Indonesia's controversial special forces, known as Kopassus, have not reformed their evil ways and the Australian Defence Force (ADF) should not renew ties, a new study says.
The paper from the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University (ANU), said much of Kopassus' role would continue to be viewed in Australia and elsewhere as profoundly inappropriate, and morally and legally unacceptable.
Author, Dr Damien Kingsbury, head of political studies at Deakin University, said it could be argued that Kopassus was the purest expression of the Indonesian military, known as TNI, which was the most important element of an incoherent, corrupt, exploitative, fractured and often predatory state.
"It is clear that Kopassus has been an organisation that has frequently, if not exclusively, operated in an illegal manner and that it has a substantial and serious history of human rights abuses, even by Indonesia's own somewhat flexible human rights standards," he said.
"Based on evidence since 1998, it appears that Kopassus has not altered its methods of operation to bring them more into line with wider, if sometimes failed, political reform processes."
Dr Kingsbury said the very reasons which brought Australia to end ties with TNI generally, and Kopassus, had not abated and had actually been reconfirmed by recent events.
He said even a supporter of renewed ties, Dr Alan Dupont had conceded Kopassus had been accused of banditry and warlordism, as well as numerous criminal activities including illicit logging, contract killing and drug running.
Australian defence ties with Indonesia grew through the 1980s and 1990s, mainly between Kopassus and the Perth-based Special Air Service Regiment (SASR). But they ended abruptly in 1999 when Australia led the international mission to East Timor.
There's now talk of renewing links, prompted by terrorist attacks in Indonesia and the premise that Kopassus and its counter-terrorism arm – Detachment 81 – would have the job of rescuing Australians caught up in a hijack on Indonesian territory.
But Dr Kingsbury said Kopassus' counter-terrorism record was patchy at best. It had only mounted three hostage rescue missions – and two of them failed. There also were questions about Kopassus' links to Indonesian intelligence agencies, and about their links to terrorist groups Laskar Jihad and Jemaah Islamiah.
"Regional terrorism has only on one occasion affected Australian citizens and on this occasion the Indonesian government, and in particular its intelligence agencies including Kopassus, were well aware of the development of organisations both directly and indirectly linked to that event, yet did not act to thwart them," he said.
Dr Kingsbury said where a need to develop further security cooperation existed it should be done with Indonesian police with whom Australia worked closely and successfully after the Bali bombing.