Elisabeth Bumiller, Jakarta – The Defense Department said on Thursday that it was lifting a ban of more than a decade on contact with the elite Indonesian special forces, Kopassus, and would take beginning steps to train the commando unit, which has been condemned by human rights groups for past killings of civilians and widespread abuses.
Pentagon officials made the announcement as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived in Jakarta to meet with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to officially inform him of the decision, reached after intensive internal debate among the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department.
"These initial steps will take place within the limits of US law and do not signal any lessening of the importance we place on human rights and accountability," Mr. Gates told reporters at Istana, the presidential palace complex, after meeting with Mr. Yudhoyono. He called the steps "a measured and gradual program of security cooperation activities" with Kopassus.
The Pentagon had long pushed for the 1999 ban to be lifted, but there was resistance within the State Department and White House over the record of the group. Kopassus members were convicted of abducting student activists in 1997 and 1998 and for abuse that led to the 2001 death of a Papuan activist. Kopassus was also implicated in serious human rights abuses in Aceh Province and in East Timor before it gained independence in 2002.
Defense officials said that the group, believed to number about 5,000, had reformed enough in recent years that the United States saw advantages in working to bring what they described as further change. Kopassus has a limited role in fighting terrorism, which in Indonesia is chiefly the responsibility of the police, but it deploys overseas in peacekeeping operations and is the breeding ground for the leadership of the Indonesia military.
"It is a different unit than its reputation suggests," Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters traveling with Mr. Gates. "Clearly, it had a very dark past, but they have done a lot to change that."
Human Rights Watch, which has opposed renewed ties with Kopassus unless significant conditions were met, sharply criticized the decision.
"This is a development that will not just have ramifications in Indonesia," said Sophie Richardson, the Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch. "Every abusive military in the world will sit up and say if the United States is willing to go ahead and engage with Kopassus despite its failure to reform, why shouldn't the US engage with other abusive militaries?"
Defense officials said that the American military would have limited engagement with Kopassus to start, perhaps only in staff-to-staff meetings, and that there would be no immediate military training. They said that the Defense Department was not seeking funds from Congress for the renewed engagement with Kopassus.
In preparation for lifting the ban, Defense Department officials said they asked the Indonesian government in recent months to remove "less than a dozen" members of Kopassus who had been convicted of previous human rights abuses but were still part of the unit. Among those who recently left was Lt. Col. Tri Hartomo, who was convicted by an Indonesian military court in 2003 and served time in prison for abuse leading to the death of a Papuan activist, Theys Eluay.
Defense Department officials said that Colonel Hartomo was still a member of the Indonesian military, although not in Kopassus.
Lt. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, who was implicated in a massacre in East Timor while he served in Kopassus, was appointed deputy defense minister in January, and remains there. Defense Department officials said the distinction for them was that General Sjamsoeddin was only implicated, not convicted.
Kopassus members who have been implicated in past abuses, but not convicted, will remain with the group, Defense Department officials said. The State Department will be in charge of vetting individual members of Kopassus before they can participate in training with the American military.
Defense Department officials said they had received assurances from the Indonesian government that any member of the group who was credibly accused of abuses from now on would be suspended, and that any member convicted of abuse would be removed.
Congress, under what is known as the Leahy law, for Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, bars the United States from training military units that are credibly believed to have engaged in human rights abuses, unless the units take steps to improve.