People wading through the floodwater in the aftermath of flash floods at Tukka village, North Sumatra, on Dec 2. - AFP
JAKARTA: Recent devastating floods in Indonesia have cast fresh doubts over Jakarta’s plan to send peacekeeping troops to Gaza, even as the Indonesian military starts preparing for the deployment.
Deploying thousands of soldiers abroad while the country is still reeling from a disaster that has killed over a thousand people would paint President Prabowo Subianto’s administration as out of touch, analysts told The Straits Times.
Prabowo told the UN General Assembly in September that Indonesia was prepared to deploy 20,000 or more troops in Gaza to help secure peace.
Dr Connie Rahakundini Bakrie, a military analyst, said the planned deployment would be ill-timed now. The Indonesian military should not look overseas while facing urgent priorities at home, she said, where the recovery effort required after the recent major flash floods will take years to complete.
In late November, devastating flash floods and landslides struck three Indonesian provinces – Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra – after record rainfall sparked by Cyclone Senyar.
The resulting floods and landslides buried villages, severely damaging and cutting off critical roads. More than a thousand people have died, with more than 7,000 injured and more than 600,000 people displaced as at Dec 18, down from a peak of nearly one million, as some waters receded.
“It would bolster our international standing, but our own citizens are currently enduring significant hardship,” Dr Connie, who is from the Institute of Defence and Security Studies in Jakarta, told The Straits Times.
Suraiya Ismail Thaib, a lecturer at the faculty of theology and philosophy at Ar-Raniry State Islamic University in Aceh, agrees, arguing that the situation in Aceh and other places hit by the flash floods in Sumatra is dire.
“It’s not that we lack empathy for Gaza, but we are facing a catastrophe at home. In Aceh alone, 150,000 houses have been severely damaged or reduced to rubble. Over 300 bridges have collapsed and severed road networks are making the distribution of food and clean water very challenging,” Suraiya told ST.
“It would be heartbreaking if the government chose not to prioritise its own land and people,” she added.
Prabowo has so far resisted calls to declare the floods a national emergency, insisting the country can handle the disaster on its own. This means the provinces affected cannot accept foreign aid, but residents of Aceh, which has been hit especially badly, have called for humanitarian aid from Malaysia to be allowed.
Doubts over the plan to send peacekeepers to Gaza have arisen even as the Indonesian military has begun preparing troops for the deployment.
“Preparations are under way within each branch (of the military). The Chiefs of Staff will then submit plans and proposals to the TNI (Indonesian military) headquarters,” Colonel Agung Saptoadi, a military spokesman based at the TNI headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta told ST.
“Pre-deployment exercise in Sentul will likely start early next year,” said the spokesman. Indonesia’s peacekeeping centre (PMPP) is located in Sentul, West Java province, an hour’s drive from Jakarta.
The training centre has operated since 2010 to align TNI troops with global standards of peacekeeping. Experienced officers from overseas regularly visit the centre to share skills and knowledge.
ST understands that the Indonesian troops in Gaza will focus mainly on medical assistance and infrastructure reconstruction, such as rebuilding roads and bridges. But infantry troops may be called upon to provide security for their fellow countrymen.
Indonesia sent peacekeeping troops overseas for the first time in 1957 as part of the United Nations Emergency Force that responded to the Suez crisis the previous year.
In 1956, Britain, France and Israel began an invasion of the Suez Canal to depose Egyptian President Abdel Nasser, but it was stopped by US and UN forces.
The 559-strong Indonesian troops, stationed in the Gaza Strip and along the Sinai Peninsula, acted as a neutral buffer between the Egyptian and foreign forces, monitoring and ensuring the orderly withdrawal of foreign troops from Egyptian territory.
Indonesian peacekeeping troops were also deployed elsewhere, including the Congo in 1960, Iran-Iraq in 1988, and Lebanon in 2006.
The US hosted a conference in Doha, Qatar on Dec 16 to discuss plans for an international stabilisation force for the Gaza Strip, including matters such as the command structure of the force. Indonesia was among the 45 countries that took part in the meeting.
“Deploying peacekeeping troops to Gaza is a strategic move by President Prabowo Subianto to uphold the constitutional mandate, which requires the government to maintain an independent and active foreign policy and contribute meaningfully to global peace,” Dr Trubus Rahardiansyah, public policy analyst from the Trisakti University in Jakarta, told ST.
But military analyst Mufti Makarim said Indonesia’s participation in Gaza carries significant risk.
Jakarta might face criticism domestically, as well as from the Arab nations, if footage emerged of Indonesian troops raising weapons against Palestinians or engaging in skirmishes with Hamas.
The Indonesian public have been staunch supporters of the Palestinian cause for decades. While the US and Europe designate Hamas as a terrorist organisation, the vast majority of Indonesians view them as freedom fighters or a legitimate resistance movement.
Mufti told ST: “Sending troops to Gaza may possibly be a strategic error. The reality on the ground is one of military occupation, not the conventional two-party conflict traditional peacekeeping missions are designed to address.” - The Straits Times/ANN
