Obstacles still hinder full military ties with RI, says U.S. envoy
Obstacles still hinder full military ties with RI, says U.S. envoy
Steven Gutkin, Associated Press, Jakarta
The United States remains ready to normalize relations with the
Indonesian army, but obstacles including suspicions of military
involvement in the murder of two Americans are preventing full
restoration of ties, the U.S. ambassador said Thursday.
Ralph Boyce said other obstacles include the slow pace of
military reform and resistance to holding officers accountable
for human rights abuses, especially in the former Indonesian
territory of East Timor.
"There are very troubling questions about who was responsible"
for the August killing of two American teachers and their
Indonesian colleague in the eastern province of Papua, Boyce
said, referring to police reports that army officers may have
been involved.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation in
addition to being a key U.S. ally in the war on terror and one of
the few democracies in the Islamic world. But its military has a
long history of gross human rights violations.
The Clinton administration cut off all sales of military
equipment to Indonesia after a 1999 independence referendum in
East Timor during which hundreds of people were slain at the
hands of the Indonesian military and its local proxies.
Though Washington in January reinstituted a program to train
Indonesian officers in the United States, there are no immediate
plans to restore full military ties or sell arms to Indonesia,
Boyce said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The ambassador said recent trials designed to bring the
perpetrators of the East Timor violence to justice were "very
disappointing."
Still, Boyce praised Indonesia's efforts to root out suspected
Islamic terrorists and said the country had made impressive
strides toward democracy in the five years since the fall of the
dictator Soeharto.
However, he said a series of arrests and other blows against
suspected Islamic extremists in Indonesia have not ended the
threat of terrorism here.
"It would be folly to assume they are eliminated," Ralph Boyce
said of Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), the suspected al-Qaeda linked
terror group believed responsible for the Oct. 12 Bali blasts
that killed 202 people.
Boyce said Indonesia has moved beyond breaking up the Bali
plot, developing a "pro-active plan of rooting out this
organization.
"That is to be commended," he said.
A series of raids this month uncovered a cache of bomb-making
materials and resulted in the arrests of 18 suspected Jamaah
Islamiyah members with suspected links to the Bali blasts.
Boyce said he believed Muslim extremists have become more
vocal since the fall of Soeharto - because of newfound freedom of
expression - but not necessarily larger in number.
"To me, Indonesia remains a moderate, open, tolerant
multicultural society," he said.