JAKARTA: Indonesia’s human rights commission and other rights groups have called on the government to end basic military training for prospective managers of President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship village cooperatives programme after five participants died just 10 days into the 45-day training.
Launched in July last year, the “Red and White Cooperatives” programme aims to establish around 80,000 village cooperatives across Indonesia to create jobs and meet the government’s target of 8 per cent economic growth in 2029. They are intended to sell basic goods, subsidised cooking gas and fertiliser.
The military training, which nearly 35,000 future cooperative managers must complete, started on Jun 14 and continues until Jul 31 in several regional military training units.
The defence ministry, which is leading the training, said on Saturday that five people died between Jun 17 and Jun 26, and the deaths were the result of a variety of causes including cardiac arrest, heat stroke, tuberculosis and pneumonia.
“The five participants have different medical conditions and received medical treatment according to the standard procedures,” said Major General Ketut Gede Wetan, head of human resource development at the ministry.
The latest three fatalities were Novia Rahmadhani Sihotang, Muhammad Rifki Renaldi Gunawan and Nola Dya Sari, who died in separate incidents between Jun 22 and Jun 26, local media reported.
Their deaths came after Anisa Muyassaroh and Yonanda Muhammad Taufiq died on Jun 18 and Jun 17, respectively.
The ministry said each victim’s family would receive 50 million rupiah (US$2,799) in compensation.
Ketut said all participants had undergone medical checks before joining the training and all were cleared.
He said the focus of the training was not on combat skills and involved no strenuous physical activity.
The defence ministry said it would conduct a “comprehensive evaluation” of the training, which would include health monitoring, early detection of participants with health risks, and an adjustment to the intensity of the activities. The health ministry would also be involved in the training, it added.
Despite the deaths, the defence ministry said training would continue, adding that it had conducted a series of evaluations following the first two fatalities to strengthen safety and health monitoring of participants.