Past Communal Conflict and Contemporary Security Debates in Indonesia

Abstract

In production for publication in 2019.

Two Decades ofReformasiin Indonesia: Its Illiberal Turn

“…First, as Diprose and Azca (2019) in this special issue highlight, democratisation and decentralisation intensified competition for office between sub-national elites, which along with local grievances, contributed to the large-scale communal conflicts of the early postauthoritarian period in places such as Poso and Maluku. Second, decentralisation also triggered the push for splitting provinces, districts and sub-districts into smaller units (pemekaran) more aligned with concentrations of resources, ethno-religious groups and local geography.…”

“…Second, decentralisation also triggered the push for splitting provinces, districts and sub-districts into smaller units (pemekaran) more aligned with concentrations of resources, ethno-religious groups and local geography. This increased the number of sub-national leadership positions in the executive and legislature, created thousands of new civil service positions and initially reduced the intra-elite competitive pressures in the conflict regions, although tensions were compounded by the large-scale escalation of conflict and the arrival of large numbers of jihadi fighters in regions such as Poso and Maluku (see Diprose and Azca 2019).…”

“…In one example, a 2012 Social Conflict Law grants sub-national leaders the ability to declare what amount to civil emergencies in their regions, under which they gain extraordinary powers over the local population. In this context, Diprose and Azca (2019) chart the impact of the global discourse on anti-terrorism in maintaining the relevance of Indonesia's prior conflict regions to institutional competition between security agencies. Joint security operations between the police and military in Central Sulawesi to weed out a small number of former, poorly resourced and organised jihadi combatants espousing their alliance with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), provided the impetus for the military to demonstrate its importance and to push for an increased role in domestic security through revisions to the Anti-Terrorism Law.…”

“…Joint security operations between the police and military in Central Sulawesi to weed out a small number of former, poorly resourced and organised jihadi combatants espousing their alliance with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), provided the impetus for the military to demonstrate its importance and to push for an increased role in domestic security through revisions to the Anti-Terrorism Law. In this special issue, Diprose and Azca (2019) argue the scale of the operations in Poso also served to strengthen public perceptions of threat and insecurity and reasserted the importance of the role of security actors in domestic affairs. The Law was passed in 2018 outlining a clear role for both the military and police in counter-terrorism operations.…”

“…However, with President Jokowi taking office, Laksmana argues, the frequency of rotation declined and the previous promotional logjams are again evident. At the sub-national level, the efforts of individual military actors to profit by providing informal protection to illicit resource extraction activities are not new, although they might have intensified with decentralisation (Diprose and Azca 2019). Nor are such revenue raising activities such as providing protection of strategic assets and industries new.…”