JP/4US

JP/4US

U.S. should review aid policy for Indonesia

Agence France Presse Washington

Indonesia's failure to cooperate in investigating the murders of two U.S. citizens in the Indonesian province of Papua should trigger a "fundamental change in approach" to the southeast Asian nation, U.S. Senator Russell Feingold said on Monday.

President George W. Bush intends to release funds for military assistance to Indonesia despite indications that the Indonesian military was behind the murders, the Democratic senator wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post.

The cost of the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program, 400,000 dollars in 2003, "is insignificant in comparison with the magnitude of this outrage," Feingold wrote.

"I believe that this issue should trigger a top-to-bottom review of our bilateral relationship with Indonesia and a fundamental change in approach," he said.

"But at the very least, we should start with a very clear and unambiguous signal. The administration's signal is clear -- but it is the wrong one," he said.

Unidentified gunmen last August fired more than 100 rounds at a convoy carrying employees of the U.S.-owned Freeport copper and gold mine near Timika in Indonesia's easternmost province. Two U.S. teachers and an Indonesian colleague died. Twelve others, mostly Americans, were wounded.

Police in Papua have said that a witness linked Indonesian special forces soldiers to the killings. The military has blamed a group of separatist rebels.

A Washington Post article last month quoted Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Daley as saying: "The preponderance of evidence indicates to us that members of the Indonesian army were responsible for the murders in Papua."

The Indonesian military "has proved unwilling to implicate itself and unwilling to cooperate with the FBI," Feingold wrote.

Indonesia has not received IMET for more a decade, but Jakarta receives other types of military assistance, notably counterterrorism training, from Washington.

Appropriations bills before both houses of U.S. Congress carry amendments barring IMET for Indonesia until its government and military cooperate more fully in the Papua investigation.

"But now the administration is taking precisely the opposite approach and apparently intends to release IMET assistance to Indonesia for the current year," Feingold wrote.