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US, Indonesia's military closer to
renewing ties
By Tim Shorrock
WASHINGTON - The US Congress may vote as early
as this week to restore a military training program for
Indonesia despite uncertainties about the Indonesian
military's human-rights record, according to House and
Senate aides and observers of US-Indonesian relations.
But passage of the Bush administration's US$400,000
request for International Military Education and
Training (IMET) for Indonesia, while highly symbolic,
may not guarantee the immediate start of the program.
Instead, the administration of President George
W Bush may delay implementation until the full results
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's)
investigations into the August 31 killings of two
Americans near the FreeportMcMoRan mine in West Papua
are made public and Indonesia has taken action to punish
those responsible. "When the training commences may be
based on the outcome of this case," said an aide to a US
lawmaker who has been critical of the Indonesian
military, known as TNI. "Just because its authorized
doesn't mean it will resume right away." The FBI report,
however, is unlikely to be released before the
appropriations bills are considered, he added.
Some critics of US policy fear the
administration is trying to find a face-saving way to
restore military aid to Jakarta by blaming "renegade"
units of the Indonesian military for the West Papua
ambush, which also killed an Indonesian citizen and left
several survivors seriously injured. "If the
administration signs off on that, we're essentially
conspiring in a cover-up to prevent full accountability
by people responsible for the murder of US citizens,"
said Ed McWilliams, a former State Department official
who served as a political officer in the US Embassy in
Jakarta during the 1990s.
The $400,000 IMET
funding was narrowly approved last summer by the Senate
and House appropriations committee after a strong
lobbying push by the Bush administration, which linked
closer ties to Jakarta to its global war against
terrorism. But Congress adjourned before either the
House or the Senate could vote on the measure, which is
now back before the appropriations committees. Both the
House and Senate are likely to consider the 2002 bill
before Bush's State of the Union address on January 28.
"It's a small amount, but very symbolic because
it was the first thing Congress cut in 1992," said John
Miller, an activist with the East Timor Action Network,
which opposes the aid package. "The Indonesian military
will take it as an endorsement of business as usual."
US military ties with Jakarta were suspended in
the 1990s over the TNI's bloody record in East Timor and
Indonesia's failure to bring human-rights violators to
justice. An amendment by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy
has prohibited new IMET funding until Congress verifies
that the Indonesian government is cooperating with
investigations and prosecutions of soldiers and military
leaders responsible for human-rights abuses in East
Timor and provinces in Indonesia. The Senate amendment
approved last year overrode Leahy's language.
Leahy will again lead the battle to defeat the
IMET spending and will be joined by House opponents,
including Representative Nita Lowey of New York. But
opponents don't believe they have the votes to defeat
the request. "We are in a minority on that subject,"
said one aide. "We're likely to see the IMET program
renewed." Another aide said opponents of the program
hope to see the FBI report before any vote takes place.
"We're obviously going to raise it, but we're unlikely
to get the report before a decision is made," he said.
There is no doubt that the Freeport incident has
complicated Bush's plans to resume full military ties
with Indonesia. Last month, Bush told Indonesian
President Megawati Sukarnoputri to find and punish the
perpetrators of the Freeport ambush. He also asked for a
joint FBI-Indonesian police investigation into the
allegations that elements of the TNI may have been
responsible.
Bush made his call after the
Washington Post, citing US intelligence, reported that
senior Indonesian generals discussed an attack on
Freeport before it occurred. The conversations, the Post
said, were "aimed at discrediting" a Papuan separatist
group the TNI later blamed for the attack, and were
supported by intelligence intercepts supplied to US
officials by Australia. Observers here believe that the
FBI's initial report on the incident will substantiate
claims from the Indonesian police and Papuan
human-rights groups that the killings were the work of
the TNI's special forces.
Last week, however,
Indonesian government officials rejected the
accusations. "The investigation into the shooting of the
Freeport employees on August 31 has yet to find the
perpetrators," Indonesian Security Minister Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono said after a cabinet meeting on
January 6. "Secondly, charges of involvement by rogue
members of the military have been investigated and
evidence has not yet been found."
The Megawati
government also turned down Bush's request for a joint
investigation similar to the one launched after the
terrorist bombing in Bali last year. Instead, Indonesian
officials have allowed an FBI team into the country but
made no commitments on granting access to witnesses and
other assistance. "They are outsiders," an aide to
Susilo pointedly said.
Some analysts believe
Indonesia's decision last week to release an American
nurse being held in Aceh for visa violations may be
linked to the upcoming debate over restoring IMET. The
nurse, Joy Lee Sadler, could become a thorn in the Bush
administration's side as it lobbies for increased aid,
however. "I will try to lobby the Congress and stop
military weapons delivery to Aceh and tell the United
States the military cruelties that I have seen and I
have experienced," she told the Associated Press upon
her release. Lesley McCulloch, 43, an Australia-based
academic and occasional Asia Times Online contributor
who was arrested with Sadler last September, is due to
be released next month (see Indonesia's message: Researchers risk
jail, January 3).
The administration's
response to the lack of cooperation on the West Papua
incident has been muted. Bush has yet to make a public
statement on the Freeport killings. Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the administration's point-man
on Indonesia, told the Washington Post in November that,
even if the TNI were implicated, US military aid should
continue because "more contact with the West and with
the United States and moving them in a positive
direction is important both to support democracy in
Indonesia and to support the fight against terrorism".
The clearest statement of US policy was made on
December 17 in a Jakarta speech delivered by US
Ambassador Ralph L Boyce. "Full restoration of military
ties and foreign military financing depends on Indonesia
demonstrating progress toward holding those responsible
for past gross human-rights violations accountable for
their actions - something that has not yet happened," he
said. "We stand ready to move forward in this area but
cannot do so until there is justice for the serious
human-rights violations committed in East Timor and
elsewhere." He did not specifically mention the Freeport
attack.
While IMET may be funded, neither
Congress nor the administration is pushing to sell new
weapons to Indonesia.
Last month, the RAND Corp,
a think-tank funded by the US Air Force, issued a long
study on US-Indonesian military ties that urged
immediate resumption of IMET. "Since military training
for Indonesia was effectively terminated in 1992, there
has been a 'lost generation' of Indonesian officers -
officers who have no experience with the United States
or who have no understanding of the importance that the
United States military attaches to civilian leadership,
democracy, and respect for human rights," the report concluded.
"It's
in our national interest to have strong bilateral
military ties," said retired Colonel John Haseman, a
former US defense official in Jakarta who helped write
the report, at a December news conference sponsored by
RAND and the US-Indonesia Society.
Asked whether
TNI involvement in the Freeport ambush would or should
compromise IMET funding, RAND analyst Angel Rabasa said
that reports about the "obscure incident" are "being
taken very, very seriously" within the Bush
administration and the Pentagon. But Rabasa, the
co-author of the report, argued that a full
investigation in Indonesia could help make the case for
IMET. "If Indonesia does the right thing, it could
strengthen relations and our ability to engage" with the
TNI, he said.
Martin Ott, a professor of
national-security policy at the National War College,
said after the news conference that "some level of TNI
involvement" was possible. But even if that were found
to be true, Ott said he would support expanded military
ties because "on balance you want to build those
relationships". He compared the situation to Pakistan,
where a "tiny coterie" of military officers trained by
the United States led Pakistan's decision to support the
US war against terrorism against the wishes of a faction
of Islamic officers. "You have a similar template in
Indonesia," he said.
(©2003 Asia Times Online
Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
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