TheEconomistNovember 2nd 2019 331A
long a dirttrack bordered by rice pad-
dies and studded with potholes, sol-
diers and villagers labour side by side. They
are levelling the rutted surface so that it can
be paved over with concrete. The road they
are building will make it much easier for
farmers to transport their crops to market.
But this is not what really brings the sol-
diers to Sukawangi, a sprawling village in
western Java. Their primary purpose is to
forge friendships with the locals or, as
Lieutenant-Colonel Yogi Nugroho puts it,
to “build the chemistry between the mili-
tary and the people”. Such efforts are pay-
ing off. A poll conducted in 2015 showed
that 90% of Indonesians trust Tentara Na-
sional Indonesia (tni), the armed forces,
making it the most respected institution in
the country. Mission accomplished.
For most of Indonesia’s history, the
army has been deeply involved in civilian
life. Since its founding in 1945 as a guerrilla
force to overthrow Dutch colonial rule, it
has seen itself as the breastplate of the peo-
ple. This narrative bolstered an ideology
known as dwifungsi, or “dual function”,
which held that the armed forces should be
responsible for maintaining Indonesia’s
political and social order as well as its terri-
torial cohesion. Suharto, a strongman who
held power from 1966 to 1998, reserved a
fifth of the seats in parliament for the
armed forces and appointed officers to im-
portant positions in government. Over his
three-decade regime, he made use of the
“territorial system”, under which soldiers
were stationed in almost every village
across the archipelago, to control and re-
press the population. So when Suharto re-
signed in 1998, ushering in an age of de-
mocracy, lawmakers abolished military
representation in parliament and dramati-
cally narrowed the armed forces’ responsi-bilities, obliging them to end all business
activity, for example, and hiving off the po-
lice as a separate force. tniwas permitted
to conduct “military operations other than
war”, but only in cases such as disaster re-
lief and humanitarian assistance.
Twenty years later these reforms not
only remain incomplete, but are being
eroded. Under Joko Widodo, popularly
known as Jokowi, who has been president
since 2014, the political influence of tni
has grown. Jokowi has installed retired
generals in powerful civilian posts such as
presidential chief of staff and head of the
state intelligence agency, and in April
agreed to assign several hundred active-
duty generals and colonels to civilian agen-
cies and ministries. With Jokowi’s bless-
ing, tnihas also regained a role in internal
security, to help fight terrorism, and has set
up a special counter-terrorism unit. On Oc-
tober 23rd Jokowi appointed as his minis-
ter of defence Prabowo Subianto, a retired
general whose party would like to erase the
distinction between external defence and
internal security.
tniis also expanding the definition of
military operations other than war. Be-
tween 2014 and 2017, it or the defence min-
istry signed 133 deals with dozens of minis-
tries, civil-society organisations and
universities, promising, among other
things, to help the national population
agency provide family planning, the Na-
tional Logistics Agency to monitor food
prices, prisons to educate inmates, theIndonesia’s armed forces
About turn!
SUKAWANGI
After spending decades trying to rein in the army, politicians are again giving it a
big role in government
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