If there is a silver lining for US-Indonesian relations in President Obama's latest trip postponement, it might be that the two countries have more time to consider if and how Kopassus, the Indonesian Army's special forces unit, fits into the bilateral security relationship.

Kopassus was formed in 1952 to combat insurgencies in Java and has been integral to the Indonesian government's response to internal conflict in provinces such as Aceh and Papua, and the former province of East Timor. Many Kopassus operations have been secret, and the unit has periodically drawn criticism for human rights abuses from the international community as well as Indonesian watch dog groups.

Kopassus activities in East Timor in the 1990's drew particular attention from the United States and the unit was sanctioned under the 1997 Leahy Law, which prohibits foreign military units from participating in the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program or receiving assistance for weapons purchases if unit members have committed human rights abuses for which they have not been brought to account. The logic of sanctioning the entire unit lies in encouraging the foreign government to remove human rights offenders from the leadership structure. The Leahy Law applies to two appropriations bills, one for Foreign Operations and the other for Defense. The Defense Appropriations side of the law has a waiver mechanism, but the Foreign Operations side does not.

Under the Leahy Law and other Congressional actions, the US-Indonesian military-to-military relationship was largely dismantled for the better part of a decade. In 2005 a cautious new start was made with cooperation on counter-terrorism, and roughly $20 million is now appropriated for the TNI, much of it for military reform. However, Kopassus continues to be excluded under the Leahy Law.

In early March, Kopassus suddenly emerged as an issue in negotiation of the US-Indonesia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The momentum for this appeared to originate in Jakarta. The Indonesian press reported on government attempts to lobby the Obama administration to remove the prohibition as part of the agenda for the Obama visit. In mid-March a delegation from Kopassus visited Washington, led by the unit commander, Major General Lodewijk Paulus. Ann Marie Murphy, Seton Hall professor and author of a forthcoming book on the impact of democratization on Indonesia's foreign policy, believes that Jakarta views training for Kopassus as a litmus test for the new US-Indonesia relationship. "They wonder how the Comprehensive Partnership can be comprehensive without full military-to-military relations," she said.

Administration officials downplayed Indonesian press accounts that predicted Obama would announce the restoration of IMET assistance to Kopassus when he visited Jakarta but did not dismiss the possibility in principle. Jeffrey Bader, National Security Council Senior Director for Asia, acknowledged past human rights violations by Kopassus but said that the administration "hopes to be able, at some point, to move past and resolve those concerns."

Bader's comments, although cautious, are consonant with a new international view of Kopassus. The unit has attempted to reinvent itself in the post-Suharto era. Its mandate has expanded beyond internal security and extends to protecting Indonesian government facilities abroad, such as the Indonesian embassy in Papua New Guinea. Kopassus troops have served in United Nations peace-keeping missions in Sierra Leone, Sudan, Georgia and Lebanon. Australia has restored training to Kopassus, and the UK appears to be on the verge of doing so as well. Kopassus has regular contact with other Southeast Asian military units.

But debate within the US policy community over the human rights issues with Kopassus is still unresolved. Opponents of restoring assistance argue that Kopassus has not sufficiently accounted for human rights abuse in East Timor. Moreover, they believe that the unit continues to commit abuses and report recent incidents in Papua and Aceh, the latter during the 2009 elections. Proponents of resuming training argue osmosis, that closer contact with the United States will strengthen awareness of human rights in Kopassus. They also maintain that sanctioning the entire unit, as the law requires, punishes officers who have not committed abuses and prevents younger generation officers from receiving training because of the actions of more senior officers.

These issues are too complicated to resolve overnight, and they make the Kopassus issue a very poor "deliverable" for a Presidential visit to Indonesia. Attempts to circumvent the vetting process under the Leahy Law may achieve a short-term political objective but they would most likely stir up enough opposition among US and Indonesian human rights groups to prolong conflict over this issue for some time to come. Contrary to impressions in some Indonesian media accounts, the Leahy Law was not promulgated specifically for Indonesia. It applies globally, and other countries – Columbia in particular – have received greater scrutiny under the law than Indonesia. As the two countries look ahead to Obama's visit to Indonesia in June, they should take the Kopassus negotiations offline and let the issue itself determine the timeline for resolution.