TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo has called on the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) to develop more bases outside of the island of Java, with Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung, stating that development of TNI's bases needs to start from the outlying areas of Indonesia.
"The President has asked TNI to focus on defending Indonesia - not just Java," said Pramono after a closed meeting to discuss the prospects of reinforcing TNI's defense capacity at the President's Office on Tuesday, February 23, 2016.
It is known that President Joko Widodo held an extraordinary, limited meeting about further developing TNI's firepower - with the President instructing TNI to reinforce its' bases outside of Java, in addition to procuring more weapon systems in a transparent manner. Pramono also said that the President wants Indonesia too substantially increase its' defence capacity, because he deems regional rivalry as inevitable.
TNI's Commander in Chief Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo, said that TNI's airforce bases are concentrated in Madiun, Jogjakarta, and Malang - but in the future, Nurmantyo said that TNI will begin to develop its' bases in Biak , Morotai, Merauke, and other strategic spots across Eastern Indonesia. "This will help also help improve our flight training as increasing its' cost-efficiency will allow our pilots could practice at any time," he said.
Nurmantyo said that the defence of Indonesia's outer-most islands still needs to be worked on - especially around Eastern Indonesia, which is crucial to aiding TNI-AU to perform its' duty to defend Indonesia's sovereignty. "We have no bases in Eastern Indonesia to support our Sukhoi fleets," he said. "If our Sukhoi fleet lands in Ambon and needs to replace its' batteries, or oxygen tank for instance - it has to be flown in from Western Indonesia."
