Note: In early November 1999, Human Rights Watch was shown the copy of this document that had been sent to the Military Resort Command (KOREM) 164 in Dili. We copied the text exactly as it appeared in the original, which remains in safekeeping in Dili. A translation follows the text in Indonesian.

Tentara Nasional Indonesia

Markas Besar Angkatan Darat

SURAT TELEGRAM

Dari: Kasad Derajat: KILAT

Kepada: Pangdam IX/UDY Klasifikasi: Rahasia

Tembusan: KASAD

WAKASAD

IRJENAD

PARA AS KASAD

DANREM 164/WD

Nomor: STR/172/1999 TGL 5-5-1999

AAA TTK REF DISPOSISI KASAD PD SURAT KOORSAHLI KASAD NO B/ 50/IV/1999/SAHLI TGL 13-4-1999 TTG PRIN MENGANTISIPASI SITUASI YG MUNGKIN TERJADI THD PILIHAN OPSI BAGI RAKYAT TIMTIM TTK

BBB TTK SESUAI REF DI ATAS KMA KPD TSB ALAMAT AGAR TTKDUA

SATU TTK SENANTIASA SIAP MENGHADAPI SEGALA KEMUNGKIN

PILIHAN OPSI BAGI RAKYAT TIMTIM TTK

DUA TTK MENYIAPKAN REN KAM DLM RANGKA MENCEGAH TIMBULNYA PERANG SAUDARA MELIPUTI TINDAKAN PREVENTIF KRBK CIPTA KONDISI KRTP KMA TINDAKAN POLISIONIL KMA TINDAKAN REPRESIF GRS MRG KOERSIF SERTA REN PEMINDAHAN KE BELAKANG GRS MRG PENGUNGSIAN APABILA OPSI KEDUA MENJADI PILIHAN TTK

CCC TTK ST INI BERSIFAT PRIN TTK

DDD TTK UDL TTK HABIS

AN KEPALA STAF ANGKATAN DARAT

WAKIL KEPALA STAF

JOHNY J LUMINTANG

LTNAN JENDERAL TNI

Translation:

Indonesian National Armed Forces Army Headquarters Telegram

From: Army Chief of Staff Degree: EXPRESS

To: Commander of Region IX/Udayana Classification: Secret

Cc: Army Chief of Staff

Deputy Chief of Staff

Inspector General of the Army

Assistant Chiefs of Staff

Commander of Military Resort Command 164/Wira Dharma

Number: STR/172/1999 May 5, 1999

AAA: Referring to the chief of staff's letter No.B.50/ IV/1999 dated 13 April 1999 regarding the order to anticipate situations that might arise with regard to the choice of options for the East Timorese people

BBB. In accordance with the above, the addressees [listed above] are to:

1. Be ready to confront all possibilities in the choice of options for the East Timorese

2. Prepare a security plan with the aim of preventing the outbreak of civil war including preventative action (creation of conditions), police actions, repressive/coercive actions as well as plans for moving back/evacuation [of East Timorese] if the second option becomes the choice.

Indonesia's national security dilemma is multifaceted in nature and embedded in a milieu where the domestic, regional and global dimensions of security constantly intermingle. However, although these three security dimensions regularly influence each other, it is the domestic dimension that remains the primary source of concern. Compared with its ASEAN neighbours — Brunei, Thailand, Vietnam and to a lesser extent Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines — where strong external security concerns dominate defence and security planning, the Indonesian case is unique and merits special consideration because internal security considerations totally dominate national security planning.

Such an approach is understandable. Indonesia's post-independence history is littered with examples indicating how internal fissures have permitted global rivalries to permeate the country and exacerbate domestic conflict. Such a situation where Indonesia was open to a high degree of interference, especially from the great powers of the international system, may have had a lesser impact on national security if the state was more cohesive and if the various regimes from 1950 to 1965 had enjoyed greater popular legitimacy. This low level of social cohesion and of state and regime legitimacy during the periods observed was a result of the discontinuities colonialism introduced into the evolution of Indonesia by clustering together disparate ethnic groups, making cohesion and legitimacy difficult to attain.

No doubt all states are security conscious. However, as indicated by this study, national security in the context of Indonesia assumes overwhelming proportions. In Indonesia, the promotion of national security during the Suharto era had become the yardstick by which policy success was measured and tended to become the beginning and the end of political life itself. The Indonesian state, as the central institution of society, is charged with guaranteeing that national security is maintained at all costs, and its managers are therefore granted special prerogatives. In this regard, national security is obviously elitist since it recognizes the right of the authorities to decide what is in the national interest and the public good. The achievement of national security objectives, hence, is often at odds with the protection of individual freedoms.

A leitmotif in the ideology of the Suharto regime that continues to be an abiding obsession with the Indonesian military is the concept of ketertiban “order” (Bourchier 1990, p. 195). Suharto described stability, order and security “as an object of development itself, namely, to make (people) … feel physically secure and have peace of mind, free from fear of threats without and from worrying over disturbance from within”. As a consequence, the military developed a strategy intended to extend its control deep within society thereby penetrating all levels of government for the purpose of maintaining Kamtibmas (Keamanan dan Ketertiban Masyarakat, literally “security and orderliness of society”). Underpinning this imposition of what amounted to a military command structure on society was an elaborate ideological apparatus, the basis of which was the doctrine of dwifungsi. While reformasi has effectively consigned dwifungsi to history, the ossification of such philosophies in the TNI will be difficult to eradicate in the short term. One of the fundamental justifications for the military's take over of power in 1965 and the New Order's subsequent dismantling of political parties, trade unions and social organizations was their perception that civilians had failed to maintain order in the economic and political spheres. As a consequence, TNI personnel are socialized to believe that the military is the only force in society with the proven capacity to perceive and protect the interests of the state. Hence it is imbibed not only with the “right but also the duty to act as guardian of the state and the pengayom or “protector” of an immature and volatile society”(ibid.).

This mindset continues to manifest itself in statements by the TNI elite in support of the military's role in internal security, specifically in relation to maintaining Indonesia's territorial integrity. It is a role that is ironically supported by civilian politicians who seek close personal ties to the TNI elite to replace the formal institutional linkages which existed during the Suharto era. Civilian leaders, conditioned through years of military rule and motivated by self-interest, who look to the TNI to “secure the effectiveness of the bureaucracy and save local elites from an increasingly impatient mob”, help perpetuate and rationalize the dwifungsi mentality among the TNI when in reality the dwifungsi (see Chapters 4 and 5 for a more detailed discussion) does not exist as a legitimate military doctrine.

Affiliated with the Indonesian Military (TNI):

Organisasi Pagar Desa: Founded in the 1950s by A.H. Nasution to help TNI eliminate Darul Islam/Tentara Islam Indonesia(DI/TII) separatist rebels; militaristic, co-opted by the government.

Angkatan Muda Siliwangi/Angkatan Muda Diponegoro: Founded in the 1970s by Ali Murtopo to support Golkar's victory and to fight against student demonstrations; militaristic, co-opted by the government.

Makikit: Founded in 1976 by the Army's Special Force (Kopassus) to help TNI deal with Fretilin/East Timor pro-independence fighters; militaristic, co-opted by the government.

Baladi Karya:Founded in 1963 by Soksito help TNI eliminate the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI); militaristic, co-opted by the government.

Pam Swakarsa: Founded in 1998 by Abdul Gafur to secure the General Session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR); militaristic, co-opted by the government.

Front Pembela Islam(FPI): Founded in 1998 by Habib Muhammad Rizieq Shihab to secure the MPR's General Session and combat drugs and immoral acts; militaristic, co-opted by the government.

Affiliated with B.J. Habibie:

Front Bersama Umat Islam:Founded by Eggy Sujana in 1999 to secure the MPR's General Session and fight against pro-Megawati/critical students; political Islamic-based, co-opted by the government.

Affiliated with Suharto:

Satgas(Task Force) Tebas: Founded in 1998 by Dion Adikusumah to secure the MPR's General Session and handle pro-Megawati/critical students; militaristic, co-opted by the government.

Affiliated with Muhammadiyah:

Kokam: Founded in 1965 by Muhammadiyah to eliminate the PKI; modernist Islamic-based, co-opted by the government.

The original questions that underline this book concern first, the extent to which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, having a communist political system, can sustain its economic growth and development without appropriate political reforms; second, the basis on which the legitimacy of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) lies. Would economic growth be sustained better with a “big bang” of political and economic reforms in tandem, than with an incremental approach that has economic growth and development taking the lead and political reforms trailing behind? In turn, can the legitimacy of one party rule be sustained purely by economic growth and development and minimal political reforms, or is the demise of the communist system inevitable with economic reforms that will spring demands for political reforms? How long can the communist system last in a free-market economy and globalization, with concomitant spread of liberal political values?

These were important questions of the early 1990s when I first decided to become a scholar on Vietnam. They led me initially to study the basis of the legitimacy of the VCP and one-party rule. I wanted to discover how strong the party-state was, and whether economic changes were eroding the iron-handed controls that the party-state had for so many years. I also wanted to find out whether the party itself was changing, by approaching the matter from the angle of how the VCP trained and educated its officials. Neither of these two approaches bore fruit for me in the mid-1990s. I soon discovered that these questions resembled a French traffic circle that had too many avenues leading into and out of it; the project was too big. Furthermore, in the mid-1990s, as a starting graduate student, I did not have the right connections to allow me to do an in-depth study of the VCP schools system that could illuminate internal changes in the VCP.

PART I: HOW TO LOOK AT STATE–SOCIETY RELATIONS IN VIETNAM

Is the state in Vietnam stronger than society, or is it the other way round? If the answer is for the state, why do party-state objectives in public policy get stonewalled, stalled, and even succumbed to changes and reversals by societal responses? If Vietnamese society has its strengths in this regard, why have the more politically conscious members of society not been able to do more to change the state, the party, and eventually the political system? These questions about the relative strengths of state and society, when they square off and interact, are key questions for understanding the nature of the contemporary political system of Vietnam, especially the question of where the political system is heading towards. They hover in the background of the research and writing for this book. They are interesting questions that can bring forth much debate on Vietnam.

This chapter argues that the present schools of thought on the subject need to move beyond their regular views of the Vietnamese party-state. These viewpoints, while contradictory to each other in some aspects, are complementary to each other; they are competing and complimentary representations of the ways state–society relations in Vietnam really work. Many scholars and writers concerned with Vietnam have a sense of this composite reality, but somehow this view has not been pointed out in a systematic manner. This book marshals facts and viewpoints to demonstrate this reality, and this chapter shows why a synthesis of two seemingly contradictory viewpoints is useful. This chapter argues that the state-disaggregation approach provides a tool to a more comprehensive understanding of state–society relations in Vietnam. This is because it makes us look into specific arenas. It makes us realize that generalizations, such as whether one is weaker or stronger than the other, guide us in the initial steps towards understanding, but they are limited in their usefulness in a situation that is very complex, such as that in Vietnam.

INTRODUCTION

Election is one of the many functions that local administrators carry out for the party-state. This chapter investigates the management of elections in Vietnam, in particular the role of the ward state machinery in elections. Elections are an area over which the party-state has strong control. Party-state notions of what elections should be like and how they should proceed are easily achieved, and thus elections in Vietnam are a top-down process. Yet, aspects of elections in Vietnam, while inconsequential for election results, indicate that the ward is more than just an extension of the party-state; it is also an agent in ameliorating tensions in state–society relations that arise out of the regular holding of top-down — and restrained — elections.

In many countries, elections have an aura of formality. Formality is derived from foundational, publicly recognized documents of the political system, such as the country's constitution, electoral laws, and other government regulations. These documents set down how elections are supposed to, or not to, occur. Adhering to the formal procedure — the process — is important for the legitimacy of the electoral outcome. Contestants in an election respect election results not just because they have agreed to the rules, but also because the rules have been acceptably adhered to in electoral conduct. Of course, due to various reasons, informal features of elections also occur. They may include overlooking, bending or breaking the election rules and procedures stated in the formal documents. Reasons for these phenomena vary. Too much informality in procedures can prompt losers to charge electoral fraud and reject the results.

Elections in communist countries such as Vietnam are also formal, but they may not be legitimate elections in the sense that they are not necessarily looked upon with respect and trust with regard to their degree of fairness and justice. The main reason perhaps is that choices in Vietnamese elections are severely restricted by the party-state.