ABSTRACT
In order to make sense of many reports from the Aceh War, it is important to consider the severe human effects of TNI and POLRI institutional subcultures and their hierarchically supervised ambition, aggression, conformity, and discipline. Whether from TNI, POLRI, press, or GAM, the war’s source material often left unexamined the human predicaments of Indonesia’s soldiery, but some details did emerge from Aceh to reveal the dangers and hardship they faced there. Detail also revealed official and subcultural mechanisms to prevent, overcome, or at least cope with problems of motivation, discipline, and morale.1 Complementing analysis of operational and political developments, this chapter examines personal conditions (not mutually exclusive) of Indonesian troops’Aceh war service as: self-interested economic motives; ideological foundations; damage to unit discipline and force cohesion; and coercion and victimization. It also assesses executive efforts at welfare, reward, and punishment for troops in conspicuous cases where TNI-POLRI members clearly exceeded normal tolerance to fear and other pressure.
