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Writers Articles And Opinions |
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04 April 2010 By Stephen
Lendman
Indonesia's National Armed Forces
(TNI), especially its thuggish Kopassus Special Forces
Command, has a long, sordid human rights record,
including political killings and massacres of hundreds
of thousands of civilians in East Timor, Aceh, Papua,
and elsewhere in the country.
In response to the November 12,
1991 Santa Cruz cemetery massacre of over 270
demonstrators in Dili, East Timor's capital, Congress
restricted Indonesia's TNI from receiving
International Military Education and Training (IMET).
It brings foreign military officers to America for
what's taught at the infamous School of the Americas (SOA,
renamed WHINSEC ) - namely, the latest ways to kill,
maim, torture, oppress, exterminate poor and
indigenous people, overthrown democratically elected
governments, suppress popular resistance movements,
assassinate targeted leaders, and work cooperatively
with Washington to solidify hard-right rule,
intolerant of democratic rights, social justice, and
progressive change.
The 1976 Arms Export Control Act
requires US military hardware sales use only for
defense or to maintain internal security.
In addition, the 1961 Foreign
Assistance Act prohibits aiding governments that
engage:
"in a consistent pattern of gross
violations of internationally recognized human rights,
including torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading
treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without
charges, causing the disappearance of persons by the
abduction and clandestine detention of those persons,
or other flagrant denial of the right to life,
liberty, and the security of person, unless such
assistance will directly benefit the needy people in
such country."
The Leahy Law in the 2001 Foreign
Operations Appropriations Act (Sec. 8092 of PL
106-259) states:
"None of the funds made available
by this Act may be used to support any training
program involving a unit of the security forces of a
foreign country if the Secretary of Defense has
received credible information from the Department of
State that a member of such unit has committed a gross
violation of human rights, unless all necessary
corrective steps have been taken."
The 2001 Foreign Operations
Appropriations Act prohibits funding foreign security
forces that commit gross human rights violations
unless its government "is taking effective measures to
bring the responsible members of the security forces
unit to justice."
In its final 2005 report, East
Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and
Reconciliation called on nations to make Indonesian
military aid:
"totally conditional on progress
towards full democratization, the subordination of the
military to the rule of law and civilian government,
and strict adherence with international human rights,
including respect for the right of
self-determination."
In September 1999, Pentagon -
Indonesian military ties were severed over TNI and its
militia proxies' response to East Timorese
independence, committing massacres and atrocities,
UNAMET (the UN East Timor Mission) stating:
"The evidence for a direct link
between the militia and the military is beyond dispute
and has been overwhelmingly documented by UNAMET over
the last four months. But the scale and thoroughness
of the destruction of East Timor in the past week has
demonstrated a new level of open participation of the
military in the implementation of what was previously
a more veiled operation."
UNAMET warned that "the worst may
be yet to come....It cannot be ruled out that these
are the first stages of a genocidal campaign to stamp
out the East Timorese problem by force," skills the
TNI and its Kopassas killers honed since Indonesia's
1945 independence.
In 2005 (despite TNI's unbroken
record of human rights atrocities), the US State
Department removed congressional restrictions on
aiding Indonesia militarily, stating:
"it is in the national security
interests of the United States to waive conditionality
pertaining to Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and
defense exports to Indonesia."
In 2006, the Bush administration
removed remaining TNI restrictions for training,
supplying weapons and other forms of cooperation. In
late 2007, it told Congress it planned to train
members of Kopassas and Brimob (mobile brigade),
Indonesia's militarized police special operations
unit, also notorious for committing well-documented
human rights atrocities throughout the country.
On March 18, 2010, in an open
letter to President Obama, the East Timor and
Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) welcomed his upcoming
visit, rescheduled for June, urging him "to avoid the
destructive policies of the past" - specifically, "not
offer(ing) military assistance (to the) notorious
Kopassus special forces," restricting it to other
forms of security cooperation.
ETAN believes "training Kopassas
would violate US law which forbids training military
units with unresolved human rights violations." It's
meant to prevent future ones and encourage resolving
others in the past. "This has clearly not happened."
Calling Kopassus training "a bad
idea whose time has not come," ETAN's National
Coordinator, John M. Miller said:
"Training Kopassas will set back
efforts to achieve accountability for past and recent
human rights violations and will do little or nothing
to discourage future crimes....It's impossible to
credit Kopassas with human rights reform when it
retains active duty soldiers convicted of human rights
violations....For decades, the US military provided
training and other assistance to Kopassas, despite the
demonstrated failure of international assistance to
improve its behavior. Its widely acknowledged abuses
and criminal activity simply continued" to this day.
Kopassas and Brimob have a long
history of terrorizing civilians, committing
atrocities, and undermining efforts for justice and
human rights accountability. ETAN asked Obama to
respect US law and the recommendation of the
Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in
Timor-Leste (CAVR), urging nations to make military
sales conditional on recipients' adherence to
international human rights laws. TNI, (including
Kopassas) and Brimob systematically violate them.
Since its 1952 founding, Kopassas
has an unbroken reign of terror record that includes
politically motivated arrests, assassinations/murders,
massacres, brutal beatings,
kidnappings/disappearances, bombings, and other crimes
against humanity, still ongoing throughout the
country.
On March 21, investigative
journalist Allan Nairn reported that:
"According to senior Indonesian
officials and police and details from government
files, the US-backed Indonesian armed forces (TNI),
now due for fresh American aid, assassinated a series
of civilian activists during 2009."
They were part of a secret
government program, "coordinated in part by an
active-duty, US-trained Kopassus special forces
General who has just acknowledged on the record that
his TNI men had a role in the killings."
The news comes ahead of Obama's
expected announcement of new military aid, falsely
claiming TNI and Kopassas "no longer murder
civilians." They always did and now do, according to a
senior Indonesian official (unnamed for his safety),
speaking out because he opposes the practice.
"TNI still practices political
murder." Yet America rewards it, despite being legally
bound not to and to provide Congress with relevant
information.
Verified incidents include:
-- "a series of assassinations
and bombings in Aceh (where) elections were being
contested by the historically pro-independence Partia
Aceh (PA)," the renamed former GAM (Free Aceh) rebel
movement.
In the run-up to the April
elections, "At least eight PA activists were
assassinated....according to officials with (specific)
knowledge of the program" to suppress democratic
speech in Aceh and throughout the country.
General Sunarko, the PANGDAM Aceh
(TNI forces chief) coordinated the killings. He was
recently "sent to Aceh by the President, Gen. Susilo,
after having been the nationwide commander of Kopassas.
(Previously, he was) chief of staff of Kostrad, the (TNI's)
huge Strategic Reserve Command that operates across
the archipelago and is headquartered in Jarkata...."
Earlier he oversaw occupied Timor
militias, and "was a Kopassas intelligence chief there
during the 1999 TNI terror...."
Indonesian National Police (POLRI)
confirmed the above account, but "with evident
reluctance, even fear." (POLRI) also kills and
tortures civilians, and mounts joint task forces with
TNI, (but TNI) has more guns and cash, and (they're
unencumbered by) POLRI's political burden of having to
claim that they're enforcing the murder laws."
General Sunarko told Nairn "that
he was an enthusiastic supporter of President Obama's
plan to boost aid to Kopassas and to TNI generally.
(He said America and TNI have had) a long, close
partnership that had 'raised the capacity of TNI,' and
that Obama's (full) restoration of aid would make for
'a still more intimate collaboration." Since the
1980s, he, in fact, was US-trained at various
Indonesian sites along with many other TNI officers.
In June, when Obama visits
Indonesian leaders, "on the table is a big aid package
for TNI, negotiated over recent months, the political
centerpiece of which is an apparent renewal of open
aid for Kopassas."
Among all Indonesian units
implicated in past atrocities:
"those of Kopassas are the most
celebrated, and, as their former commander, the
US-trained Gen. Prabowo, once told me, they have
historically been the unit most closely identified
with Washington....Obama's planned (restoration of
aid) to Kopassas is now awaited by TNI as sweet
vindication, and by many of (its) survivors" as the
green light for terror.
Other TNI components are also
implicated, including "BAIS intelligence and the
mainline regional and local commands, KODAM, KOREM,
and KODIM, all of them, most importantly, reporting
ultimately to" top TNI commanders and theirs in the
government.
Importantly, whether or not
Kopassas aid is restored, "TNI as a whole already has
the green light," 2,800 of its forces "being trained
in the US (according to) Indonesia's Defense
Minister." The Pentagon wants other weapons and
equipment sales and US loans to "further empower TNI
overall."
Also, in advance of Obama's trip,
"the Kopassas commanding general came to Washington
and was welcomed by the Obama team." Back home,
they're confident of being green-lighted to continue
their old ways, ones never ended to receive full Obama
administration backing.
A Final Note
On March 24, Nairn reported that
the TNI threatened to arrest him for revealing its hit
squad assassinations, "presumably on criminal
defamation charges."
On March 25, he added the
following:
"The Indonesian news channel TV
One is running text scrolls on their screen (saying
the TNI) is either planning to or has already filed
criminal charges against me. The crime, the scrolls
say, consists of 'defiling the good name of TNI.' In
today's Indonesia it can be a crime to report
assassinations, but, given that no Generals have gone
to prison for such murders, it is not treated as a
crime to commit them."
Not is it in Washington to
support or commit crimes of war, against humanity, or
political killings. CIA and Pentagon hit squads do it
daily.
Stephen Lendman lives in
Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished
guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the
Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
http://prognewshour.progressiveradionetwork.org/
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