Tolerance as Implicit Order: Militias and Sexual Violence as Practice in Indonesian Counterinsurgency Operations

ABSTRACT

What conditions precipitate militia-inflicted sexual violence during counterinsurgency operations? In our article, we expand on the sexual violence as practice framework by focusing on the issue of commander's tolerance as a form of implicit order. Specifically, we argue that militia-inflicted sexual violence is amplified by two interrelated conditions – the link to the government security forces and the autonomy permitted to the militias in conflict zones. Thus, we refine the logic of sexual violence as practice to understand the finer variations of militia-committed violence. We elaborate our explanations by analyzing Indonesia's peripheral operations in East Timor, Aceh and West Papua.

KEYWORDS:

• Conflict-related sexual violence
• militias
• principal-agent framework
• Indonesia
• counterinsurgency

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Alex Arifianto, Seung Joon Paik, Joanne Wallis and the two anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Given the lack of systematic reporting of sexual violence in West Papua and, to a lesser degree, Aceh relative to the East Timor case, we rely on NGO reports and oral testimonies to identify and outline patterns of implicit order that lead to militia-inflicted sexual violence on the ground (Davenport and Ball 2002).

2 Many of these groups, such as Pemuda Pancasila, played a prominent role in the massacre of so-called communist during the birth of the New Order (Ryter 1998, 55–56; Cribb 2002, 556–557).

3 According to Komnas HAM, the recorded official numbers are as follows: 1,418 killed or missing, and 111 instances of rape. It is acknowledged to be a representation of ‘overreaction from the Indonesian military that led to violations of human rights’ (Afriandi 2015, 35).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Soul Park

Soul Park is Lecturer in International Relations at the National University of Singapore. His research interest includes international relations theory and international security in the Asia-Pacific. His work has been published in the Journal of Strategic Studies, European Journal of International Security, Contemporary Security Policy, and Small Wars and Insurgencies.

Zhi Ming Sim

Zhi Ming Sim is a PhD Student in Politics and a Graduate Associate at the Centre for Asian Research at York University. Zhi Ming holds a Bachelors in Social Sciences (Honors) from the National University of Singapore (Political Science and Sociology) and Masters from York University (Politics and Asian Studies). Her research focuses on the feminist and postcolonial reading of international relations, regional cooperation in Southeast Asia, gender-based violence in conflicts, state-related political violence and authoritarianism in Asia.