Tim Shorrock, Washington – The US Congress may vote as early as this week to restore a military training program for Indonesia despite uncertainties about the Indonesian military's human-rights record, according to House and Senate aides and observers of US-Indonesian relations. But passage of the Bush administration's US$400,000 request for International Military Education and Training (IMET) for Indonesia, while highly symbolic, may not guarantee the immediate start of the program.
Instead, the administration of President George W Bush may delay implementation until the full results of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) investigations into the August 31 killings of two Americans near the FreeportMcMoRan mine in West Papua are made public and Indonesia has taken action to punish those responsible. "When the training commences may be based on the outcome of this case," said an aide to a US lawmaker who has been critical of the Indonesian military, known as TNI. "Just because its authorized doesn't mean it will resume right away." The FBI report, however, is unlikely to be released before the appropriations bills are considered, he added.
Some critics of US policy fear the administration is trying to find a face-saving way to restore military aid to Jakarta by blaming "renegade" units of the Indonesian military for the West Papua ambush, which also killed an Indonesian citizen and left several survivors seriously injured. "If the administration signs off on that, we're essentially conspiring in a cover-up to prevent full accountability by people responsible for the murder of US citizens," said Ed McWilliams, a former State Department official who served as a political officer in the US Embassy in Jakarta during the 1990s.
The $400,000 IMET funding was narrowly approved last summer by the Senate and House appropriations committee after a strong lobbying push by the Bush administration, which linked closer ties to Jakarta to its global war against terrorism. But Congress adjourned before either the House or the Senate could vote on the measure, which is now back before the appropriations committees. Both the House and Senate are likely to consider the 2002 bill before Bush's State of the Union address on January 28.
"It's a small amount, but very symbolic because it was the first thing Congress cut in 1992," said John Miller, an activist with the East Timor Action Network, which opposes the aid package. "The Indonesian military will take it as an endorsement of business as usual."
US military ties with Jakarta were suspended in the 1990s over the TNI's bloody record in East Timor and Indonesia's failure to bring human-rights violators to justice. An amendment by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy has prohibited new IMET funding until Congress verifies that the Indonesian government is cooperating with investigations and prosecutions of soldiers and military leaders responsible for human-rights abuses in East Timor and provinces in Indonesia. The Senate amendment approved last year overrode Leahy's language.
Leahy will again lead the battle to defeat the IMET spending and will be joined by House opponents, including Representative Nita Lowey of New York. But opponents don't believe they have the votes to defeat the request. "We are in a minority on that subject," said one aide. "We're likely to see the IMET program renewed." Another aide said opponents of the program hope to see the FBI report before any vote takes place. "We're obviously going to raise it, but we're unlikely to get the report before a decision is made," he said.
There is no doubt that the Freeport incident has complicated Bush's plans to resume full military ties with Indonesia. Last month, Bush told Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri to find and punish the perpetrators of the Freeport ambush. He also asked for a joint FBI-Indonesian police investigation into the allegations that elements of the TNI may have been responsible.
Bush made his call after the Washington Post, citing US intelligence, reported that senior Indonesian generals discussed an attack on Freeport before it occurred. The conversations, the Post said, were "aimed at discrediting" a Papuan separatist group the TNI later blamed for the attack, and were supported by intelligence intercepts supplied to US officials by Australia. Observers here believe that the FBI's initial report on the incident will substantiate claims from the Indonesian police and Papuan human-rights groups that the killings were the work of the TNI's special forces.
Last week, however, Indonesian government officials rejected the accusations. "The investigation into the shooting of the Freeport employees on August 31 has yet to find the perpetrators," Indonesian Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said after a cabinet meeting on January 6. "Secondly, charges of involvement by rogue members of the military have been investigated and evidence has not yet been found."
The Megawati government also turned down Bush's request for a joint investigation similar to the one launched after the terrorist bombing in Bali last year. Instead, Indonesian officials have allowed an FBI team into the country but made no commitments on granting access to witnesses and other assistance. "They are outsiders," an aide to Susilo pointedly said.
Some analysts believe Indonesia's decision last week to release an American nurse being held in Aceh for visa violations may be linked to the upcoming debate over restoring IMET. The nurse, Joy Lee Sadler, could become a thorn in the Bush administration's side as it lobbies for increased aid, however. "I will try to lobby the Congress and stop military weapons delivery to Aceh and tell the United States the military cruelties that I have seen and I have experienced," she told the Associated Press upon her release. Lesley McCulloch, 43, an Australia-based academic and occasional Asia Times Online contributor who was arrested with Sadler last September, is due to be released next month (see Indonesia's message: Researchers risk jail, January 3). The administration's response to the lack of cooperation on the West Papua incident has been muted. Bush has yet to make a public statement on the Freeport killings. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the administration's point-man on Indonesia, told the Washington Post in November that, even if the TNI were implicated, US military aid should continue because "more contact with the West and with the United States and moving them in a positive direction is important both to support democracy in Indonesia and to support the fight against terrorism".
The clearest statement of US policy was made on December 17 in a Jakarta speech delivered by US Ambassador Ralph L Boyce. "Full restoration of military ties and foreign military financing depends on Indonesia demonstrating progress toward holding those responsible for past gross human-rights violations accountable for their actions – something that has not yet happened," he said. "We stand ready to move forward in this area but cannot do so until there is justice for the serious human-rights violations committed in East Timor and elsewhere." He did not specifically mention the Freeport attack.
While IMET may be funded, neither Congress nor the administration is pushing to sell new weapons to Indonesia.
Last month, the RAND Corp, a think-tank funded by the US Air Force, issued a long study on US-Indonesian military ties that urged immediate resumption of IMET. "Since military training for Indonesia was effectively terminated in 1992, there has been a 'lost generation' of Indonesian officers – officers who have no experience with the United States or who have no understanding of the importance that the United States military attaches to civilian leadership, democracy, and respect for human rights," the report concluded.
"It's in our national interest to have strong bilateral military ties," said retired Colonel John Haseman, a former US defense official in Jakarta who helped write the report, at a December news conference sponsored by RAND and the US-Indonesia Society.
Asked whether TNI involvement in the Freeport ambush would or should compromise IMET funding, RAND analyst Angel Rabasa said that reports about the "obscure incident" are "being taken very, very seriously" within the Bush administration and the Pentagon. But Rabasa, the co-author of the report, argued that a full investigation in Indonesia could help make the case for IMET. "If Indonesia does the right thing, it could strengthen relations and our ability to engage" with the TNI, he said.
Martin Ott, a professor of national-security policy at the National War College, said after the news conference that "some level of TNI involvement" was possible. But even if that were found to be true, Ott said he would support expanded military ties because "on balance you want to build those relationships". He compared the situation to Pakistan, where a "tiny coterie" of military officers trained by the United States led Pakistan's decision to support the US war against terrorism against the wishes of a faction of Islamic officers. "You have a similar template in Indonesia," he said.