Analysis: Indonesia Protests Over Military’s Return to Civilian Government

TaiwanPlus News

Yohanes Sulaiman joins TaiwanPlus News to discuss how Indonesia allowing military officers to take up civil service roles has opened a door for a return to a militarized society, while also highlighting the need to reform military roles.

Transcript

00:00Professor, I want to start off by asking, what are the risks of this law where military

00:04personnel can now take civil service roles, and what has led to these protests?

00:08Well, the main question is whether this is a creating militarization of civilian institutions,

00:14because if you remember Indonesian history, back in 1998, we deposed Suharto as the dictator

00:21of Indonesia, and then later, in 2004, we basically tried to, well, we got rid of the

00:30military from the civilian area, so the regulation number 34, year 2004, about the military.

00:38And there, basically, the military is not allowed to be in civilian bureaucracy, and

00:45then, of course, now, the government said that, look, the time changes, we have to move

00:51on with what's going on now, so we need to put lots of military officers in the bureaucracy,

00:57and of course, many people said, hey, are we going back to the Suharto era, where Suharto

01:02just will disappoint, like, many generals, or colonels, or whatever, to civilian bureaucracy,

01:08so the governor will be, again, from the military, and that's what really scared people off.

01:14So what has led to him deciding to repeal this law that has stood on the book for 20 years?

01:20What is he trying to solve by repealing this law?

01:23Actually, this has been, it has been in draft, and it's supposed to be considered by the

01:31parliament for, like, I don't know, like 5 to 10 years, because it has been for so long,

01:35and in fact, Sabawut basically just told, just held the parliament to, look, just pass

01:42the law, we need this law, and one of the main reasons is because there's just so many

01:49unemployed military officers within the military, I cannot remember the numbers off the top

01:54of my head, but if I'm not mistaken, there are currently around 1,500 colonels and one-star

02:00generals, and only less than 300 of them have positions, the rest are basically, I mean,

02:08come to the office and then pass the clock within their towns and urban areas, so that's

02:12actually comes out of, what do you call it, kind of like a bad-ass solution for the government

02:19to solve this, too many military officers.

02:22In this case, then, what is a potential solution where the military needs jobs, but there is

02:29a lack of a clear rule defined for them?

02:31I can understand, like, what's the military or the government thinking, because, yes,

02:37there are just so many military officers without functional jobs at this point, like

02:43I said, they come in and then they have nothing to do and go home, but the solution is actually

02:51reforming the military, getting rid of those excess officers, and that actually will hurt

02:58the government more in the short run, because what happens is you have a bunch of very angry

03:04officers, of course, who are out of jobs, but in the long run, this is actually a far

03:10more sustainable approach that actually will kind of, I mean, will help stabilize the politics,

03:18but, of course, the biggest problem now is the government just passed the law secretly

03:25and very quickly, so there's just so many question marks being asked, so many questions

03:31being asked by citizens, and I don't discriminate, so I think this is just a kind of

03:38well-intentioned policy that they don't really consider in the long run.

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