JAKARTA: Indonesian students staged nationwide protests on Monday against a contentious revision to the military law that activists say threatens the nation’s young democracy.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at regional government offices in various Indonesian cities, including Batam, Kupang, Lampung and Sukabumi, as well as the country’s second-largest city, Surabaya. A smaller group also turned up in front of the parliament building in Jakarta.
With most of them clad in black, protesters held banners that read “Return the military to the barracks” and “Watch out! New ‘New Order’ is right before our eyes.”
Activists have taken to the streets since Wednesday to protest against controversial amendments to the 2004 Law on Indonesian Armed Forces, which aimed to broaden the military’s role beyond defense.
Indonesia’s House of Representatives unanimously passed the revisions on Thursday, allowing active military officers to take up more government posts, including the Attorney General’s Office, the Supreme Court and the Coordinating Ministry for Political and Security Affairs.
The changes also raise retirement ages by several years for most ranks. Highest-ranking four-star generals can now serve until 63, for example, up from 60.
Puan Maharani, the speaker of the lower house who led the vote in a plenary session, said the revised law would remain “grounded in democratic values and principles, civilian supremacy (and) human rights.”
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, a former three-star army general, said it will make the military more effective.
In a speech after the bill was passed into law, he said the amendments were necessary because “geopolitical changes and global military technology require the military to transform … to face conventional and non-conventional conflicts.”
The revisions were proposed by allies of President Prabowo Subianto, who took office last October and served as a general under the dictator Suharto.
Activists have warned that the move is a threat to Indonesia’s democracy, which the nation gained in 1998, after 32 years of Suharto’s “New Order” military dictatorship.
“The bill was not made with proper public consultation. It was rushed,” Andreas Harsono, senior Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Arab News. “This law elevates the threats to Indonesia’s democracy. It’s not only regressing but going back to square one.”
He highlighted how youth protests erupted immediately across Indonesia, with students “demanding the amendments to be canceled,” as the revisions still have to be signed into law by Prabowo.
“I am pretty surprised to see their anger. It showed that these young people are not happy with the bigger roles of the military in non-security affairs,” he said.
Okky Madasari, Indonesian novelist and sociologist, said the law could be used as a “legal tool to further expand military’s involvement in businesses” and jobs that have nothing to do with defense or military, which are “reminiscent of Suharto’s New Order Regime.”
She told Arab News: “The immediate results will (mean) the further deterioration of Indonesia’s democracy, with less and less freedom of speech.”
But the nationwide protests, along with active social media campaigns across platforms, show that such dangers are not lost on some Indonesians.
“Indonesian youths, who have been exposed to cosmopolitanism and globally accepted values and are very aware of their rights and obligation, will continue to forge a resisting force against this growing authoritarianism and militarism under Prabowo Subianto,” Madasari said.
