Indonesian Civil Society Demands Halt to Militarization After Trainee Deaths

A coalition of Indonesian civil society organizations has expressed grief over the deaths of five trainees for village and fisherman cooperatives during military-style basic training. The groups, including Imparsial, KontraS, YLBHI, and Amnesty International Indonesia, condemned the incident as a tragic consequence of a flawed policy that forces military approaches into civilian spheres without justification.

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This tragedy is a serious consequence of a policy that was wrong from the start because it forced a military approach into civilian spaces without the basis of need, relevance, and accountability.

"This tragedy is a serious consequence of a policy that was wrong from the start because it forced a military approach into civilian spaces without the basis of need, relevance, and accountability," the coalition stated in a press release. They argue that military education and training systems are inappropriate for civilians and that skills for managing cooperatives, such as organizational governance, participatory leadership, and financial literacy, are not developed through military drills.

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There is no relationship between professionalism in managing cooperatives and military training.

The coalition views the involvement of the Indonesian military (TNI) in the cooperative training program as a misstep that contradicts the spirit of security sector reform. They also raise legal concerns, stating that such involvement falls outside the TNI's primary mandate as defined by law. The groups warn that this trend indicates a widening militarization of civilian life, suggesting a government belief that military methods can solve all civilian governance issues.

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The competence of cooperative managers is built through mastery of organizational governance, participatory leadership, accountability, financial literacy, and community empowerment, not through military training.

Furthermore, the coalition asserts that applying military culture, built on command, hierarchy, and obedience, to civilian organizations risks eroding democratic values. Civilian leadership, they argue, requires critical thinking, creativity, innovation, dialogue, and participatory decision-making, which are fundamentally different from the military environment. The groups are calling for an immediate evaluation and halt to the militarization of civilian programs.

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This policy also shows the widening practice of militarization of civilian spaces. The government seems to think that every civilian governance problem can be solved through a military approach, even though civilian organizations and military institutions have completely different characteristics, functions, and goals.