The Legislature and Military Oversight

While the legislative performance of the Indonesian DPR in curtailing military influence is mixed, independent observers evaluated its oversight functions posi- tively. The International Crisis Group, for instance, noted that despite a lack of research support, the DPR has become increasingly active in demanding informa- tion from the government, holding hearings and scrutinizing the executive (Inter- national Crisis Group, 2004 , p. 18). Documentary analysis and interviews with legislators and military officers confirm such views. However, they stand in stark contrast to frequent complaints of human rights organizations which criticize the fact that the legislature has done little to scrutinize past human rights violations committed by the military. 17

The DPR has launched investigations into human rights violations of the military in Aceh and also set up a special committee to investigate the abductions of democracy activists, the riots in May 1998 and the Trisakti and Semanggi shootings. However, none of these investigations led to the prosecution of the implicated officers. In 2002, the DPR’s steering committee (Bamus) blocked further investigations into the Trisakti and Semanggi incidents, arguing that they did not constitute “gross human rights violations” as defined by the Human Rights Law No. 26/2000. The law defines “gross human rights violations” as acts “that have been pre- mediated, based on clear and conscious intention and previous design.” As these criteria are almost impossible to prove, the legislature had bound its own hands in investigating human rights violations. Since then, the DPR has made no further serious attempt to examine the military’s human rights record, even though probes by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) had come to contrary

17 The Jakarta Post, 4 August 2000; KontraS representatives Usman Hamid and Syaiful Haq in The Jakarta Post, 17 October 2008.

6 The Legislature and Military Reform in Indonesia 135 findings. 18 Feeble attempts to reopen these cases by Commission III in the DPR’s

2004–2009 term also ended inconclusively. 19 The DPR was more assertive in its oversight of arms procurement which is widely believed to be a corruption-prone process. Defense Minister Juwono even went so far as to accuse legislators of acting as brokers, remarks he had to retract in the absence

of hard evidence. 20 Yet, while collusion between legislators and arms brokers is difficult to prove, this does not mean that they do not exist, given the legislature’s

ostensible involvement in other mercantile deals (Sherlock, 2003 ; Ziegenhain, 2008 ). Prior to 2003, procurement issues did not figure prominently in parliament. The first major case in which the DPR became involved was the acquisition of four Sukhoi fighter jets and two M-35 assault helicopters from Russia during a state visit of President Megawati in April 2003. The two parties agreed that 20% of the costs should be paid in cash, the remaining 80% through a controversial countertrade mechanism to be handled by state logistics agency Bulog. 21

In June 2003, after the deal became public, Commission I set up a working committee of inquiry (Panitia Pekerja). In the following weeks it summoned a number of prominent Indonesian businessmen, the TNI chief, a former defense minister and high-ranking officials of the defense ministry, the former and the then current Bulog (State Logistics Agency) chief and the minister of industry and trade. In the hearings TNI chief Sutarto Endriartono had to admit that he was aware of the

purchase, 22 while the defense ministry and the finance ministry denied advanced knowledge. It also became apparent that no budget was allocated for the acquisition. The inquiry further revealed that the planes were not equipped with weapons and two different plane-types, two Sukhoi 27SKs and two Sukhoi 30MKs, were

bought with different needs for spare parts. 23 The inquiry also raised the question why, in the absence of external threats, the TNI should acquire weapons for external power projection, when there was a much greater need for transport planes and helicopter gunships in order to fight the ongoing separatist rebellions in Aceh and

Papua. 24 Some legislators therefore demanded the annulment of the deal and began to concentrate their inquiry on the role of President Megawati with whose knowledge and approval the deal was apparently concluded. In the annual MPR session in August President Megawati defended the deal as absolutely necessary in the light of infringements on Indonesian territory by U.S. planes and the fact that the countertrade arrangement offered the opportunity to promote Indonesian exports. 25

18 The Jakarta Post, 1 July 2005. 19 Ibid. 20 See The Jakarta Post, 30 October 2007, p. 2; 1 November 2007, p. 1. 21 The Jakarta Post, 26 June 2003 22 The Jakarta Post, 5 July 2003, 2 July 2003. 23 The Jakarta Post, 25 July 2003 24 The Jakarta Post, 18 June 2003 25 The Jakarta Post, 2 August 2003.

136 J. R€uland and M.-G. Manea Megawati’s explanation was largely accepted by the majority of legislators,

reflecting the executive clout over a parliament in which most political parties were keen to be part of a grand coalition for the sake of government patronage (Sherlock, 2009 ; Slater, 2004 ). Finally, in September 2003, the working committee declared that it failed to uncover any irregularities despite conceding that there had

been violations of the purchasing procedure. 26 Another high profile case was the acquisition of 32 armoured personnel carriers

by the defense ministry for the 1,000 Indonesian peacekeeping troops deployed to the Lebanon in 2006. 27 Confronted with massive criticism from the House which accused the ministry of by-passing the legislature and violating procurement rules, Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono replied that the purchase had to be made under great time pressure. The ministry thus invoked emergency rules as laid down in

government regulation No. 80/2003. 28 But this was not the only point incensing lawmakers. As disclosed by Minister Juwono, the vehicles were ordered from French car maker Renault at the price of €700,000 per unit. 29 This is, as legislators found out, almost twice as much as for Ukrainian or Russian personnel carriers. 30 While in the end the legislators did not insist on their demand that the vehicles are procured through a public bidding process, their scrutiny had at least one positive effect: the government re-negotiated the purchase and was able to lower the price to about €500,000 per unit. 31

These two highly publicized cases, and subsequent others, 32 have one thing in common. They had no consequences for the agencies and officials involved and ended inconclusively. Yet it was to the DPR’s merit to have publicized questionable deals, attracting media attention, initiating public debates on them and increasing the pressure on the TNI, brokers and contractors to be less blatant in violating procurement rules. It also brought to surface several shadowy firms involved in

procurement which subsequently came under closer public scrutiny. 33 However, it also became apparent that in-depth probes do not seem to be regular practice and the discovery of irregularities does not necessarily originate from the DPR. With its obvious lack of consistency and rigor, the DPR is unable to effectively discourage the military institution and fraudulent individuals from by-passing, twisting and even openly defying procurement rules.

The problems of scrutinizing procurement are representative for the legislature’s general limitations in budgetary oversight. Yet, such a critical assessment should

26 The Jakarta Post, 23 September 2003. 27 The Jakarta Post, 13 September 2006. 28 The Jakarta Post, 21 September 2006. 29 The Jakarta Post, 13 September 2006. 30 Ibid. 31 The Jakarta Post, 21 September 2006, 5 October 2006, p. 3. 32 Cases in point are the controversies over the purchase of unmanned aerial vehicles and Leopard

tanks. See The Jakarta Post, 18 October 2006, 25 January 2012 and 2 February 2012. 33 See, for instance, The Jakarta Post, 2 May 2006.

6 The Legislature and Military Reform in Indonesia 137

not belittle the fact that there have been improvements in defense budgeting over the last 10 years. As one veteran legislator recalls, 34 during the Suharto years the government disclosed only very general budgetary data and policy objectives to the DPR. Now the budget comes in printed form, a document of over 3,000 pages, listing government expenditures item by item. A sub-commission of Commission I consisting of six members from the major party factions is tasked with scrutinizing the draft defense budget, but members of the sub-commission readily admit that they are overwhelmed by the flood of data and that they often lack the technical expertise to screen the items in sufficient depth. They thus concentrate on random

checks, covering about 20% of the budget’s items. 35 Still, legislators spend most of their time, about 29%, on budgetary matters as one study of the Universitas Indonesia-based think tanks Pacivis disclosed. This is followed by 25% for defense policy, 19% for special situations, 12% for weapons systems and, 12% for human resources development (Widjajanto, Kurniawan, & Tirtawinata, 2008 , p. 17).

But however carefully the DPR may screen the budget, it remains a rather superficial exercise. The crucial point is here that the DPR is not able to thoroughly examine budget implementation. As several of the interviewed legislators complained, the Ministry of Defense and the TNI only reluctantly provide informa-

tion on actual spending. 36 On the spot inspection has been repeatedly cited by legislators as a means to examine budget implementation. However, it is hardly able to bring to the fore misallocations as potential offenders may have sufficient time to cover up irregularities before the legislators arrive.

Intermittent audits of the defense budget have indeed revealed serious irregularities 37 in the form of disobeying the rules and regulations (70%), uneco- nomic and inefficient use of state finance (20%) and ineffectiveness (10%). 38 The State Auditing Board (Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan, BPK) has also encountered major obstacles to systematically scrutinizing TNI spending (Artjana, 2005 , pp. 151, 158; Human Rights Watch, 2006 , pp. 92, 99; International Crisis Group, 2001a , p. 13). It is estimated that 30% of the official defense budget is “lost through corruption in the process of buying military equipment and supplies” (Beeson, 2008 , p. 480; Human Rights Watch, 2006 , p. 71; International Crisis group, 2001a , p. 13), although this does not single out the armed forces in terms of corruption as the figure constitutes the standard leakage assumed by foreign donors for many years.

Instead of sanctioning the lack of transparency in actual military spending by closing the funding tap as demanded by the Auditing Board (Mietzner, 2006 , p. 38), the DPR willingly sides with the TNI in the latter’s quest for substantial budgetary increases. As a result, the defense budget quadrupled between 1999 and 2009,

34 Authors’ interview, 19 March 2008. 35 Authors’ interview, 17 March 2008. 36 Authors’ interviews, 4 March 2008, 11 April 2008. 37 See The Jakarta Post, 13 March 2003. Authors’ interviews, 17 March 2008, 8 April 2008.

38 I Gde Artjana: The Accountability of the Military Budget ( http://www.lesperssi.org/content/ view/41/6/lang.en ) (accessed 23 April 2010).

138 J. R€uland and M.-G. Manea although with only about 1% of the GDP it is still one of the lowest in Southeast

Asia (ProPatria Institute, 2007 , p. 15). Legislators share the military’s argument that budget increases are urgently needed in order to meet new security challenges, especially in light of the outdated equipment and weaponry of the TNI. Much of the TNI’s equipment is from the 1970s and 1980s and outdated (Nurhasim, 2005 , p. 13): warships of the navy are on average 25 years old, the vehicles of the marines over 40 years. The age of the TNI’s equipment also explains why on average only 60% of the equipment is operational. Only 42% of the air force’s fighter aircraft are operational and of the 756 tanks of the army a staggering 435 are defective. 39 Legislators also argue that budgetary increases are needed to lower the share of the military budget which comes from non-official sources and they are proactive in proposing higher salaries for soldiers (on this point also see the contribution of Mietzner & Misol in this volume). 40

While there may indeed be valid arguments to justify increases in defense spending, it is much more problematic that the DPR does not hold the TNI accountable for covert operations or offensives against separatists such as the one

started in May 2003 in Aceh or currently in Papua. 41 In these cases where the military argues that the unitary state is at stake, the majority of legislators readily side with the armed forces, giving the latter virtual discretion over its operations. Given these shortcomings of budgetary oversight, outspoken legislator Djoko Susilo of the Partai Amanat Nasional (PAN) concluded that “in budgeting the

DPR is still a rubber stamp.” 42 Failing to use budget increases as leverage for greater budget supervision the DPR gradually tilted towards the norms and rationales championed by the military.

A last point to be mentioned regarding the oversight function of the legislature is the fit-and-proper test which the newly designated TNI chiefs have to undergo. Included as a legal requirement in Defense Law No. 3/2002 the fit-and-proper tests have become a ritual in which Commission I has the opportunity to grill the incoming TNI chief. It is a ritual because it is highly unlikely that in the end the DPR will refuse to endorse the designated candidate of the president. If it did, it would trigger a constitutional crisis. The ritualistic character of the exercise is also underscored by the often irrelevant questions posed by legislators. Yet the exercise provides a chance to commit the new TNI chief publicly to a reformist course, political neutrality, civilian supremacy and the recognition of democratic principles against which he may be evaluated later.

39 Majalah Tempo, 23 March 2008, pp. 36–37. 40 Komisi I DPR usul Naikkan Gaji TNI 20 Persen ( http://www.dpr.go.id/dpr/berita.php?

kom¼Komisi%20I ) (accessed 17 February 2008). 41 The Jakarta Post, 27 June 2009.

42 The Jakarta Post, 13 March 2003.

6 The Legislature and Military Reform in Indonesia 139

The Legislature and Military Oversight