Standing Up for Human Rights by Restricting Military Assistance to Indonesia

ETAN Responds to the Wall Street Journal

by John M. Miller (National Coordinator, ETAN)

A recent Wall Street Journal Asia editorial urged its readers to watch the "low-profile" but important issue of the U.S. military relationship with Indonesia. The Journal ("Obama's Indonesia Test," Nov. 20) repeated the widely-discredited case that re-engagement with the largely-unreformed and unrepentant Indonesian military was the best way to promote reform and human rights. It called on President-elect Barack Obama "to stand down liberal Senators and interest groups" like the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) and Amnesty International for seeking conditions on military assistance to Indonesia.

The editorial acknowledges the obvious, stating "Indonesia's military has certainly had human-rights problems in the past," but urges the incoming administration to forget about them in the name of building an alliance on the "global war on terror." We have certainly seen what ignoring international human rights concerns during the Bush years has accomplished (Guantanamo, torture, "extraordinary rendition," etc…).

The Obama administration and incoming 119th Congress should change course and put human rights at the forefront of U.S. policy toward Indonesia. This would contribute more to encouraging democratic reform and human rights accountability in the world's largest Muslim-majority country than any amount of military training or weapons. Indonesians who view the military as a chief roadblock to greater reform will be grateful.

History lessons

The Journal argues that from "the 1960s, the U.S. has worked with Indonesian officers in a variety of exchanges ranging from short courses at military colleges to joint training exercises. These programs help Indonesians gain technical expertise as well as learn key values, such as observing human rights and respecting civilian control. …"

Not exactly. Those pesky past "human-rights problems" were at their greatest when the U.S. was most engaged with the Indonesian military.

Let's look at what happened when U.S.-Indonesia ties were the closest. In 1965, General Suharto took power in a coup and according to scholars, up to one million people were killed in its aftermath. West Papua was seized in 1963 with up to 100,000 dead. In 1975, Indonesia with explicit U.S. support invaded East Timor, with another 100,000-200,000 dead. Some 90% of the weapons used in the invasion and subsequent occupation came from the U.S. Few have bothered to try to count those throughout the archipelago who suffered torture, rape or the loss of a limb, livelihood or home. These are the lessons the Indonesian military learned about "key values" from unfettered U.S. military assistance.

The only period of significant reform came during the period when the U.S. actually suspended much assistance during the 1990s. Chief among the changes were the end of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998. Since he was driven from office, East Timor became independent. (The Indonesian military's destructive exit from the country, lead for a time to a full cut off of all military assistance.) In the late 1990s, the military gave up a few prerogatives, including its seats in parliament. But since the U.S. began to incrementally reinstate military assistance in 2002 the reform process has stalled.

By 2005, the Bush administration had reinstated nearly all military assistance and has since sought further expanded ties through training of the Kopassus, the notorious special forces unit responsible for some of the worst human rights violations in East Timor, West Papua, Aceh and elsewhere. The Wall Street Journal thinks getting in bed with Kopassus is a great idea and devotes several paragraphs to criticizing Senators Patrick Leahy and Russ Feingold for their opposition to lifting this final hurdle to unrestricted military engagement. But the Senators have only called for following existing law (authored by Senator Leahy) barring training of military units with histories of human rights crimes where those responsible have not been brought to justice. If that provision has any meaning, it must apply to Kopassus.

Re-engagement has failed to end the widespread impunity enjoyed by Indonesia's security forces for crimes against humanity and other serious violations committed against the peoples of East Timor and Indonesia. Rather, re-engagement has emboldened the military's continued resistance to civilian control, and their persistent emphasis on internal security. The Indonesian military continues to resist attempts to dismantle its "territorial command" system, which allows the military to exert influence over civil administration and politics, commerce, and justice down to the village level. Finally, efforts to implement a law ending the military's involvement in business have degenerated into farce, and the military remains involved in a variety of illegal enterprises, including logging and narcotics trade.

Several retired generals responsible for some of the worst atrocities in East Timor are serious candidates for President in next year's elections. General Wiranto is perhaps the best known. He came in third in the 2004 Presidential campaign. Wiranto was indicted by a UN-sponsored court in East Timor for crimes against humanity for his role as top commander of the military in 1999, when it sought to undermine the UN-organized ballot on independence, Former Kopassus commander (and Suharto son-in-law), Prabowo Subianto is another credible Presidential candidate. According to an Australian coroner's report a third potential candidate, Sutiyoso, commanded a unit which murdered five foreign journalists after they crossed the Timorese border a few months prior to Indonesia's full-scale invasion.

A new approach

Human rights violations are not just in the past. In West Papua, with Indonesian military protection, the U.S.-based Freeport mining company has destroyed the environment, livelihoods, and culture of the local people while making billions off the largest gold mine in the world. Just this year, protests by Papuan people demanding self-determination and greater voice have been met with harsh reprisals, including long prison terms, torture and the death of at least one by-stander.

In May 2007, Marines killed four civilians and wounded eight in a land dispute between villagers and the Indonesian navy in Pasuruan, East Java. According to The International Herald Tribune, "The marines were tried by a military tribunal but ultimately sentenced to just 18 months in prison. The marine station's relationship with the plantation company was never investigated, nor were any of the station's officers. The land dispute remains unresolved."

As in the past, the current U.S. administration downplays these and other human rights violations, while celebrating its reinvigorated institutional partnership with Indonesia's security forces.

Will Obama change course? President-elect Obama has described U.S. engagement in Indonesia, where he lived as a child, as less than positive. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes that "for the past sixty years the fate of [Indonesia] has been directly tied to U.S. foreign policy." This policy included "the tolerance and occasional encouragement of tyranny, corruption, and environmental degradation when it served our interests." His earlier book, Dreams from My Father, Obama writes of Suharto's bloody seizure of power: "The death toll was anybody's guess: a few hundred thousand, maybe, half a million. Even the smart guys at the [CIA] had lost count."

We hope Obama will in fact stand with Indonesia's human rights community, which is not so keen to forget past crimes and ignore current ones as the outgoing administration. Indonesian advocates called on President-elect Obama and Congress to pressure Indonesia's government to respect human rights. Rafendi Djamin, coordinator of the Human Rights Watch Group, acknowledged the U.S.'s past "huge role in pushing for rights advocacy in Indonesia… I have seen that during the Bush administration, the U.S. Congress is still concerned with Indonesia's democratization and human rights advocacy, but Bush has rarely given a direct warning of the importance of human rights advocacy."

Djamin said in the Jakarta Post, "We are now expecting Obama to put more pressure on Indonesia to resolve unfinished human rights cases by directly questioning the government about them and by addressing their importance." Another advocate said that "If Indonesia does not respond positively to U.S. pressure… the U.S. would reinstate its military embargo against us."

East Timor's official Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation after examining in detail the impact of Indonesian occupation and destructive withdrawal on the East Timorese called on countries to make military assistance to Indonesia "totally conditional on progress towards full democratisation, the subordination of the military to the rule of law and civilian government, and strict adherence with international human rights..." President Obama and the next Congress should follow that recommendation.

John M. Miller is National Coordinator of the
East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN). www.etan.org.

John M. Miller Internet: fbp@...
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