Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo reproached his military chief in a meeting last week amid concerns the commander was “out of control” after he unilaterally suspended defence co-operation with Australia, two sources briefed on the meeting said.
Widodo’s intervention highlights alarm about General Gatot Nurmantyo, who promotes the notion that Indonesia is besieged by “proxy wars”, in which foreign states seek to undermine the nation by manipulating non-state actors.
Analysts and some of Widodo’s aides are also concerned that Nurmantyo is laying the groundwork for an expansion of the military’s role in civilian affairs in the world’s third-largest democracy and may have political ambitions himself.
Widodo, the first president from outside the military and political establishment, needed to move quickly to demonstrate his authority as the country’s commander-in-chief, one senior government official said.
“With Gatot, the feeling is like he’s a little out of control,” he said.
Nurmantyo declared a rupture in military ties after an Indonesian officer found “offensive” teaching material while on a language training course in Australia late last year.
The material suggested that Indonesia’s Papua province should be independent and mocked the nation’s state ideology, Pancasila, according to Nurmantyo.
One of the officials said Widodo and others in the government were caught off guard when local media reported Nurmantyo’s announcement of the suspension in military ties with Australia.
While the general was not formally reprimanded, the official said, Widodo served him a warning during a meeting at a presidential palace in Bogor, outside Jakarta.
The meeting was confirmed by another senior government aide, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. Nurmantyo declined requests to be interviewed and a military spokesman declined to comment on the meeting. The senior government official said: “We suspect that Gatot is exploiting this incident for his own political agenda, his own political ambition.”
“He has been making many public appearances and speeches lately,” he said. “Frankly, we think many of them about proxy wars and the threat to Indonesia are absolutely ridiculous.” In one speech, Nurmantyo predicted that a food shortage in China could trigger a flood of boat-borne refugees. He told listeners he would slaughter 10 cows and dump them into the sea to attract sharks that would devour the Chinese.
One of the officials who disclosed Widodo’s meeting with Nurmantyo said the military chief’s job was safe, downplaying speculation that the general would be relieved of his duties. “For now, we are confident that he will not betray the president or the civilian government,” he said.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported last week that Nurmantyo told an audience in Indonesia recently he believed the Australian military was attempting to recruit Indonesian soldiers sent to the country for training. Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne rejected the allegation.
The comments were just one example of the conspiracy theories Nurmantyo peddles as part of his ‘proxy war’ narrative. In a booklet released in 2015, he wrote that foreign powers were seeking to infiltrate Indonesia’s media, education system, Islamic organisations, corporations and political parties to weaken the nation, and seize control of its security apparatus and strategic industries.