Indonesian Defense Chief May Smooth Path for Army Novice Jokowi
Former Suharto-era general Ryamizard Ryacudu, tapped by Indonesian
President Joko Widodo for defense minister, could become a conduit to
the powerful armed forces for the country’s first leader to rise from
outside the aristocracy or the military.
Ryamizard, who spearheaded anti-separatist crackdowns in his time as
army chief of staff in the early 2000s, said he’s waiting for
instructions from Joko for defending an archipelago that would stretch
from New York to Alaska.
“Wait, let me learn first,” Ryamizard told reporters Oct. 26. “I don’t
want to speak presumptuously. I’m awaiting the president’s roadmap.”
Joko, known as Jokowi, is a former furniture dealer who entered politics
in 2005 and had little experience in security policy in his time as a
mid-city mayor and then governor of Jakarta. His selection of Ryamizard,
64, could smooth ties with the armed forces, though it has raised
concerns among rights groups and questions about his capacity to
modernize a military that for most of Indonesia’s history has been
focused on internal threats.
“Ryamizard gives Jokowi a defense minister who is well liked within his
own military,” said Ken Conboy, country manager at RMA Indonesia, a
Jakarta-based risk management firm. “Ryamizard was a soldier’s soldier,
but never really known as a diplomat. So there is perhaps some risk to
Jokowi that Ryamizard will be prone to making politically inappropriate
statements.”
Ryamizard rose through the ranks during the rule of dictator Suharto in
the 1990s and has defended soldiers convicted of killing a Papuan
independence leader as “heroes” and said rights groups “contribute
nothing to this country.” The son of a regional army commander, he has
ties to former President Megawati Soekarnoputri, the daughter of
founding President Sukarno and now leader of Jokowi’s Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P. ‘Highly politicized’
Megawati nominated Ryamizard to be commander of the armed forces in her
final days in office in 2004, a move that was blocked by her successor
as president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former general. His appointment
to Jokowi’s 34-member cabinet is a political concession to Megawati,
said Andreas Harsono, an Indonesia researcher for Human Rights Watch.
“He comes from the Suharto era where military officers were highly
politicized,” he said. “His father was loyal to President Sukarno. He is
loyal to President Megawati. I think that is the only explanation.”
Ryamizard will oversee a defense budget that Jokowi has said he wants to
increase to 1.5 percent as a share of the economy, which is Southeast
Asia’s largest. The president has said he wants to modernize the armed
forces, particularly the navy, which is responsible for patrolling the
more than 17,000 islands that make up the world’s fourth most-populous
nation. Military spending
Military spending has increased over the past decade and reached Rp
81.96 trillion ($6.8 billion) in 2013, or 0.9 percent of gross domestic
product, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute.
“Percentage wise it looks pretty impressive,” said Richard Bitzinger,
coordinator of the military transformations program at the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies in Singapore. “But that basically means
going from a very low level to not much of a higher level.”
If Indonesia wants to modernize its military it must commit the
necessary resources over a sustained period of time and focus that money
on the navy and air force rather than ground troops, he said.
“It’s not something you can nickel and dime,” he said. “It’s going to
take time. If you’re going to add equipment you’ve got to add personnel.
So you need more sailors and you need more pilots and things like that
and that takes a long time and that costs money too.” Malacca Strait
Jokowi has said he wants to stop smuggling of Indonesia’s natural
resources and has suggested building a network of drones to patrol the
country. The Malacca Strait, a shipping lane that links the economies of
countries such as India, China and Japan, also runs through Indonesia.
At his inauguration on Oct. 20, Jokowi likened himself to a “captain
trusted by the people” and said it was time for Indonesia to return to
“Jalesveva Jayamahe,” the Indonesian navy motto meaning “in the seas we
will triumph.”
“I would think that Ryamizard would be pressed to reflect Jokowi’s
maritime emphasis in his defense planning,” Conboy said. “I suppose
there could be some concern that he will favor the army when it comes to
purchases, rather than the maritime emphasis voiced by Jokowi.” China’s rise
Indonesia also faces an increasingly assertive China, which has been
pushing its territorial claims to most of the nearby South China Sea.
While Indonesia is not an official claimant to areas in dispute and has
sought to stay out of the spat, officials have said that China’s
interpretation of its nine dash-line map — the basis for its claims — is
seeping into Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone.
China must not create regional instability, Indonesian military chief
Gen. Moeldoko told reporters Oct. 29 in Singapore. The defense force has
“hundreds of ships” to secure the country’s maritime lanes within its
borders, he said.
“China is a great economic superpower, however we don’t want this great
force to create instability in the region,” Moeldoko said. “Just a small
disturbance within this maritime zone will give a big impact” and
create turbulence in the region. ‘Conservative instincts’
Still, Ryamizard’s background suggests that he will focus internally,
perhaps overlooking potential military threats from outside, said Marcus
Mietzner, an associate professor at the Australian National University
in Canberra.
“He’s not a strategic thinker,” said Mietzner, author of “Money, Power
and Ideology: Political Parties in Post- Authoritarian Indonesia.” “He
has deeply conservative instincts, and these are likely to guide him.
This means preserving military privileges, less emphasis on transparency
in the name of guarding ‘state secrets,’ and no genuine attempts at
improving civilian oversight of the armed forces.”
While he may take a tough stance on separatist ambitions in Papua,
Ryamizard won’t be responsible for countering the threat from militants,
including the potential return of Indonesians who left to fight with
Islamic State in the Middle East. That responsibility lies with the
police and intelligence agencies.
Gen. Moeldoko said he believed Ryamizard was the right man for the post. ‘Proper figure’
“Based on his huge experience as well as vast academic background, I’m
quite sure that General Ryamizard Ryacudu is indeed a proper figure,” he
said. “I’m also quite sure that later he’s going to produce some kind
of political policies that are indeed quite proper for the military and
the state.”
Ryamizard has in the past made comments about meddling by “foreign
imperial powers” and his appointment could complicate military
cooperation with allies such as Australia and the US, said Kevin
O’Rourke, a political analyst and author of “Reformasi: The Struggle for
Power in Post-Soeharto Indonesia.”
“A question is whether Ryacudu will involve himself in foreign policy
issues, perhaps taking stances that conflict with those of the new
foreign minister,” O’Rourke said. Democratic transition
When asked about Ryamizard, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said
the US was aware of “allegations of human rights violations committed by
the Indonesian army while the general served as army chief of staff.”
“We are not, however, aware of any allegation that ties the defense
minister explicitly to a specific human rights violation,” she told
reporters on Oct. 28 in Washington. “Indonesia’s military, like the
country as a whole, has reformed in significant ways over the past 16
years in line with Indonesia’s democratic transition.”Bloomberg
