arif Burriman from his university post have become rallying points.
While the numbers protesting are hardly overwhelming and their organisation poor... older activists like lawyer Abnan Buyung Nasution are now grooming their successors.
I am not that radical like the younger generation now, who have been so demanding that the army must go back to the barrack right now. But I have said that it is not realistic either. We have to understand that it takes time. But we cannot maintain the present situation where the army dominates the whole life of a nation’s politics. No longer in my opinion. It is against the new needs of development, against the aspirations of the younger people in Indonesia who are fed up with this domination or tight control of the army or intervention of the army in almost every aspect.
More and more, the country’s courts are being used by activists in their drive for reform and to underline their demands for rule of law and civilian control.
Presiding over the legal system which still includes statutes from the old Dutch colonial regime, the judiciary here is far from independent. By bringing high profile cases - like that of Arif Burriman’s - before the courts, judges are being forced to choose between bowing to Government or Military pressure or taking an independent line... all in the glare of the public spotlight. It’s a strategy which is beginning to yield results.
NASUTION IN CROWD: This strengthens of course our conviction that we shall continue our struggle to uphold the law, to respect the human rights and in particular the freedom of expression.
Whether or not Indonesia’s highly regimented social and political structures are opened up and the military given a more conventional role largely depends on one man.
President Soeharto’s presence towers above Indonesia and after 30 years at the country’s helm his authority has never been stronger.
But even after 74 year old Soeharto has departed... there’s no guarantee civilians will step into the breach.
In the short term at least, there’s every chance the military will move to fill the political vacuum.
But while their Imperial Overlords have long gone, many Indonesians believe that the promises of independence have yet to be realised - that the heavy weight of the Military and the state have left their dreams of liberty unfulfilled.
Throughout the twists and turns of the past five decades, the armed forces have never been far from centre stage. As an institution its power is unrivalled... having staked a claim at the very heart of Indonesian society and politics. Few armies in the world wield such power and those which do are under growing pressure to confine themselves to a conventional defence role.
In Indonesia, similar pressures are building. But with the Armed Forces’ position now so deeply entrenched it is by no means certain that Indonesian soldiers will eventually agree to confine themselves to barracks.
ADNAN BUYUNG NASUTION, LEGAL AID FOUNDATIOn: The army, and all the families of the army are the Super Citizens of Indonesia, having their own role and rights in the politics of Indonesia. I am very against Soeharto in this case.
GENERAL SOEMITRO(Retired General): Everyone is criticising them. Even retired soldiers like me are criticising them. I am criticising the Armed Forces, yes.
The passage of the Indonesian Armed forces or ABRI’s passage from liberating nationalist army to its present stronghold in the country’s civic life can be traced to the tumult of the decades following independence.
From the outset the military’s role in expelling the Dutch laid the foundation for those claims on a share of power.. for a time at least, the country’s charismatic first president - Sukarno - managed to keep the generals at bay. But in 1965 Sukarno’s balancing act fell apart.
The so called Communist Coup attempt of that year unleashed a bloodbath of staggering proportions.. paving the way for the military to seize control. The man who emerged to take the mantle of leadership was the 44 year old Javanese general... Soeharto.
ACADEMY Form their very first days of training these young officer cadets are inculcated with the role and virtues of Dual Function. Foreign Correspondent was given a rare insight into ABRI’s training methods when our cameras were allowed into Military Academy in Central Java.
MAJOR GENERAL PURWANTO, GOVERNOR OF THE MILITARY ACADEMY: The role of the military in Indonesia is a bit different to other countries. ABRI has two functions here - as a defence force and as a social political force here. For that reason, in terms of the educational policy in the academy, we always try to give our students the aptitude to become an officer ready to fulfill their two functions.
The first part of that Dual Function is a conventional one - defence of the Nation from external threats. But one of the distinguishing features of the Indonesian Army is that their defence efforts are not confined to external enemies.
CADET 2: My name is Luki Avianto. My father was a soldier.
CADET 1:I have to defend my country from any form of threat which endangers the nation’s integrity. From internal and external threats, physical and non-physical, direct or indirect.
Much of ABRI’s efforts are focused on internal threats. Many of its perceived enemies are fellow Indonesians. And time and again ABRI has shown that it is prepared to use force to defeat those enemies.
This is the kind of image which much of the West has to come to associate with Indonesia. These demonstrators in Central Java were demanding justice for farmers removed from their land. It’s the brutal and sometimes lethal end of ABRI’s Dual Function. But for the most part more subtle methods are used to exert control over ordinary Indonesians.
Lt Colonel Darizal is the regional Commander for the City of Tangerang, just outside of Jakarta. He regularly meets with his civilian counterpart, the mayor and other civic leaders, to discuss issues, offer advice and give directions on the city’s administration.
It’s a system which has been entrenched over the years through a process which has seen almost every civilian level of Government mirrored by a military equivalent.
LT. COL. DARIZAL: It all depends on the day to day activities. Basically up to 70% of our activities are used in co-ordinating and working with related organisations such as government authorities and communities.
The breadth of Darizal’s authority is revealed even more starkly in the villages in his area.
As the leader of his village, Pak Rochwi is one of thousands of local officials who form the base of Indonesia’s political and administrative pyramid. He oversees public works, social services, permits for residency and the issuing of employment papers to those deemed to be of sound personal and political character.
His position is paralleled by a military officer assigned to his region.
Rochwi often meets with and reports to his village military commander and the local police chief.
The people of his village are effectively governed by a triumvirate of a civilian, a policeman and a soldier.
SUNARDI: Our strength actually lies in our organisation. We have grassroots, we have a vertical organisation that can help to promote every government programme - be it family planning, be it re-forrestation programme, be it rural area programmes. We did it all. We gave all the help we can give them.
ABRI sees itself as a People’s Army, as a helping hand, guiding Indonesians down the path of economic and political development. While that guiding hand may help build roads and schools, it’s also proven an effective and at times oppressive tool of social control.
Amidst the hoopla of the 50th anniversary the Government and the Military are doing their best to revive the spirit and aspirations of 1945. But for some the catch calls of ‘Freedom’ and ‘Independence’ are taking on a new meaning.
STUDENT DEMO (Megaphone): Indonesia has been a free nation for 50 years. But there are still basic problems which have not been solved. Freedom of opinion is an essential right of a free person. Even in the educational institutions - the last oasis of democracy in this country - we often see little kings like Rectors or Institutions, that curb and supress the free speech of intellectuals and academics.
EROS DJAROT: I will drink for Indonesian Independence - but what of the day after.
But in Indonesia the line between protest and subversion is thin indeed. So broad is the definition of what constitutes a threat to the state that little room is left for dissent. Even the spectre of Communism, so firmly rooted out in the years following 1965, is still advanced as a key justification for ABRI’s strong internal role.
REAR ADMIRAL SUNARDI, Senior Adviser to Minister of Defence: Communism as an ideology is dead. It has become a factor. We can accept that. But communism as a philosophy is still there, it still exists and it has a very nice ring amongst the poor, among the underprivileged. Therefore communism as a philosophy although it can be classified as knowledge, it must be carefully watched.
SOEMITRO: 25 years of economic development and political engineering since 1965! I think we have to respect the result of all this effort - that the communist illusion is actually gone already. If you’re talking about the past, you’re repeating the past, you become conservative. You see. You’re not open minded. What we need is fresh perceptions. Fashions! Ideas!
Indonesia’s burgeoning economy is creating new interests and new career opportunities for the ambitious and the educated.
As a financially independent middle class grows, the stature and importance of the military is beginning to lose a little of its lustre.
A new generation of Indonesians are impatient for change. And cases like the sacking of prominent dissident Arif Burriman from his university post have become rallying points.
While the numbers protesting are hardly overwhelming and their organisation poor... older activists like lawyer Abnan Buyung Nasution are now grooming their successors.
I am not that radical like the younger generation now, who have been so demanding that the army must go back to the barrack right now. But I have said that it is not realistic either. We have to understand that it takes time. But we cannot maintain the present situation where the army dominates the whole life of a nation’s politics. No longer in my opinion. It is against the new needs of development, against the aspirations of the younger people in Indonesia who are fed up with this domination or tight control of the army or intervention of the army in almost every aspect.
More and more, the country’s courts are being used by activists in their drive for reform and to underline their demands for rule of law and civilian control.
Presiding over the legal system which still includes statutes from the old Dutch colonial regime, the judiciary here is far from independent. By bringing high profile cases - like that of Arif Burriman’s - before the courts, judges are being forced to choose between bowing to Government or Military pressure or taking an independent line... all in the glare of the public spotlight. It’s a strategy which is beginning to yield results.
NASUTION IN CROWD: This strengthens of course our conviction that we shall continue our struggle to uphold the law, to respect the human rights and in particular the freedom of expression.
Whether or not Indonesia’s highly regimented social and political structures are opened up and the military given a more conventional role largely depends on one man.
President Soeharto’s presence towers above Indonesia and after 30 years at the country’s helm his authority has never been stronger.
But even after 74 year old Soeharto has departed... there’s no guarantee civilians will step into the breach.
In the short term at least, there’s every chance the military will move to fill the political vacuum.