Hopes for RI, U.S. military ties mount

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia and the United States speed up efforts to restore full military cooperation when the defense ministers of the two countries meet in Washington this week.

Minister of Defense Matori Abdul Djalil leads an Indonesian delegation to Washington where they will meet with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, chairman of the U.S. National Security Council Condoliza Rice, Pentagon staff and congressmen.

Matori's three day visit starting Monday is arranged by Washington as a follow-up to the security talks between senior officials of the two countries in Jakarta more than two weeks ago.

Matori's entourage also includes director general of defense strategy Maj. Gen. Sudrajat, who headed Jakarta's delegation at the previous bilateral meeting, and director general of defense facility Rear Marshal Aklani Massa.

An agreement to normalize military cooperation will restore ties the U.S. severed following the violence in East Timor in September 1999 which was largely blamed on the Indonesian Military (TNI).

A group of TNI officers, including three generals, are standing trial for their alleged involvement in gross human rights violations in the former Portuguese colony after its people voted for independence in a UN-mandated referendum.

Sudrajat, prior to his departure, told The Jakarta Post that terrorism was considered the main reason for the U.S. decision to review normalization of military relations with Indonesia, apart from its prominent role in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

"The U.S. assessment of internal reform within TNI and the ongoing rights tribunal has encouraged efforts to restore the military relations."

Indonesia's status as the largest Muslim country in the world has caused Washington to worry that individuals and groups sympathetic to fugitive al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, accused of masterminding the September 2001 attacks on the U.S., could flourish in parts of the vast archipelago.

At the same time, however, Washington had already lost access to the TNI after the U.S. legislature endorsed Democrat congressman Patrick Leahy's proposal to put the International Military Education and Training (IMET) and Foreign Military Financing programs with Jakarta on hold until TNI officers and pro-Jakarta militias were prosecuted over the East Timor violence.

Earlier, Rumsfeld expressed hopes of reestablishing military- to-military relationships with Indonesia "in one way or another in the period ahead".

The IMET program used to provide Indonesian Army officers with special training in a range of areas, including infantry, artillery, cavalry and construction.

Among the program's alumni are Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Gen. (ret) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, deputy People's Consultative Assembly speaker Lt. Gen. Agus Widjojo, TNI spokesman Maj. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin and former Army Strategic Reserves Command chief the late Lt. Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah.

The IMET program was scaled down to just non-military exercises following the bloody massacre of civilian at the Santa Cruz Cemetery in Dili in 1991.

Sudrajat said the absence of networks between the two countries had also affected the Indonesian militaries' understanding of the U.S. point of view.

The planned review of military ties between Indonesia and the U.S. has sparked fears of a setback in human rights protection, democratization and TNI internal reform.

Meanwhile, Kusnanto Anggoro of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and M. Riefqi Muna of the Research Institute for Democracy and Peace (RiDep), asserted that initiatives to bring democracy to the country should come from inside, instead of from international pressure.

"After the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, the U.S. has immediately shifted its orientation from human rights issues to what they call the global security issues. And Indonesia, as the largest Muslim country in the world, is considered to play a prominent role in line with those issues," Riefqi said.

Kusnanto suggested the U.S. government take the empowerment of a civilian government in Indonesia as another condition for full military-to-military relations with Indonesia.

"By improving the civilian roles, including the press and politicians, I hope we will never lose control over the TNI," Kusnanto said.