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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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