Chapter 4. The abandonment of TNI’s business activities
4.2. The struggle over the taking over of TNI’s business
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in early 2017. Agus Yudhoyono is surely not a deviant case. Finally, while the normative regulations on military’s non-involvement in business activities has been available from the general principles to the operational-technical levels, the behavioral aspect of officers’, as well as petty soldiers’, involvement in business activities has not yet well founded. The next part assesses the obstacles to the disbandment of military’s business activities, especially the lack of the behavioral aspect.
4.2. The struggle over the taking over of TNI’s business
Human Right Watch (2010, 10) identified several weaknesses in the reform of military’s business activities which was “rooted in the false logic that businesses owned by the “private” foundations and member-owned cooperatives organized under each of the branches of the armed forces and TNI headquarters are not really owned by the military.” While this assessment is reasonable and it has been public knowledge, it is extremely difficult to clearly connect, especially the “private-owned” cases, that business to the armed forces. As Sutarto (2017, interview) has confessed, the support for funding from the government is extremely small, but the responsibility for officers, especially commanders, is somehow high. Matter will get worst if these commanders receive order to conduct specific mission, which in most cases, is urgent in nature. In a private conversation with one of Navy commander, he explained that in mid-2011 he had to lead a joint operation to save hostages off the coast Somalia without clear understanding when the funding would be delivered.103 The first drop of the funding was then delivered when he reached Omani waters. He, however, did not clarify where the funding for his departure from Jakarta to Omani waters came from. Sutarto (2017, interview) confessed that during his days, the common practices to fund an operation were by asking cooperatives and foundations to provide funding. Prasetyono (2017, interview) also said that most commanders who received orders to conduct military operations relied on their personal wealth or collected funding from their business
103 The conversation took place in a VIP meeting prior to a seminar held by National Defense University in which I attended as one of the speaker. Since the conversation was basically personal and I did not further pursue his consent, hence no reference to his name and rank would not be made.
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associates, in the case where they had one.104 TNI Headquarter basically allocates contingency fund for these operations, but the amount is relatively low.
During the reign of Suharto, as well as the period prior to his rule, TNI’s business activities gave relatively huge share to the armed forces budget. In particular, they provided the soldiers with additional funding for their relatively low salary. In a hearing in front of DPR in 2002, the then KSAD General Ryacudu, presented that in comparison to other countries, the salary of soldier as well as officer in Indonesia was among the lowest (see Table 4.1). The highest salary for a private rank was equivalent to 59.77 USD and the highest was 93.85 USD. The salary for non-commission officer or sub-officer was ranging from 73.82 to 122.25 USD and the salary for officer ranging from 92.4 to 179.31 USD. In 2008, Air Vice-Marshall Sagom Tamboen, the then Head of Information of TNI Headquarter, released a statement detailing the standard salary for soldier ranging from 190 to 272 for private rank, 215 to 322 USD for sub-officer, and 284 to 603 for officer.105 This statement was released due to the heated debate over officer’s involvement in business activities, especially those who were assigned in border areas.
Table 4.1. Comparison of soldiers’ monthly salary in 2002 in USD (Source: Ryacudu, 2002)
Private Sub-officer Officer
Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest
Indonesia 59.77 93.85 73.82 122.25 92.4 179.31
Singapore 775.28 1224.72 983.15 1,384.83 808.99 12,191
Thailand 122 488 122 732 244 1,220
India 156.25 218.75 225 383.33 318.75 1,145.83
Saudi Arabia 800 1,000 1,100 1,250 1,600 10,200
New Zealand 8,820 9,800 12,250 26,950 24,500 73,500
United States 1,022.7 4,467 2,049 5,478.6 2,097.6 12,324
With such a low salary, the welfare of the soldiers has become one of the most contested issues during the reform era. Leaderships within the brass had been quite often stated the importance of military’s business activities, in particular the existence of cooperatives and foundations, to provide wealth for soldiers. Sutarto (2017,
104 He did mention several names of the officers as example, but asked for anonymity of those officers since most of them are still active officers. I also personally know some of those officers that he talked about.
105 1 USD was equal to roughly 9000 rupiahs in 2008. Meanwhile, in 2002, 1 USD was equal to 8900 rupiahs.
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interview), for example, mentioned that the main function of these cooperatives and foundations was crucial in the case where soldiers were killed or got an accident that forced them to retire. The support from the government was basically gone away when such an incident took place. In addition, in some cases, the commanders, for humanitarian reasons, allowed the families of the killed soldiers to stay in soldier houses despite the fact that they were no longer entitled. As a result, the new coming soldiers were struggling to get a place to live and hence the armed forces had to find new houses, either built or rented those housings, for the latter. The government would not cover the new houses and it became the task of cooperatives and foundations. In addition, the role of cooperatives and foundations was also crucial to provide the children of fallen soldiers to get access to education. In the words of General Sutarto (2017, interview),
“we cannot allow these kids to become criminals” and the best way to ensure that was to provide them with education. It was a common practice in the past where the son and daughter of a fallen soldier would be granted “positive discrimination” to enter the brass.
He, however, refused to continue this practice during his term as Panglima.
The welfare argument had been one of the most dominant arguments frequently presented by the armed forces. Hardjapamekas (2017, interview) contended that the resistance from the brass to the disbandment of TNI’s business activities was basically due to this reason. He said that Panglima Air Marshal Suyanto clearly showed his anger during a meeting with TNPBT and said that the taking over of TNI’s business activities would only provoke anger from soldiers, especially since they had been stripped off from all of their rights.106 Scholars have long proposed alternative ways to provide welfare to soldiers in addition to through the defense budget. Prasetyono (2017, interview) reminded the need to incorporate different budget posts in various ministries
106 According to Hardjapamekas (2017, interview), “Panglima sempat marah waktu kita rapat, dia bilang, dalam bahasa Jawa, tapi kira-kira, kalau semua-semua diambil ya pasti marah lah prajurit.
Maksudnya kan hak politiknya sudah diambil, tugas-tugasnya juga banyak yang diambil, masak sumber ekonominya juga mau diambil.” [JCS showed his anger when we had a meeting. He said, in Javanese language, which is sound like if you take away everything, soldiers definitely will get angry. I think he referred to the fact that TNI personnel have lost their political right, and they also lost many of assignments which used to be theirs, and now the government wanted to take away their economic sources as well]. Again, I have heard similar tone during my encounters with military personnel. Other scholars with whom I have worked with also shared similar story of how military personnel began to develop a sense of jealousy with other security actors, mostly with police force. A declining role, especially in maintaining internal security, also means a lost in share of budget. With those assignments fall to hand of police force, a sum of funding also goes to the police instead of to the brass.
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for the soldiers.107 For example, the burden of the housings for soldiers can be transferred to the budget of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Housings. In addition, the burden for the education of the children of soldiers can be transferred to the budget of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Research and Higher Education and the burden for health coverage can be transferred to the Ministry of Public Health.
The issue of defense budget has always dominating the debate over TNI’s business activities. As suggested above, there seem to be decrease in the share of TNI’s business activities to overall defense budget from time to time. Most of defense budget went to personnel salary instead of procurement. Around half of the defense budget was allocated to personnel salary and the rest was split for procurement and operational expenses. While there has been an increase in defense budget (see Figure 4.1), the allocation of those budgets remains the same. Hence, in the last few years, the government has basically focusing on increasing the wealth of the soldiers rather than on modernizing the weaponry systems of the armed forces.108 With regard to their business activities, the armed forces tend to consider that their business activities have become a burden instead of a benefit. Their share to defense budget or soldiers’ welfare has been decreasing over time and it only worsens their image within the society.
Hence, while resistance from TNI as an institution suggests a diminishing trend, it is not the case with resistances from factional groups or persons within the armed forces. The factional or personal interests of military officers can be seen in two cases that reached public attention. The first case is the corruption scandal in Yayasan Dharma Putra affiliated with Kostrad in 2000. In early 2000, Wirahadikusumah was appointed by President Wahid as Pangkostrad to replace Lieutenant General Djaja Suparman. Soon after his instalment, he conducted an inquiry over the financial audit on all foundations under Kostrad. This high-profile inquiry came with a report of suspicion financial activities conducted by previous Pangkostrad. Kontras (2004, 13-14; see also Kingsbury, 2003, 205) reported that Suparman ordered the use of PT Mandala Airlines, one of the companies owned by Yayasan Dharma Putra Kostrad as much as 160 billion rupiahs on 1 December 1999, 1 January 2000, and 29 January 2009 for “supporting additional benefits for the troops during Christmas and Ied Mubarak, two important
107 Prasetyono mentions this idea a couple of during both Propatria Working Group meetings and Pacivis Working Group meetings. Members of both Working Groups also support this idea.
108 This issue has a close relationship with military organization.
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events for Christian and Muslim communities, and for operational cost of the foundation.” Of that amount, 135 billion rupiahs were failed to be accounted for.
Suparman (2013, 254) denied this accusation and the Inspector General of the Army who conducted investigation over this case supported his case by declaring that there was no corruption or misuse of funding as suggested by Wirahadikusumah.109 The latter was then removed from his position and the next Pangkostrad, Lieutenant General Ryamizard Ryacudu, closed the case and cleared the accusation to Suparman.
Another case to suggest the existence and resistance of factional/personal interests in the TNI’s business activities is the case of Papua. While the former case, Kostrad case, is closely related to military unit within the armed forces, the Papua case has a much close resonance with personal business activities of the officers. The Papua case appeared to public knowledge when Theys Eluay was killed in 2001. Theys was known for his involvement in OPM and his murder was hence linked to his political activity against Jakarta. Kusnanto Anggoro, however, hinted that Theys was murdered as result of Wiranto and Hendropriyono business rivalry.110 He said that the two generals were argued over concession right of forest areas worth of 40 million USD, each through their own affiliated companies. One of the companies involved in this case was PT Hanurata in which Yayasan Kobame, one of Kopassus foundations, had their share on this company.
Officers’ interests in business activities were also commonly taking place in various levels. Azca, et.al (2003) and Kontras (2003) identified that the most common form of involvement was protection for certain activities, usually by providing security bodyguards from certain units within the armed forces. In our interview, Widjajanto (2017) mentioned that each unit within the armed forces has the so-called logistics assistant position (Asisten Logistik, Aslog). Those who hold this position are basically the one who in charge of managing military business or finding ways to secure funding through various means. Most Aslog, hence, have close relationship with business persons.
109 In 2013, Suparman was convicted for corruption while he served as Commander of Kodam Brawijaya in 1998, a year prior to his the Kostrad case. In comparison to Kostrad case, Kodam Brawijaya case was relatively small since in the latter case, Suparman was accused of using 13.3 million rupiahs for personal use.
110 Personal communication, 2017.
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death, he was undergoing an investigation for his alleged involvement in illegal import of weaponry. The military police found more than 100 pieces of weapon of various types with the ammunitions. He was, at that time, the Deputi Aslog KSAD. Another case that recently went to martial court was the case of Brigadier General Teddy Hernayadi, the Sub-Director of Financing of the Ministry of Defense, who was convicted of manipulating the cost of procurement purchase for his own benefits. TNI has always argued that officers’ involvement in criminal business activities should be considered as personal conduct and that their crime should be brought to justice.111 To conclude this chapter, the following Figure 4.3 provides a simple tracing of the shortcomings in reforming TNI’s business activities.Figure 4.3. Tracing for the disbandment of TNI’s business activities
4.3. Conclusion
To conclude the above explanation, three important findings are worth considering. First, there have been significant changes in the conduct of TNI’s business
111 Prasetyono (2017) also agreed with this statement, since it basically had no relations with the brass at all.
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activities. These changes include a dispersion mode of TNI’s business activities during the late and following the end of Suharto era. During these periods, TNI’s business activities were no longer huge in scale and were diversed to various sectors which basically resulted in a small-scale with a small-impact business activities. Second, it leads to a relatively low refusal for the taking over of these business by the government.
Finally, the refusal to this taking over is limited to those businesses owned by few officers and those businesses that engaged in critical sectors such as forestry and mining.
The main problem in the abandonment of TNI’s business activities is related to the fact that the taking over only took place in TNI’s formal business activities and did not touch upon TNI’s informal and illegal business activities. This decision is understandable since the informal and illegal business activities are not legally related to TNI as an institution.
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Chapter 5
The disbandment of territorial command structure
The disbandment of TNI’s territorial command structure is one of the most contested issues in military reform in Indonesia. The armed forces have long been developed their territorial command structure as part of their defense strategy. While the TNI doctrine has been changed in 2007, the importance of territorial command structure in the new doctrine remains. TNI has officially disbanded the sociopolitical roles of their territorial command structure and hence left it with a mere defense function. This chapter lays out TNI’s territorial command structure and the importance of this structure to TNI’s interests. It also examines in detail changes that have been taking place since the beginning of military reform with regard to TNI’s doctrine and organization. In the next part, this chapter assesses the corporate interest of TNI that drives to the relatively minimal changes in their territorial command structure. It argues that the lack of alternative is one of the main reasons for the minimum change in TNI’s territorial command structure. In addition, the failure of defense modernization program of the armed forces due to the lack of financial sources has also contributed to the difficulties in the reorganization of the armed forces. Another, and more important reason, is the resistance from TNI to completely abandon their current structure since such change, especially a drastic one, would completely change their political power against other groups in the society.
5.1. The importance of komando teritorial
The words komando territorial or koter is a sacred one for the brass. The term koter refers to the territorial command structure of the Indonesian Army. For years, Army has been the most important and the strongest service within the brass. The organization of koter itself is a mimicry of civilian bureaucracy from the central to the district or village levels of governance. Figure 5.1 below shows how TNI’s territorial command structure is shaped in line with that of civilian bureaucracy. With such a structure, it is understandable if TNI has been fully able to penetrate the governance during the reign of Suharto.
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Figure 5.1. Structure of komando teritorial of TNI (Adapted from Said, 1987, 7)
Note: in the current civilian bureaucratic structure, Karesidenan has no longer existed
5.1.1. The evolution of TNI’s doctrine
Since the development of TNI’s structure has a close affinity with their doctrine, the discussion in this part includes an analysis of the evolution of TNI’s doctrine. The TNI’s doctrine itself, as in the case of other states, can be differentiated into different types, ranging from defense doctrine, military doctrine and service doctrine. Those three doctrines should be coherent. In the case of Indonesia, however, the making of the doctrines has been usually in a bottom-up rather than top-down process. Hence, basically the doctrines of the three services are the first to be developed and the followed by the military doctrine and the defense doctrine. It happened twice in which the first occurrence took place when the 1966 Tjatur dharma eka karma (Cadek) was developed after the 1965 Eka sasana jaya of the Navy, the 1965 Swa buana paksa of the Air Force and the 1966 Tri ubaya cakti of the Army. The defense doctrine known as the 1966 Doktrin pertahanan keamanan nasional was adopted later. In the post Suharto era, the 2008 defense doctrine known as Doktrin pertahanan nasional was adopted after the military adopted Tri dharma eka karma (Tridek) in 2007. Tridek itself was developed after the Army adopted their Kartika eka paksi in 2001, the Navy adopted their Eka sasana jaya in 2001 and the Air Force adopted their Swa buana paksa in
Civilian bureacracy
National (Pusat)
Province (Propinsi) Residency (Karesidenan)
District (Kabupaten/Kota)
Sub-district (Kecamatan)
Village (Desa/Kelurahan)
Military structure
Mabes
Kodam
Korem
Kodim
Koramil
Babinsa