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Jokowi should go ahead with military diplomacy in Myanmar
In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, the President revealed his military diplomacy plan to convince junta leader, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, to learn from Indonesia’s experience after then-president Soeharto ended his 32-year military-backed rule in May 1998 and Indonesia became a fully fledged democracy. Myanmar’s military at the time reportedly learned a lot from Soeharto, including the dual function of the military and the tight restrictions for political parties.
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Ready to serve: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, accompanied by Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, inspects the first batch of Reserve Component of the Indonesian Military (TNI) at the Special Forces Training and Education Center in Batujajar, near Bandung in West Java on Oct. 7, 2021. Jokowi also inaugurated the reserve unit. (Courtesy of /Documentary Team of the Defense Minister)
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wo days before he received ASEAN foreign ministers in Jakarta last Friday, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced that he intended to send a senior military general as his envoy to talk with Myanmar’s junta.
This is not the first time Indonesia attempted the method. Jokowi's predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) took a stab at this during his two five-year terms. There is a strong reason to hope the President's plan will work.
In an interview with Reuters last week, the President revealed his military diplomacy plan to convince junta leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to learn from Indonesia’s transition from 32 years of military rule to a fully fledged democracy. It is a well-known fact that Myanmar’s military had learned a lot from Soeharto's military rule, including the dual function of the military and the tight restrictions for political parties.
“This is a matter of approach. We have the experience; here in Indonesia, the situation was the same,” said Jokowi, the rotary chairman of ASEAN for this year. “This experience can be addressed: how Indonesia began its democracy.”
The idea to send a general to Myanmar is based on the experience and position of the Indonesian Military (TNI) during the transition of the country from a militaristic state to become the world’s third-largest democracy in just 10 years.
Experts and analysts quickly criticized President Jokowi’s move to dispatch a general to Yangon, saying it was irrelevant to the current situation.
Yet, we should all have reason to believe that President Jokowi's action might work. We need to remember that many analysts and politicians were initially pessimistic about Jokowi’s ability to bring the world leaders together for the Group of 20 Summit in November.
