U.S. plans to resume military training

U.S. plans to resume military training

Agencies, Washington/Jakarta

The United States, eager to build up its alliances in Southeast Asia, has decided to resume training members of the Indonesian armed forces after cooperation was suspended in 1992, officials announced on Sunday.

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has determined that Indonesia has satisfied legislative conditions for restarting its full International Military Education and Training program," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement.

"The department expects that Indonesia's resumption of full international military education and training will strengthen its ongoing democratic progress and advance cooperation in other areas of mutual concern," the spokesman was quoted as saying by Agence France Presse.

The Indonesian Military (TNI) hailed on Sunday the United States' decision to resume the training program for its members, and promised to use it to improve its professionalism.

"The TNI welcomes any form of cooperation which can concretely enhance our professionalism in the field," TNI deputy spokesman Col. Ahmad Yani Basuki told The Jakarta Post.

However, he declined to comment further, saying that TNI Headquarters had not yet received details of the decision.

Indonesia's participation in the program has been essentially on hold since 1992, when the Indonesian military launched a bloody crackdown against pro-independence protesters in East Timor.

The sanctions were further tightened in 1999, after the Indonesian army was accused of killing about 1,500 people in East Timor in an unsuccessful bid to prevent the territory from gaining independence.

The ban was effectively written into law by the U.S. Congress in 2002, when U.S. lawmakers insisted that generals in Jakarta were blocking an investigation into the killing of two U.S. school teachers in Indonesia's Papua province.

But Indonesian authorities have since taken steps to improve cooperation with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and brought murder and illegal firearms charges against Indonesian citizen Anthonius Wamang, a member of a Papuan separatist group.

Moreover, the administration of President George W. Bush has repeatedly stressed the importance of broadening post-September 11 counterterrorism cooperation with Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation.

There was no immediate word on where Indonesian military personnel will be trained and what kind of courses will be offered to them.

But the decision caps a quiet lobbying campaign by top Pentagon officials led by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who has openly advocated the view that congressional restrictions on military-to-military contacts with countries like Indonesia and Pakistan were hurting U.S. interests more than helping them.

Following his tour of tsunami-hit countries in January, Wolfowitz came out strongly in favor of opening the doors of U.S. military academies to Indonesian officers.

He cited the case of newly elected Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whom he described as "a democratic reformer" and one of the last military officers trained in the United States.

"I think we can have a more positive influence that way," the deputy defense secretary pointed out.

Wolfowitz also called for finding ways to resume U.S. military cooperation with Indonesia, because he said the country was "moving in an impressive way" toward democracy.

But he cautioned against opening the floodgates of military assistance, pointing to "the need to calibrate these things carefully."

Rice hinted that a decision on Indonesian military training was imminent more than a week ago when she told a Senate panel she was in the "final stages" of consultations with Congress on the subject

Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa has said a resumption of the training program would serve as a "correction for an anomaly."

Military analyst Andi Widjajanto from the University of Indonesia said he hoped the resumption of the training and education program would boost Indonesia's efforts to reform the TNI.

"I believe that this program can lead to a new atmosphere of democracy. I hope the United States will also provide further assistance that can help our country define its defense concept in line with the spirit of reform," he told the Post.