NGO-Security Service Engagement to Stem Human Rights Abuses in Indonesia: Mid-Term Evaluation

One unfamiliar with Indonesia may find it surprising that the challenge for counter-terrorism activities in Indonesia does not only come from groups that share terrorist ideology, but also come from those against terrorism. This unique challenge pertains the tension between security personnel charged by combating terrorism and civil society leaders who are concerned with human right violation perpetrated by the security personnel. This report is a mid-term evaluation of a two year project to transform the adversarial relation between the security personnel and civil society leaders into a constructive relations. The project run a series of meeting and training to facilitate engagement between the security personnel and civil society leaders. Using qualitative method, this report records key dynamic that can be used to evaluate the relevance, effectiveness and coherence of this project. Four key findings emerge.
First, the project has helped transferring new knowledge to security personnel that can strengthen their capacity in upholding human right principles in counter-terrorism activities. Level of knowledge about human right however is not always essential. In some cases security personnel already have a good awareness in human right principles. Their challenge in implementing the principles sometime lies on structural challenge and ability to translate the principles in difficult situations.
Second, stakeholder meetings and training programs created spaces for engagement between security personnel and civil society leaders. The engagement has helped identifying gaps of perception and commonalities that can be addressed to transform the current tension into constructive relations. However, trust between both parties remains low. Despite openness for engagement and acknowledgement of commonalities, suspicion and between both parties is still high. This situation can limit the required level of openness for a meaningful engagement. In addition to the problem of trust, the project activities also need to create more spaces for engagement in the form of informal sessions.
Third, this project faces a challenge in the recruitment of relevant participants. This challenge is due to structural condition such as the requirement for screening the participants and lack of institutional suport for security personnel participation in the program. New strategies or institutional agreement that fully back security personnel participation in the program is critical for the success of next phase of the project. Despite those challenges, a major progress made by this project is the opening of spaces for constructive engagement between Densus and civil society actors who have been critical of Densus. This have for example brought about a numerous informal meetings that are not included in the planned project activities. Spontanous meetings between Densus and civil society actors to respon recent issues in counter-terorrism operations shed a light for further more constructive relation between Densus and civil society actors. In its first year, this project has shown its significance in strengthening counter-terrorism agenda in Indonesia.