Indonesian President Joko Widodo, center, inspects the troops during a parade marking the 72nd anniversary of the Indonesian Armed Forces in Cilegon, Banten, Indonesia, Oct 5, 2017. (TATAN SYUFLANA / AP)
CILEGON, Indonesia — The Indonesian military should stay out of politics
and remain loyal to the government, President Joko Widodo said Thursday
in an apparent rebuke over contentious statements by the country's top
general.
Military chief Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo has stirred controversy in
the past month with warnings of a renewed communist threat to Indonesia and a
claim that a non-military organization was trying to import thousands of
weapons.
In a speech to a parade marking the military's 72nd anniversary,
Jokowi said the armed forces are a national institution that should stay above
politics and not be fragmented by narrow interests.
The military ‘should always ensure its political neutrality in the current democratic era’
Joko Widodo
Indonesian President
The military "should
always ensure its political neutrality in the current democratic era," he
said.
Indonesia's army retreated from politics after the fall of dictator
Suharto in 1998 ushered in democracy, but nearly two decades later a role
limited to national defense is not fully accepted among officers or the
rank-and-file. It has tried to inch back into civilian areas and resented the
police's leading role in counter-terrorism.
Jokowi's predecessor as
president was a former general, as was his main rival in the 2014 presidential
election, Prabowo Subianto.
Nurmantyo, who local media say might harbor
ambitions to run for president in 2019, last month attended an Islamic political
party event at which he warned that communists — a boogeyman frequently invoked
by Indonesian conservatives — were a renewed threat.
Earlier in the
month, the four-star general claimed that a government institution tried to
import 5,000 guns "on behalf" of Jokowi. The president's top security minister
said the national intelligence service had ordered several hundred rifles from a
state-owned weapons company for training purposes.
Thursday's parade in
the coastal West Java city of Cilegon comprised nearly 6,000 soldiers and
Indonesia's most modern imported weaponry.
In a speech at the parade,
Nurmantyo said soldiers are sworn to protect the Indonesian people and obey the
president. "Do not doubt our loyalty," he said.
This story has been
corrected to show that general's comments were in speech, not to
reporters.