JakartaPost-March 18, 2025
Lawmakers rushed to cross a “democratic red line” this week by insisting on revising the Indonesian Military (TNI) Law, critics contend, despite attempts to appease public fears of the return to an authoritarian past. The House of Representatives and the government are currently debating ways to expand the country’s vast military under President Prabowo Subianto, including by allowing more civilian roles for military personnel without the requirement for them to retire, which was a key reform after the fall of Soeharto’s New Order regime. The House is scrambling to pass the bill, which in turn further entrenches the public’s negative sentiment following a weekend fiasco that saw protesting activists get ejected from secret marathon talks. The latest draft of the bill, according to House Deputy Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad of Prabowo’s own Gerindra Party, will revise three provisions in the 2004 TNI Law. The most contentious of those provisions seeks to increase the number of state institutions to which military officers can be appointed without resigning or retiring from 10 to 16. The new institutions are the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, the Attorney General’s Office, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), the Indonesian Maritime Security Agency (Bakamla) and the National Agency for Border Management (BNPP). Around 180 activists and scholars along with 190 civil society organizations signed a petition on Monday to reject the revision. “It will only restore the TNI back to its ‘dual-function’ system. This is not in accordance with the principle of professionalism and risks creating more problems,” activist Maria Sumarsih said when reading out the petition. Maria is the mother of a student activist who was killed in 1998 in the Semanggi I shooting tragedy. Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid, one of the petition’s signatories, said that policymakers are “crossing a red line” in the nation’s democracy by giving TNI more posts in government. Read more at:
