Discipline of Kopassus in question

The relatively heavy punishment given to three of the 12 special forces (Kopassus) troops accused of executing four murder suspects, in an audacious March 9 raid on a Yogyakarta prison, may have gone some way towards erasing the much-criticised culture of impunity the Indonesian military has enjoyed for decades.

But as open as it was, the court martial still raises troubling questions about discipline in the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI), whether Kopassus officers were complicit in the crime, and why the defendants received such overwhelming public support.

The three main perpetrators - two second-sergeants and a corporal - were given jail terms ranging from six to 11 years for killing the four detainees, who had been arrested over the stabbing death of an off-duty Kopassus soldier in a Yogyakarta night club three days earlier.

Nine other soldiers received jail terms of up to 21 months. But unlike those involved in the actual shooting inside one of the prison's crowded cells, all were controversially allowed to stay in service after serving their sentences.

The punishment handed down on Sept5 by the Yogyakarta military court was lighter than the minimum term of 20 years' imprisonment demanded by prosecutors, leading to renewed demands from human rights groups that soldiers accused of crimes be tried in civil courts.

But even civil courts have been notoriously inconsistent on sentencing dictates. Look no further than the amnesty-shortened 15-year sentence given to Tommy Suharto, the former president's youngest son, for ordering the 2002 slaying of a Supreme Court justice.

Both the Central Java army commander and the Yogyakarta police chief were sacked over the prison raid, with media reports since then referring to alleged wiretapped conversations among senior officers discussing retaliation for the soldier's murder.

The executed men were all local gangsters with rap sheets that included murder, rape and drug-dealing. Their records and the horrific nature of the murder, in which the victim was smashed over the head with a bottle, kicked repeatedly and stabbed 17 times, perhaps explains the court's leniency.

The four assailants were quickly rounded up. A fifth man, who was not charged, but was identified in closed-circuit TV footage, was fatally shot outside his house five months later while the trial was ongoing.

No action seems to have been taken against the superiors of the vengeful soldiers for failing to stop them leaving the training ground of Kopassus Group 2, one of two Red Beret regiments specialising in counter-insurgency and unconventional warfare.

The promising career of Group2 commander Maruli Simanjuntak, a Boston University master's graduate in finance, was saved by the fact that he had been on the job only a few hours.

The son-in-law of former trade minister and special forces veteran Luhut Panjaitan, he took full responsibility at a meeting called by army chief-of-staff Pramono Edhie Wibowo, a career Kopassus officer himself, to inquire into the incident.

After Gen Wibowo heard how long he had been there, he told him not to worry.

He also reportedly exonerated Lieutenant-Colonel Simanjuntak's predecessor, Colonel Suhadi, now the Kopassus inspector, who offered to share in the blame as well.

The 5,500-strong Kopassus is the TNI's most rigidly disciplined outfit. It is almost unthinkable that the soldiers could have taken two vehicles and driven to Cebongan Prison without the knowledge of any of the other 30 or so officers.

The trial also did little to dispel much deeper issues, many of them stemming from the long-simmering turf wars between the army and the police which have intensified since the police were separated from the military chain of command in 1999.

Only weeks before the prison raid, truckloads of out-of-control troops burned down a police station in South Sumatra in an act of revenge for the shooting death of a soldier in a street altercation with a traffic policeman.

New TNI commander Moeldoko indicated in one recent interview that inter-service rivalry was why soldiers will continue to be tried by military courts, saying they were "psychologically unprepared to be investigated by the police".

The army still has bitter memories of being blamed by the police for the ambush-killing of three schoolteachers in Papua in 2002, before a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe proved it was the work of Papuan separatists.

General Moeldoko also acknowledged it was time to change a process of dehumanisation in the ranks, with underpaid soldiers being mistreated by their superiors during training and forced to live in sub-standard conditions.

Equally disturbing is the way the trial exposed widespread public dissatisfaction in Yogyakarta over slack law enforcement and the alleged involvement of police in criminal activities, including drug dealing and prostitution.

Given its history, running protection rackets isn't new for the military either. But in any popularity contest with the police, the military still wins hands down.

thane.cawdor@gmail.com

Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.