Bush's retreat on Indonesian human rights

Bush's retreat on Indonesian human rights

Brad Simpson
Washington, D.C.

There is a bitter irony to the Bush Administration's
announcement in late February that it will restore military
training for the Indonesian armed forces, which came just days
before the State Department's annual human rights report charged
that in 2004 "security force members murdered, tortured, raped,
beat, and arbitrarily detained civilians."

Just as surely as it used the attacks of Sept. 11 to enlist
authoritarian and human-rights abusing regimes in the so-called
"war on terror," the Bush Administration is now exploiting the
tragedy of the Asian tsunami to expand military ties with
Indonesia. If we are serious about advancing reform in Indonesia,
Congress and the American public should oppose such a move.

Congress first restricted International Military and
Educational Training (IMET) for Indonesia in 1992 following the
massacre of more than 270 unarmed civilians in Dili, the capitol
of then Indonesian-occupied East Timor. Over the next several
years, Congress further restricted most forms of military
assistance in response to clear evidence of Indonesian military
participation in human rights abuses.

The Clinton Administration finally cut military ties with
Jakarta entirely in September 1999, after the Indonesian Army and
its paramilitary proxies murdered an estimated 1,500 people and
burnt much of East Timor to the ground following the territory's
vote for independence in a U.N.-sponsored referendum.

After 1999, Congress demanded that Indonesia assert civilian
control over the military and hold accountable military officers
responsible for crimes against humanity in East Timor before
military aid could be resumed. In a series of ad-hoc trials
condemned by the State Department, however, Indonesian judges
proceeded to acquit every military officer brought before them,
sending a clear signal that Jakarta did not believe in
accountability for human rights crimes.

Following the events of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. government
authorized the provision of "anti-terrorism" assistance to the
Indonesian Armed Forces, using the terrorist attacks to justify
partial re-engagement with the military. Increased involvement
with the Armed Forces has not led to a reduction in abuses.

In May 2003, Indonesia broke off internationally mediated
peace talks with separatist forces in Aceh, launching a massive
military operation in which several thousand Acehnese were
killed, many of them civilians. No ranking Indonesian military
officers have been held to account for crimes that include the
killing, torture, arbitrary detention and even rape of civilians.

In West Papua, Indonesian security forces continue to commit
serious abuses, especially in areas near concessions run by
Freeport McMoran, a U.S.-based mining company. In August 2002 two
Americans teachers working for Freeport in the town of Timika
were killed when gunmen opened fire on a caravan of vehicles. The
FBI has praised Indonesian cooperation in the case, though no one
has been arrested and Indonesian police concluded that members of
local Kopassus (Special Forces) units were likely behind the
killings.

In spite of this sordid record, Bush Administration officials
claim that Indonesia has met the sole Congressional condition for
the resumption of military training. That extremely narrow
condition merely requires cooperation in investigating the Timika
killings.

While Indonesia has doubtless made progress on many fronts,
most importantly by holding free elections last year, the Armed
Forces willingness to hold itself accountable for human rights
abuses is a crucial litmus test of its commitment to democratic
reform. So far the signs have not been encouraging.

Concern about the U.S. re-engagement with the Indonesian
military is not confined to Congressional critics such as Senate
Foreign Relations Committee member Patrick Leahy, who agues that
the resumption of IMET "will be seen by the Indonesian military
authorities who have tried to obstruct justice as a pat on the
back." Writing in the conservative Weekly Standard on Feb. 28,
analyst Ellen Bork cautioned that U.S. military aid should be
conditioned to a strategy "for advancing democracy and human
rights in Indonesia."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claims that U.S. military
training will imbue Indonesian officers with respect for human
rights and civilian control, but the history of U.S. engagement
with the Indonesian military suggests that the opposite is true.
Since the late 1950s, when training began, U.S.-trained soldiers
and officers have been involved in the murder and torture of
hundreds of thousands of civilians in East Timor, Aceh, West
Papua and other parts of the Indonesian archipelago.

Military engagement has reinforced, not reduced, the power of
the Armed Forces in Indonesian society, who view increased
assistance as Washington's stamp of approval for brutal military
practices.

Indonesian defense minister Juwono Sudarsono is visiting
Washington this week for talks with U.S. officials. Congress
should make clear to both Minister Sudarsono and the Bush
Administration that increased military assistance will only come
after genuine accountability for past and present human rights
abuses.

Military aid is both carrot and stick, but, more important, a
potent political symbol of the values that the U.S. holds to be
important in foreign policy making. Increasing military
assistance to Indonesia at this time will send a clear and
damaging signal to the rest of the world that respect for human
rights is but another casualty of the recent tsunami and the
broader war on terror.

The writer is an assistant professor at Idaho State University
and a Research Fellow with the National Security Archives in
Washington, DC, specializing in U.S.-Indonesian relations. He can
be reached at simpbrad@isu.edu