[list_indonesia] [ppiindia] US back in step with Indonesia
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/GC03Ae01.html
Mar 3, 2005
US back in step with Indonesia
By David Isenberg
WASHINGTON - The news that the United States is lifting its ban on military
assistance to Indonesia, announced last Friday, reminds one of a famous
saying by American writer Gertrude Stein. When Stein returned to California
on a lecture tour of the United States in the 1930s, she wanted to visit her
childhood home in Oakland. She records that she could not find the house.
Hence, "there is no there there".
Much the same could be said about the so-called "ban" on military exports to
Indonesia; it has long been apparent that there was less to the ban than
meets the eye.
In one of her first acts as secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice decided to
restore Indonesia's full International Military Education and Training
(IMET) program after determining that authorities in that country now are
cooperating with a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe into the
August 31, 2002 murders of an Indonesian and two American employees of the
mining giant Freeport McMoRan during a military-style ambush in Timika, West
Papua province.
Once the official certification takes place, Indonesia will be eligible to
receive US$600,000 to participate in the IMET program, from which it has
been barred since 1992 after army troops massacred peaceful demonstrators in
East Timor.
Indonesian cooperation resulted in the June 2004 indictment by a US court of
Anthonius Wamang, an Indonesian citizen and member of a Papuan separatist
group, on charges of murder, attempted murder, causing serious bodily injury
and possessing illegal firearms.
But some outside groups question whether Wamang, who remains at large, is
being used as a fall guy to protect those higher up. According to local
human-rights defenders, Wamang has extensive ties to the Indonesian military
(TNI) as a business partner of Kopassus, the Indonesian army's notorious
special forces. In an August 2004 television interview with the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation, Wamang said he got his ammunition for the attack
from TNI personnel, and he has told the FBI and local human-rights groups
that these officers knew he was about to carry out an attack on the Freeport
concession.
A statement put out by the East Timor Action Network noted, "In recent years
Congress has maintained only one condition on full IMET cooperation by
Indonesian authorities with an FBI investigation ... but cooperation by
Indonesia has been spotty at best. The sole suspect indicted so far by a
United States grand jury remains at large in Indonesia. His military links,
which appear to be extensive, seem to have hardly been examined. Military
stonewalling of the investigation into the ambush will undoubtedly
intensify." Notably, Wamang does not face charges in Indonesia.
Rice's action hardly comes as a surprise. After her confirmation hearings,
Rice told Congress that the George W Bush administration was "currently
evaluating whether to issue the required determination". But she was crystal
clear on her position on the training funds. "IMET for Indonesia is in the
US interest," she said in a written response to questions posed to her by
Senator Joseph Biden, a Democrat from Delaware. The program, she added, will
"strengthen the professionalism of military officers, especially with
respect to the norms of democratic civil-military relations, such as
transparency, civilian supremacy, public accountability and respect for
human rights".
Indonesia still has progress to make in the field of human rights, however.
According to the State Department's annual Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices, released on Monday:
The [Indonesian] government's human rights record remained poor; although
there were improvements in a few areas, serious problems remained.
Government agents continued to commit abuses, the most serious of which took
place in areas of separatist conflict. Security force members murdered,
tortured, raped, beat, and arbitrarily detained civilians and members of
separatist movements, especially in Aceh and to a lesser extent in Papua.
Some police officers occasionally used excessive and sometimes deadly force
in arresting suspects and in attempting to obtain information or a
confession. Retired and active duty military officers known to have
committed serious human rights violations occupied or were promoted to
senior positions in the government and the TNI.
Similarly, last September New York-based Human Rights Watch released a
report that found Indonesian security forces in Aceh were systematically
torturing detainees suspected of supporting the armed separatist Free Aceh
Movement (GAM).
Nevertheless, the decision to restore IMET training also caps a quiet
lobbying campaign by top Pentagon officials led by Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul D Wolfowitz, a former US ambassador to Indonesia who has openly
advocated the view that Congressional restrictions on military-to-military
contacts with countries such as Indonesia were hurting American interests
more than helping them.
In January, Wolfowitz visited tsunami-devastated Aceh province, where more
than 120,000 people were killed by the waves. On his return, Wolfowitz urged
Congress to re-evaluate the IMET restrictions. "We can have more positive
influence that way," he told PBS's Online News Hour.
Australia, which did not completely sever ties with Indonesia in 1999, may
use the US decision to speed up the full restoration of its links, including
those with the Kopassus special forces. Australian Defense Minister Robert
Hill "welcomed" the US decision, a spokeswoman said. Canberra wants to renew
counter-terrorism training for the 5,000-strong Kopassus unit, which
allegedly backed and covertly armed the pro-Jakarta militia in East Timor.
New Zealand, on the other hand, which like the US also froze military
cooperation with Jakarta in 1999, said it was not ready to follow the
American lead, because no Indonesian troops had been brought to justice.
"We had mass devastation and multiple killings, but nobody was found to be
responsible," Foreign Minister Phil Goff said. "We would like to see those
responsible held to account."
The reality of restrictions
Restrictions on the IMET training program first were imposed after the
massacre of civilian protestors in Dili, East Timor, in 1992. These
restrictions were maintained after Indonesian security forces and militia
carried out devastating attacks in East Timor in 1999 in the wake of the
August 1999 UN-sponsored independence referendum that left at least 1,500
people dead.
More recently, restrictions imposed by Washington were tied to findings that
the Indonesian military had not sufficiently cooperated in investigating the
murders in Papua. Certifying that Indonesian authorities were cooperating
with the FBI probe was critical, as the US Congress had made cooperation a
key condition for Indonesian access to US military training for its
officers.
But the reality is that some military relations between Indonesia and the US
have been going on without interruption. Even IMET has not been fully
frozen. Data on the State Department's website show that Indonesia received
$599,000 in IMET funding in fiscal year 2004.
In addition, Indonesian officers have participated in the Counter-terrorism
Fellowships Program (CFP) at the National Defense University in Washington,
DC. (The CFP for Indonesia is the world's largest. The amount allocated to
the program in fiscal year 2004 was $500,000, and $600,000 has been
allocated to the program for 2005.)
They also participate in the US Army's Theater Security Cooperation Program.
(Indonesian participation has increased from zero events in 2000 to more
than 85 events in 2004, and more than 132 events have been programmed for
fiscal year 2005).
Training in topics such as human rights and resource management is still
available to Indonesian officers through the Expanded IMET program, and
non-lethal military equipment for humanitarian purposes, such as relief work
after the tsunami, is also already available to Indonesia.
Writing in the Washington Post on February 12, US Senator Patrick Leahy, the
architect of the 1999 restrictions, noted, that Indonesia's "inability to
participate in the one training program covered by our law is symbolic".
And as an article in the conservative US magazine the Weekly Standard noted,
if full IMET is restored, other programs will likely follow, such as the
Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET), which was halted by the Bill
Clinton administration after revelations that the Pentagon used it to
circumvent the congressional ban on IMET funding. In her 2003 book The
Mission, the Washington Post's Dana Priest found that the US had held 41
training exercises with the Indonesian military between 1991-98.
Once IMET resumes, there will be only one military restriction left on
Indonesia: selling of lethal military equipment. And while legislation
currently prohibits the US from selling weapons to Indonesia, that may not
continue in the future.
Information entered into the Congressional Record on February 1 regarding
the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program noted that while it remains frozen
by US government policy, there are still 38 active cases with an FMS balance
of $3.5 million. And though Foreign Military Financing and other grant
programs, such as eligibility for Excess Defense Articles, remain restricted
by legislation, $11.3 million is requested for fiscal year 2006.
As for direct commercial sales, US government policy has established
"carve-outs" for specific categories of defense hardware, such as C-130
spare parts, non-lethal equipment, and "safety of use" items for lethal-end
equipment, such as propellant cartridges for ejection seats on fighter
aircraft. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency released $928,709 from FMS
funds in January for tsunami relief/repair of C-130s. In fact, Indonesia has
been allowed to buy these parts since 2000, but Indonesian officials
repeatedly misrepresented their availability in an effort to get the US to
remove all restrictions on weapons sales to Indonesia.
Even though the ban has not been the hardship it was made out to be,
Indonesian officials still have lobbied for its removal.
Indonesia's new president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former general and
graduate of the IMET program, sought to clear the way for the lifting of the
ban . He recently reshuffled Indonesia's top brass in preparation for
US-educated army chief Djoko Santoso to take over the military in place of
heir apparent General Ryamizard Ryacudu.
Aside from the longstanding desire on the part of both the US and Indonesian
militaries to restore full military relations, the move to restore IMET is
also influenced by the Bush administration's "war on terror". Supporters say
Indonesia could be a more central ally in fighting terrorist networks,
including Southeast Asian groups linked to al-Qaeda.
Many military observers think the Indonesian air force and the navy need to
be modernized to boost security in the Malacca Strait, which carries
one-third of the world's trade and half of its oil supplies; oil tankers are
often said to be a potential terrorist target. Some security forces fear
terrorists could hijack a tanker and use it as a floating bomb in a maritime
version of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
On top of the issue of military aid, Indonesia is seen in Washington as the
model for a moderate Islamic state and a model for other Muslim states as
well, a condition that has earned it enthusiastic support among many circles
in Washington.
David Isenberg, a senior analyst with the Washington-based British American
Security Information Council (BASIC), has a wide background in arms control
and national security issues. The views expressed are his own.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact
us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)
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