Govt denies report on TNI-terror links

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government refuted on Wednesday a report which detailed the Indonesian Military's (TNI) involvement in establishing terrorist groups in the country, and branded it as baseless.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa criticized the International Crisis Group (ICG), which released the report, for being "overly imaginative" and that it was "unacceptable" to link the TNI with militant Muslim groups which had developed in the predominantly Muslim country.

"The report was nothing less than the product of overfertile imaginations and a clumsy attempt to discredit the Indonesian government," Marty told The Jakarta Post.

In an apparent move to clear the way for the restoration of the military ties with the U.S., which have been limited since 1999 following the East Timor mayhem, Marty said the report was unethical.

The government has contacted the Brussels-based think tank country director, Sidney Jones, regarding the report.

"We have been talking to Sidney Jones today (on Wednesday) to express our resentment over the ICG report," Marty said but did not elaborate on her responses.

"By concluding that the Indonesian Military is behind the groups is unacceptable and it needs to be further verified," he remarked.

The ICG released the report earlier this week and concluded that Indonesian military intelligence or (BIN) had set up a group in the 1970s, and that had developed into what is now the Jemaah Islamiyah, accused by many countries of being a terrorist organization.

The report spells out how former president Soeharto used the group to discredit Muslim opposition activists as well as to contain infiltration of suspected "communists".

As the hardliners grew in confidence, they were arrested by Soeharto who accused them of seeking to establish a fundamentalist state.

The activists included Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, who according to many is the founder of the Muslim radical group Jemaah Islamiyah, which has been accused of having links with the notorious al- Qaeda terrorist network and plotting bomb attacks in several Southeast Asian countries.

Marty speculated that the accusation was intentionally made in conjunction with the ongoing process to fully restore military ties between Indonesia and the U.S.

"The attempt to discredit the Indonesian government was made when the international community was increasingly recognizing TNI's role in the war against terrorism," he underlined.

Marty further added that the report had tainted the good democratization process in the country, which recently amended the 1945 Constitution. The amendment stipulates the exit of the TNI from politics by 2004.

Indonesia has been trying to convince the U.S. to lift its military ban as Jakarta needed to give its military more firepower to contain the various conflicts within its borders which have come to a head in the wake of the 1998 reform movement.

President George W. Bush's administration has confirmed its support for normalization of military ties with Indonesia, which depends much on the U.S. Congress rescinding the law that was put in place after widespread accusations of military-sponsored human rights violations in East Timor.

Jakarta is expecting to have the full military relations revived by the end of this year.