Asia Times: US split on resuming military ties with Indonesia



	November 27, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

US split on resuming military ties with Indonesia
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - Washington is in two minds over when, and under what conditions, the United States should resume military ties with Indonesia.

Two months after Jakarta began its withdrawal from East Timor, forces in Congress are pressing President Bill Clinton to go slow - and have even put some legal obstacles in the way - on any resumption of military links.

Other officials, notably in the Pentagon, argue that a delay could result in a disastrous loss of US influence at a critical moment for one of the world's most strategically located countries. ''The TNI (Indonesia's armed forces) is facing unprecedented pressures,'' said one official. ''If we aren't in the position of offering it carrots as well as sticks, it will be very difficult to steer it in the right direction.''

Critics, however, say that restoring ties early will only enhance the military's influence over Indonesia's first elected civilian government and encourage its more corrupt and abusive elements to resist a major overhaul of the institution. ''It's important to keep the army on the defensive,'' according to Dan Lev, a leading US expert on Indonesia at the University of Washington in Seattle. ''The politically engaged officers are now on the run, and the more pressure on them, the better.''

The United States has served as the Indonesian military's chief foreign patron since the mid-1950s. It has lavished hundreds of millions of dollars of aid, equipment and training on the armed forces, which was always seen as the one institution that could be relied on to resist alleged communist subversion in the sprawling archipelago and protect US interests there.

Washington supported Indonesia's invasion of East Timor after Portugal's hasty withdrawal in late 1975. The invasion followed by just a few months the collapse of US-supported, anti-communist regimes in Indochina. Despite subsequent reports of massive human rights violations committed by the army in East Timor and other restive parts of Indonesia, Washington stood by the army, providing more than one billion dollars in military aid, training and sales to the armed forces over the following 20 years.

It was only after the November 1991 massacre by soldiers of some 200 people in Dili, East Timor's capital, that Congress began restricting aid, beginning with a ban on Indonesian participation in the basic US training course for militaries, the International Military Education and Training program. But even that modest, mostly symbolic, step was vehemently opposed by the Pentagon which tried to circumvent the ban.

From the mid-1990s, it also quietly conducted dozens of joint-training exercises (JCET) with Indonesian special forces (Kopassus), widely regarded as the most abusive elements in the armed forces. After those operations came to light last year, however, the administration, under intense Congressional pressure, suspended the program.

Yet as recently as August - just before the military-backed violence which devastated East Timor - the commander of the US Pacific forces reportedly recommended that Washington resume joint manoeuvers and training with the TNI.

Appalled by the mayhem unleashed by the armed forces and army-backed militias after the inhabitants of East Timor voted overwhelmingly for independence, the administration suspended all military ties with Indonesia.

The suspension remains in effect today despite Jakarta's withdrawal from the territory and the installation of a new, elected government headed by President Abdurrahman Wahid.

While the freeze on military relations has been largely symbolic, it reportedly has had a major psychological impact on the military. ''We are sorry to say that the United States really hurt the Indonesian armed forces in East Timor,'' said retired Lt Gen Hasnan Habib, a former ambassador here who was part of a high-powered Indonesian delegation of independent political analysts which visited Washington this week. ''After all, the Indonesians went into East Timor with the support of the US government, and, all of a sudden, all contacts with the American army are cut off.''

The administration clearly now wants to support Wahid, and it has already effectively lifted economic sanctions imposed against Jakarta in September as a result of the violence in Timor. But military sanctions are another matter, particularly in the absence of evidence that the TNI is committed to major change.

When Wahid visited Washington two weeks ago, Clinton reportedly told him he hoped to restore military ties but could not do so until the some 200,000 East Timorese who were forced to flee into Indonesian-controlled West Timor are permitted to return home. While Wahid pledged to expedite their return, the army has done virtually nothing to carry out his wishes, and its compliance with an accord signed this week to pacify the border between East and West Timor remains open to question.

''We'll see if the Indonesian military honours and implements the border commission agreement ...and if [its] attitude toward the activities of the militia moves in the direction we want it to move,'' said US UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who visited Timor and Jakarta this week. Holbrooke has emerged as one of the champions of a hard line against the TNI.

Meanwhile, Congress, before its adjournment last week, moved to limit the administration's ability to normalize military ties. It made the resumption of any military aid or training subject to six conditions that went far beyond the release of the East Timorese held in West Timor. No aid can be resumed until Jakarta and the TNI ''take effective measures'' to prosecute members of the armed forces against whom there is credible evidence of human rights abuses or of aiding or abetting the militias.

However Pentagon officials, who note that the aid ban does not cover joint exercises, hope to renew ties with the TNI soon. These ties possibly could involve low-profile exercises with the navy or air force, which, unlike the army, have not been implicated in the abuses committed in East Timor or Aceh, the resource-rich region in northern Sumatra where pro-independence sentiment is running high and where Wahid has promised a referendum.

US defense officials, like their TNI counterparts, fear that Indonesia could implode, particularly if Aceh secedes. ''Indonesia's territorial integrity is seen as important,'' said one. ''We have a lot to lose if things start to fall apart.''

(Inter Press Service)

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©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.