[Marinir] [JP] Kudos to TNI

[YapHongGie]

Menanggapi beberapa pemberitaan tendensius tentang TNI, perlu disadari
bahwa ada motif dan kepentingan politis yang besar dari LSM (Asing), untuk
mendiskreditkan dan membentuk opini negatif terhadap TNI qq. Pemerintah RI.

Adanya pihak-pihak yang menginginkan masalah Aceh dibawah ke forum
Internasional, seperti NGO "Conflict Transformation Service"; lembaga
konsultan di Swedia, yang tentunya mengharapakan bisa berperan dan
mendapatkan aliran dana dari UN atau lembaga Internasional lainnya.

http://jkt1.detiknews.com/index.php/detik.read/tahun/2005/bulan/01/tgl/10/t
ime/224532/idnews/270605/idkanal/10

Namun ada juga tulisan possitif yang diangkat Editorial Jakarta Post, yang
ingin saya sampaikan.

Selanjutnya saya serahkan pada publik untuk menilainya.

Wassalam, yhg.
----------------

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20050110.E01&irec=0

The Jakarta Post.
Editorial January 10, 2005
Kudos to TNI

The Indonesian Military (TNI) must be one of the few institutions whose work
and contributions to the emergency relief effort in disaster-stricken areas
in Aceh and North Sumatra has not been fully appreciated.

There is even the sense that the Indonesian media (including this newspaper)
have been giving greater, if not more positive, coverage to the relief
efforts of foreign militaries in our own backyard.
This, however, says more about the state-of-the-art equipment (the USS
Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier off the coast of Aceh is just too awesome)
and, to some extent, the efficiency of the foreign militaries relative to
the TNI. It does not say who is doing the most work in Aceh and North
Sumatra today, for that would undoubtedly be the TNI.

Is this a case of unfair treatment of our own military?
You could say that. But it is also a reflection of the high expectations
many people have placed on the TNI as the nation suffers through the worst
of what UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan described as a global catastrophe.
It is also a sign that the nation is looking to the TNI, being literally on
the front line in this war against Mother Nature's wrath, to be the first
and the most active in lending a hand to the victims of the earthquake and
tsunami that struck on Dec. 26.

For all our differences of opinion about the presence of the military
command in Aceh, this "territorial structure" means the TNI is the only
group in the area that has the organization, personnel, equipment, skill and
capability to provide immediate assistance to the victims of disasters.
No other organization can match the TNI, not even the civilian provincial
administration, which lost a third of its employees.
Did the TNI perform up to expectations? The lack of appreciation given to
the military suggests that, in the eyes of many people in this country, it
did not. But this is an unfair assessment born more out of ignorance --and
lack of media coverage--  and unfairly high expectations.

The TNI has a disproportionately heavy presence in Aceh because of the
ongoing operation to quell the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
But Mother Nature does not discriminate and the earthquake and tsunami
hit members of the TNI and their families, and we suspect some GAM
rebels and their families, just as hard as it hit civilian targets.
The TNI, like the police and the civilians they are supposed to defend,
suffered many losses in this disaster.

Soldiers were confronted with the impossible choice of putting their
military duties first or rescuing and protecting their own families.
One heroic but rarely told story of this disaster is that many soldiers
bravely performed their duties knowing that their own families were in
jeopardy.
In the aftermath of the disaster, TNI soldiers were well positioned to
conduct rescue operations, to take the injured to hospitals, to administer
first aid and to set up tents for the displaced.
This they did out of their sense of duty, and in most cases, without the
media publicity.

Instead, most of the reports that came out were more about their
shortcomings, from their supposed slow response and lack of coordination to
suggestions that some officers were selling food aid intended for victims.
Some of these reports may have had some truth in them, but they should not
negate the big picture, which is that overall the TNI did its job under the
most difficult of conditions.

One could always argue, after the fact, that the TNI could, and should,
have done a lot more given its strong presence in Aceh.
Had it not been for its poor reputation among the people of Aceh, the TNI
should even have been given the task of coordinating the entire humanitarian
operation currently underway because it is the one organization on the
ground that has the capacity and network to do so.

Long before the civilian government in Jakarta made up its mind about
coordinating the emergency relief operations, the TNI had already appointed
Maj. Gen. Bambang Darmono to coordinate with foreign militaries.
The success of the foreign military missions in ferrying relief supplies to
the most remote areas on the western coast of Aceh could not have been
achieved without direction from the TNI.

For all its faults and shortcomings, our TNI has done what is expected
of it and probably a lot more.
Many soldiers and their families have made sacrifices for the nation, some
even went beyond the call of duty.

Their work and contributions to the Aceh humanitarian operation should not
only be recognized, but also widely applauded.