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Indonesia SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES
Only very general information has been made public
regarding
the organization and activities of Indonesia's
intelligence and
security bodies. However, a major change in the status of
security and intelligence appeared to have occurred as a
result
of the 1985 military reorganization. Prior to that time,
the
foremost intelligence agency was the Operational Command
for the
Restoration of Security and Order (Kopkamtib), which
focused
primarily on mounting internal security operations and
collecting
intelligence data.
Kopkamtib was established in late 1965 in the wake of
the
attempted communist coup of that year. Its original
function was
to purge from the government and the armed forces PKI
members and
others suspected of complicity with the communists. By the
late
1960s, that task had been largely completed. In early
1969,
however, Kopkamtib was given new life by a presidential
decree
that provided it an organizational basis closely
interwoven with
Hankam. Kopkamtib was assigned a mandate on all matters
concerning internal security as defined in its widest
sense and
quickly began to exercise sweeping powers of supervision
over the
national political life, using the army's territorial
forces as
its main operational units. By the early 1970s, Kopkamtib
had
become a large and powerful body that concerned itself
with the
activities of every political and social organization in
the
nation; its powers of interrogation, arrest, and detention
were
not subject to the regular criminal justice system.
As part of the 1985 armed forces reorganization,
Kopkamtib
was eliminated and its widespread powers were reorganized
into
the Coordinating Agency for National Stability
(Bakorstanas).
Unlike Kopkamtib, the new agency did not have a separate
staff,
but instead relied upon the operational chain of command
for
national security matters. The elimination of Kopkamtib
reflected
both a consolidation of the national security situation
and a
streamlined intelligence and security apparatus able to
operate
within the reorganized armed forces structure. The key
organizations in the revised Bakorstanas system were the
ten army
Kodams and the two intelligence agencies, the State
Intelligence
Coordinating Agency (Bakin) and the Armed Forces Strategic
Intelligence Agency (Bais). Bakorstanas relied on the
regular
staffs of those organizations for its manpower.
The Bakorstanas system reinforced the power of the ten
Kodam
commanders, forming a new coordinating body in each of the
country's twenty-seven provincial-level jurisdictions.
This body
was called the Regional Security Council (Muspida). The
provincial governor served as chairman of the Muspida
within his
geographical area, but the Kodam and Korem commanders
exerted
great influence. Other Muspida members were the provincial
or
regional chief of police, the provincial assembly
chairman, and
the senior air force and navy officers in the province or
region
(if present). The Muspida system was replicated at the
district
(kabupaten) and subdistrict (kecamatan)
levels,
with the army Korem and Kodim commanders serving as lower
level
Muspida chairmen
(see Local Government
, ch. 4).
Also eliminated in 1985 was the Special Operations
Service
(Opsus), which formerly compiled political intelligence
and was
sometimes used by the president to conduct delicate
foreign
diplomatic assignments. Opsus was originally a combat
intelligence unit set up by Suharto during the Irian Barat
campaign of 1963-66. For many years, it was headed by the
late
Ali Murtopo, a close confidante of the president who also
served
as the minister of information
(see Political Parties
, ch.
4). Ali Murtopo and Opsus were identified with the
implementation
of the Act of Free Choice, through which the Irian Barat
became a
province of Indonesia in 1969. Opsus was also involved in
negotiations with Portugal regarding East Timor in the
mid-1970s
(see
The New Order Under Suharto
, ch. 1).
In 1992 the central intelligence-gathering body was
Bakin,
which studied both domestic and foreign intelligence
gathered by
its own personnel as well as by the army and the police.
Bakin
was directly under the control of the president and
maintained
its own communications network outside the civilian and
military
administrations. In 1992 Bakin was headed by an army
lieutenant
general. Armed forces officers were sometimes seconded to
Bakin
for special duties. It was probable that Bakin,
responsible for
intelligence gathering relating to defense matters, was
strengthened considerably under the reorganization and
operated
many of the security and intelligence functions under the
Bakorstanas system that were formerly performed by
Kopkamtib.
In the early 1990s, Bais was ABRI's agency for
intelligence
collection relating to external defense and internal
security,
processing, and operational functions. After the
elimination of
Kopkamtib, Bais received a major infusion of personnel,
funds,
and power. The head of Bais for many years, Murdani,
served
concurrently through 1983 as head of the Hankam
intelligence
staff, deputy chief of Bakin, and armed forces commander
in
chief. Like Ali Murtopo and Suharto himself, Murdani had
served
as an officer in Kostrad in the 1960s. Only when the
minister and
commander in chief posts were separated after the 1985
reorganization, with Murdani retaining only the
ministerial
portfolio, did he give up his Bais and Bakin posts. The
reorganization eliminated the chance for one man to hold
so many
powerful posts at the same time. After the organization
the ABRI
commander in chief acted as the chief of Bais but its
day-to-day
operations were directed by an army major general in the
post of
deputy chief.
Data as of November 1992
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