Sonny Inbaraj, Melbourne (Inter Press Service) – Australia's move to restore links with Indonesia's feared special forces after the October 12 bombings in Bali is risky and short-sighted, say activists and analysts.
They were reacting to this week's disclosure of Australia's plans to train Indonesia's special forces, or Kopassus, by Defense Minister Robert Hill, who was speaking on Australian Broadcasting Corp TV's Lateline program on Tuesday.
"Kopassus has not had a good human-rights record, but it is Indonesia's most effective response to terrorism," Hill said, especially after the Bali bombings that as of the latest count killed 190 people so far, most of them Australians. Added Hill: "It's really its [Indonesia's] only counter-terrorism capability.
You can therefore argue that it's in Australia's best interests to be working with them to protect Australians and Australian interests in Indonesia."
Within hours of the Bali bombings, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer named Indonesia-based Islamist group Jemaah Islamiyah as the prime suspect.
On October 15, Prime Minister John Howard announced that Australia would propose that the group be placed on the United Nations list of terrorist organizations for having links with al-Qaeda.
The explosion of a huge car bomb at 11:30pm on October 12, followed shortly afterward by a second one, was targeted at nightclubs packed with tourists in Bali's famous Kuta beach – an area frequented by Australian surfers and backpackers.
Hill's comments immediately attracted criticism from human-rights activists.
"For neophyte Defense Minister Robert Hill to proclaim the way to combat terror in Indonesia is to train and enhance Kopassus is insulting. The fox in charge of the chicken coop as many would suggest," said Rob Wesley-Smith, the convenor of Australians for a Free East Timor.
"East Timor activists have known since 1975 that the masters of terror were the Indonesian military. The worst of these were the Kopassus commandos," Wesley-Smith said, citing their notorious rights record, especially in the Suharto era.
"The head thug for many years was Prabowo, Suharto's son-in-law, who was Kopassus commander. He took personal hands-on pride in terror for terror's sake in East Timor," added Wesley-Smith.
Australia's military training of Kopassus was suspended after the September 1999 East Timor violence, carried out by Indonesian military-sponsored militias after the UN-sponsored independence ballot.
"The Kopassus role in training and leading East Timor's militias is well documented, but what is less clearly recorded is this same role with other shadowy militia groups in places like West Papua, Ambon and Aceh," said Damien Kingsbury, who observed the East Timor ballot and now teaches international studies in Deakin University.
"In each case, Kopassus has trained armed vigilante groups to deflect from the military responsibility for atrocities," he added. "Support for the Indonesian military generally, and Kopassus in particular, is a major error of judgement," stressed Kingsbury.
In late September, Hill gave hints in a speech that training for Kopassus would be resumed, when he made an observation that the Indonesian military, known by its Indonesian acronym TNI, was fundamentally important in the country.
He described the armed forces as a secular organization and the key in the Indonesian government's efforts to promote tolerance and harmony among the different faiths in the mainly Muslim nation, struck in recent years by communal tensions in different areas.
But TNI's role in playing with the fire of Islamic extremism and staging violent incidents within Indonesia was brought up at a forum organized by the Asia Link Center for the Melbourne Institute of Asian Languages and Societies.
"To suggest that the TNI stands apart from religious conflict is just wrong," said Professor Merle Ricklefs, director of the Melbourne Institute of Asian Languages and Studies.
"This is rather ironic because we know that the Indonesian military was at least tolerant of and possibly running [the Islam militant group] Laskar Jihad and sending them to Christian areas in Ambon and Sulawesi," Ricklefs told the forum.
Peter Mares, an Indonesian specialist with Radio Australia, agreed with Ricklefs.
"Clearly, Indonesia's security apparatus would have to play a role in fighting terrorism, but the problem is if you asked many Indonesians what was the greatest source of terror in their lives – particularly Indonesians in Aceh and Papua, they would say, indeed, the Indonesian military," said Mares.
"So are the Indonesian military part of the solution or part of the problem?" he asked.
While many Australian officials deride them as "silly", questions are being asked by some on whether TNI should be on the list of suspects of the Bali bombings.
Tim Lindsey, director of Melbourne University's Asian Law Center, explained that it is possible that some in the military are in illegal or criminal activities because only one-third of the military's budget comes from government sources and they have to find other funding.
"So it is inevitable that any major criminal event regardless of religious affiliation – of people performing those acts [communal strife] – will at some point link to rogue elements [within TNI] or some individual officer or to particular barracks," he said.
"For example armaments and explosives – the best way to obtain them is through gangster linkages into military barracks and so forth. So it would be bizarre if there was not a military link," he argued.
An Australian Federal Police team in Bali indicates that the explosives used in the Bali attacks were one kilogram of TNT and a device with 100kg of ammonium nitrate and diesel oil – easily obtained in Indonesia.
But Indonesian police say that C4 plastic explosive was an active ingredient in the blast at the Sari club. The 1999 al-Qaeda attack on the destroyer USS Cole, which killed 17 US sailors, employed C4 as well.