Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – The Bush Administration has decided to restore tentative military contact with Indonesia at a time that Australia is stepping up pressure on Jakarta to punish those responsible for atrocities in East Timor. But the United States move will not include the lifting of an arms embargo or the restoration of most other ties until there is genuine accountability on East Timor and other human rights abuses.
Sources in Jakarta said yesterday that Bush Administration officials had decided several weeks ago to improve military contact with Indonesian officers in a move aimed at regaining influence in Jakarta amid fears of increased unrest across the archipelago. While this would include exchange visits and attending seminars it would not extend to aid, training or military sales.
"There will be a slight increase in engagement," a source said. "But it won't be anything more than that until there is a genuine effort to punish officers responsible for past abuses." The Indonesian military has so far shown no willingness to prosecute any of its officers. The Government in Jakarta has agreed on set up an ad hoc tribunal to deal with abuses in East Timor but no judges have been appointed and few other arrangements have been made, legal sources in Jakarta say.
Under pressure from the military, the Government stipulated that the tribunal could only hear offences committed after an August 1999 United Nations ballot to decide the territory's future. Many of the worst offences occurred before the ballot.
The Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, this week urged Indonesia to carry out its promise to set up the tribunal, saying the international community had on many occasions drawn Jakarta's attention to the importance of bringing those responsible for crimes in East Timor to justice.
Analysts in Indonesia and the US say the mood in the US Congress is strongly against lifting the 1999 Leahy Amendment, which blocks all significant military ties between the two countries. Under US law the ban cannot be lifted until the Indonesian military allows the prosecution of officers responsible for crimes against humanity, particularly in East Timor in 1999.
The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that US officials had delayed making their decision about Indonesia public, in part because of uncertainties about the Congress's response. "We have to approach Capitol Hill very carefully on this," an official was quoted as saying.
Senator Patrick Leahy, the Congress's leading critic on the Indonesian military, would not oppose a renewal of US contacts with the generals in Jakarta but would oppose any direct US aid or training, the paper quoted his spokesmen as saying.
Professor Jerry Winters, an American expert on Indonesia, told the Van Zorge Report, which is published in Jakarta by a political risk consultancy, last month that the US Congress remained strongly against the Indonesian military.
"The mood in Congress is that the Indonesian military is at best an undisciplined military out of control – and certainly beyond the reach of any training the US could supply – and at worst a bunch of thugs wearing medals and uniforms," he said.
Mr Salim Said, an Indonesian military expert, said the US had gradually improved its ties with the Indonesian armed forces over the past year.