.
The other day I finished reading the brilliant and utterly perplexing book “Congo. A History“. One of it’s inevitable conclusions is that if indigenous people, literally living on top of vast natural resources, are being overrun by ‘foreign’ immigrants and crushed by big capitalism, huge and devastating problems are bound to surface.
I fear Papua is growing to be that kind of problem province in Indonesia. The most Eastern part of the country is being weight down by ” structural injustice“. No wonder discontent is increasing, violence appears to get worse and more and more people are getting killed almost daily.
Yet “Jakarta” appears to believe repressing dissent, disturbances and riots and crushing rebellion and guerilla, is the right way to respond. BIN’s chief Lt. Gen. Marciano Norman wants a comprehensive security sweep. The National Police planned to deploy Mobile Brigade’s special operations unit in Jayapura. Minister Minister Djoko Suyanto, coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs, made this chilling statement “We will take all necessary action to track them down, so don’t blame us for any human rights violations“. And now a new Papua Police Chief has been appointed. It’s telling that Brig. Gen. Tito Karnavian, the former Densus 88 Chief and acting deputy chief of the splendid new Counter-Terrorism Agency, will be this new man in charge.
It’s clear “Jakarta” decided to use an iron fist. In such a context last week’s arrival of the first four of eighteen A-29 Super Tucano fighter planes hardly can be considered to be a mere coincidence. These new TNI planes have been specially designed for counter-insurgency missions.
I admit the complexity of the present situation is beyond my comprehension. But what I’m sure of is that no unilateral ‘solution’ will be effective. And least of all unilateral solutions built on violence. Because that’s only the fast track to a “vicious circle” of violence.
Stopping this “vicious circle” in Papua is also what Commission I’s chairman Mahfudz Siddiq intends to do. He used these words commenting on the creation of a working committee to find solutions in and for Papua. Alas his working committee is likely to produce unilateral drawing-board wisdoms at best.
I’m afraid the government is on a bloody dead-end street in West Papua.
Indonesia has been on a bloody dead-end street in Papua ever since Sukarno, along with most of Indonesians–imagined (“fantasized” would be a better word) that Papua was and wanted to be Indonesia, for no other reason that one day he woke up and thought that it should be so.
Maybe one day I will wake up and think it good to occupy my neighbors house, raid his fridge, hold an auction to sell his possessions, rent out his house so that I can live off the rental income in Jakarta, abuse his children and pimp out his wife. And when he comes at me with a knife and club, I’ll play the part of the well-intentioned victim.
@ Mauricio: I like the allegorical comparison
. I think the Indonesians’ alleged fantasy about Papua resembles in a striking way the sadly biased perceptions/fantasies old colonial powers -United Kingdom, France, Portugal or the Netherlands- had of their colonies.
In more ways than one, Papua is Indonesia’s “Palestinian problem”. Often, Muslim groups gather to protest Israel’s occupation and policies, and the support thereof by the U.S.. Yet they are altogether silent on the festering problem in their back yard. The lessons of Timor-Timur were never learnt or quickly forgotten.
Here are two seemingly unrelated questions:
i.) why does Indonesia need such a large military?
ii.) why does Indonesia need to extract so much surplus from the outlying provinces?
The proximate answer is that Indonesia needs its military, not to face and deter an external enemy, but rather to contain an internal threat. For several decades, the role of the military has been primarily in maintaining internal security. Who are these internal enemies? Those putative Indonesians who object to the plundering of their home regions with little benefit to show for it.
The ultimate answer has to do with the fundamental fact that the Indonesian state cannot sufficiently fund itself. Therefore it must rely overwhelmingly on digging rocks out of the ground in the far-flung corners of the country in order to sell them on international markets. And because the Indonesian state cannot sufficiently fund itself, it gives a free hand to the military to engage in extra- and supra-legal business ventures in order to supplement its budget which cannot be met by the central government.
Why is the Indonesian state unable to sufficiently fund itself? One reason is that its labor force is not sufficiently productive to provide it with sufficient tax revenue. Another is that the little tax revenue that is collected is stolen and pilfered, and the little that remains is wasted in poorly planned and poorly implemented projects and inefficient governance.
All this talk about nationalism and nationalist aspirations, and the harga mati of Indonesian unity only serves to obscure this fundamental fact which is the real driver for, among others, the Papua conflict.
@ Mauricio: Though personally I think every military man is one too much, but slightly less than 500.000 TNI personnel is not that much in my opinion taking into account the vast area, the numerous islands and the number of inhabitants. To me it seems to be relatively modest compared for instance to the 65.000 Dutch soldiers ( small stable country,no external immediate threat, 17.000.000 inhabitants).
Yet, it’s peculiar that in an archipelago like Indonesia TNI AD and not TNI AL has the largest budget and largest share of men by far. Obviously the army ( and Golkar by the way) indeed still has it’s tentacles in every region, every city and every kampung. It had – and perhaps to some extent still has- a function to control society and to have access “earn” some grey or black money on the side.
As for the ‘extracting surplus from outlying provinces’ the exploitation of peripheral regions in itself is not a crime I think. Even within the borders of my own tiny country the “centre” (Amsterdam/the Hague/Rotterdam) gains big time from the exploitation of gas supplies in the ‘far away’ North Eastern part of the country ( Groningen). It rather is the way it is being done in Papua which is appalling.
What credible external enemy that warrants a military of 500,000 personnel does Indonesia face? Given than the Indonesian state only funds about 40% of TNI’s budget on the official yearly budget, can the country afford such a large military?
@ Mauricio: That 40% is some 3 to 4 % of the government’s budget. Not extreme or extra-ordinary. What’s extraordinary is the other 60%
.
About the size and costs of TNI? Well I’ve got no clue what the generals’ information is, but I can think up one or two reasons they may bring forward to explain the standing army/navy/airforce’s present size:
- border issues and other frictions vis a vis friendly neighbour Malaysia
- the necessity of a military might fitting the aspired ASEAN leadership and the also aspired status of regional power
- and the threats foreign geo-politics in the Chinese Sea potentially pose to RI’s sovereignty.
If I were the layman Minister of Defense I would ask the generals to explain why the bulk of resources is being spent on infantry and the likes, while safeguarding of the borders should first, mainly and primarily happen at sea and in the air. And I would a ask if the army is ready for guerilla strategies once enemies have invaded parts of the country.
You’ve drunk the Kool-Aid, haven’t you? If seaborne and maritime disputes are the primary threats, why is the bulk of TNI made up of land forces? Because, as I asserted earlier, the primary purpose of the armed forces, for close to half a century now, has been to contain internal enemies.
Let’s imagine a parallel situation. Let’s imagine that only 40% of the U.S. military budget was approved and provided by the U.S. Congress. For the missing 60%, the executive and the legislative told the military to provide for itself by engaging in legal and extra-legal ventures. The initial question would be: what would be the distorting effect on markets and on crowding out the private and licit sectors?
Then the military went into Iraq. The incentive structure would work in favor of the military stoking the fans of violence in order to justify its presence there. Then it would start providing “security” to oil companies operating there, thereby reaping vast sums of money and becoming dependent on them. What incentives would then exist for the military to leave Iraq? A very similar phenomenon occurs in Papua nowadays. The military is as much as part of the problem as the separatists. In a very real sense, the inability to derive enough revenue to fund itself is a cause of conflict, which further drains resources and constrains growth, thereby starving the state of revenue, thereby sparking conflict, and so on and so on. Even if the Papuan separatists were to disappear from the face of the planet, this fundamental problem remains.
@ Mauricio: Kool-Aid? Me???:).
er…
can I just leave no comment, Colson!
Wanna cry reading about the works of Indonesian government.
well no, not crying maybe screaming?
@ yulia: Shall we scream together? Maybe we could make a great singing duo
. A set of protest-songs. The sixties revisited (Yoko Ono & John Lennon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=I-NRriHlLUk#!) 
.
Paraphrasing Roger Waters, “Shall we cry?. Shall we scream? What happened to the post-Suharto dream?”
@ Mauricio: Abandoned by too many, preserved by a few? So it’s up to this positive bunch to keep the candle burning.