Post date: 24 Jul 2006
- by: Juwono S.
Back in mid-January 2006, in a regular meeting between the Defense Ministry, the Commander of the Defense Force and the three service chiefs, agreement was reached that given the circumstances facing Indonesia’s location within “the Ring of Fire”, the Defense Force (TNI) would concentrate more on “military operations other than war” rather than focusing defense outlays beefing up its on strike forces. “Professionalism” of the military in the narrow sense was out of the question anyway since the “total defense and security” doctrine (sishankamrata) which Indonesia espoused since the revolutionary years of 1945-1950 obliged every Indonesian citizen to take part in the total defense and security of the country.
Now that the Indonesian Government is now simultaneously undertaking recovery and rehabilitation problems following the earthquake in Yogyakarta and Central Java of May 27 (6000 plus dead), the recent tsunami of July 17 in West and Central Java (550 plus dead), followed by the recent July 23 quake in Gorontalo in Sulawesi, the TNI is again gearing up to prepare its limited resources to deal with yet another natural disaster.
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Post date: 23 Jun 2006
- by: Juwono S.
No defense ministry and defense force in all of South East Asia has been subjected to more international scrutiny about its role in the life of the country than the Indonesian Defence Force (Tentara Nasional Indonesia). Since President Soeharto, a retired general, stepped down in May, 1998, the TNI reform process has been periodically in the forefront of news coverage by national and international media, none more so than the of the ”military businesses” owned, operated by or linked to any one of the tri-services, Army, Navy and Air Force.
Most domestic and foreign analysts, particularly NGOs, incessantly find fault with almost anything and everything the TNI (especially the army) did, is doing and will do in the future. The anti-military tone is partly in the nature of most NGOs anywhere, and is deeply rooted in the liberal western lexicon of “civilian supremacy” or “civilian control” and the predictable language of “transparency and accountability. Much of the reporting of the TNI__most recently revealed in the June 2006 Human Rights Watch Report entitled “Too High a Price: The Human rights Costs of the Indonesian Military’s Economic Activities” is coloured in the HRW report, the phraseology of which draws upon events that took place in Indonesia before May 1998.
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Post date: 13 Jun 2006
- by: Juwono S.
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Jakarta June 6-7, 2006, where he met President Yudhoyono.The visit was to bolster US-Indonesia milititary relationships which was restored November 22, 2005 folowing the lifting of restrictions on sales of US-made defense equipment for the Indonesian Defense Force (TNI, Tentara Nasional Indonesia). Rumsfeld held a joint press conference with myself at the Indonesian Defense Department at 3pm June 6, following his call on President Yudhoyono.
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