Asia Times: OPINION: US should own up to responsibilities



	September 16, 1999	atimes.com

Indonesia Crisis

OPINION: US should own up to responsibilities
By William D Hartung

NEW YORK - Until the Clinton administration's belated decision last week to suspend arms sales and military support to Indonesia, one would have thought that the United States was an innocent bystander to the events in East Timor, free of responsibility and unable to exert any influence on the forces that have unleashed a wave of murder and terror that have horrified the world.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Since Indonesia illegally occupied East Timor in 1975, the United States has approved sales of over $1 billion in US weaponry to the regime in Jakarta, including everything from F-16 fighter planes and military helicopters to M-16 combat rifles. Although exports of certain items have been curtailed in recent years due to justified concerns regarding Indonesia's human rights record, the United States has remained a significant source of arms and training for the Indonesian military.

A review of official Pentagon and State Department statistics on arms exports indicates that since 1993, the first year of the Clinton administration, the United States has supplied Indonesian forces with over $148 million worth of weapons and ammunition, including technical support and spare parts for Indonesia's considerable arsenal of US-supplied aircraft and armored vehicles.

And commercial sales of US military equipment, licensed by the State Department, have increased substantially over the past three years from $3.3 million in fiscal 1997 to an estimated $16.3 million during the last fiscal year.

Notwithstanding recent statements to the contrary by State Department spokesperson Jamie Rubin, the United States until last week continued to provide essential support for the operation and sustenance of the Indonesian armed forces.

As recently as 1997 the Pentagon was violating the spirit of a Congressional prohibition on US military training to Indonesia by providing assistance to that country's notorious Kopassus counterinsurgency units under the Joint Combined Exercise and Training program. Kopassus has long been implicated in acts of repression within East Timor, and Kopassus members are suspected of involvement in the recent campaign of murder and harassment of pro-independence figures in the territory.

This longstanding pattern of supplying US arms and training to Indonesia has fueled the current round of killing in East Timor. The Indonesian military helped set up the militia forces, and reports from the scene have noted that the current reign of terror in East Timor is being conducted in part with US-supplied weaponry, such as M-16 rifles, that have been passed on to the anti-independence death squads by representatives of the Indonesian government.

Now that Indonesian President B J Habibie has finally agreed to allow a United Nations peacekeeping force to enter East Timor to stop the killing, the Clinton administration must do everything in its power to make sure that mission succeeds.

That means not merely providing financing and personnel, but also pressuring our erstwhile allies in the Indonesian military to withdraw their forces from the territory while the militias are being disarmed and viable arrangements for territory's transition to independence are being arranged.

It's the very least we can do.

*William D. Hartung is the President's Fellow at the World Policy Institute at the New School.

©1999 New York University. All Rights Reserved. The Global Beat Syndicate, a service of New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media. For more information, check out http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/.

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