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US Senate blocks Indonesia military
aid
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON -
Two weeks after President George W Bush announced that
he was ready to normalize military ties with Indonesia,
the US Senate approved an amendment to the 2004
foreign-aid bill banning training for Indonesian army
officers.
Senators who co-sponsored two
amendments that were approved unanimously by the Upper
House said military ties should not be normalized at
least until the Indonesian military (TNI) cooperates
fully with an investigation being carried out by the US
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) into last year's
fatal ambush of the staff of an international school in
Timika in West Papua province.
Two US
schoolteachers, as well as one Indonesian, were killed
in the incident in which eight other US citizens were
wounded, including a six-year-old girl.
Both US
investigators and the Indonesian police have suggested
that members of the TNI were responsible for the ambush,
possibly in retaliation for the refusal of Freeport
McMoRan, the owner of the world's largest gold mine, to
continue paying the armed forces for security.
The first amendment, sponsored by Republican
Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado, bans Indonesia from
receiving training under the State Department's
International Military Education and Training (IMET)
program, for which the administration had tentatively
allocated some US$600,000, unless Bush "determines
national-security interests" justify a waiver.
The second amendment, sponsored by Democratic
Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, states that any
"normalization" of military relations between the two
countries cannot resume until there is "full
cooperation" with the FBI in its investigation and the
individuals responsible for the murders are brought to
justice.
The Feingold amendment also stated as a
matter of policy that "respect of the Indonesia military
for human rights and the improvement in relations
between the military and civilian population are
extremely important for the future of relations between
the United States and Indonesia".
Last July, the
House of Representatives, which also expressed concern
about the TNI's cooperation with the FBI, also voted to
strip money for IMET training for Indonesia in its
version of the foreign-aid bill, so language
conditioning IMET funding for 2004 will almost certainly
be included in the final version of the bill to be
submitted to Bush in the coming weeks, congressional
aides said.
Both amendments represent a setback
to the administration, which has seen Indonesia, the
world's most populous, predominantly Muslim nation, as a
key ally in its "war on terrorism", as well as an
important target of al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic
groups for recruitment and training of militants.
Initially, the Bush administration was
frustrated by the attitude taken by the government of
President Megawati Sukarnoputri until the bombing just
over one year ago of a nightclub on the predominantly
Hindu island of Bali that killed more than 200 people,
including almost 90 vacationing Australians.
The
bombing was blamed on an Islamic group, Jemaah Islamiya,
which Washington believes is linked to al-Qaeda. Since
the incident, the Indonesian government has cracked down
hard on the group and cooperated much more closely with
the United States, Australia and regional security
forces in tracking suspected militants.
The Bush
administration, which has made little secret of its
desire to renew military ties with TNI, particularly
since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New
York and the Pentagon, has wanted to reward the
government for its changed attitude. Last year, the
Pentagon provided the TNI with some $4 million in
counter-terrorism training and non-lethal equipment,
while Congress also agreed to lift some restrictions on
other military aid and training.
Actual delivery
of some of that assistance, however, has been held up by
Congress since the Timika ambush. While Jakarta
initially blamed rebels, police investigators, bolstered
by the FBI, concluded that the evidence pointed instead
to TNI units.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz, who served as US ambassador to Jakarta in the
1980s, has long favored normalizing military ties with
Indonesia and particularly renewing training programs
for TNI officers. "I believe exposure of Indonesian
officers to US [military personnel and practices] has
been a way to promote reform efforts in the military,
not to set them back," he said last year.
But
lawmakers remain unconvinced, noting that hundreds of
Indonesian military officers had been training in IMET
and similar programs since the 1960s, but there was
little evidence of a change in the institution's abusive
practices.
In addition to the Timika incident,
Congress has also expressed concern about the
counter-insurgency campaign in Aceh province which was
launched against rebels there after peace talks
collapsed last May. Wolfowitz has himself stated several
times over the past several months that Jakarta should
seek a political settlement to the conflicts in both
Aceh and West Papua.
Bush himself, however,
created considerable confusion just two weeks ago on the
eve of his own visit to Bali during a week-long tour of
Asia. "I think we can go forward with [a] package of
mil-to-mil cooperation because of the cooperation of the
government on the killings of the two US citizens," he
said in an interview with Indonesian television, adding
that "Congress has changed their attitude".
But
this was immediately challenged by puzzled lawmakers on
Capitol Hill who had been negotiating with the
administration over language to be included in the 2004
foreign-aid bill that would take account of their
concerns. Three days later, a senior administration
official, who talked with reporters on background, said
that Bush had misspoken.
"Progress in building a
broader military-to-military relationship with
Indonesia," the anonymous official said, "will be pinned
on continued cooperation from Indonesia on the
investigation into the murders" of the schoolteachers in
Timika.
IMET funding has long been a litmus test
of military relations between Washington and Jakarta.
Congress first voted to restrict IMET training for the
armed forces in Indonesia after they committed a
massacre of more than 100 unarmed civilians in Dili, the
capital of East Timor, in 1991.
All military
ties were subsequently severed by the administration of
president Bill Clinton when the TNI and militias under
its control ravaged East Timor after its inhabitants
voted overwhelmingly for independence in a United
Nations-organized referendum.
Congress
subsequently voted to tie all US military aid, training
and sales on the TNI's implementing far-reaching reforms
in its human rights, economic and institutional
practices, including its subordination to civilian
authority and its prosecution of officers responsible
for the violence in East Timor.
Although
virtually all of the conditions were ignored, the Bush
administration prevailed on Congress to lift them after
the September 11 attacks.
(Copyright 2003 Asia
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