John McBeth, Jakarta – The troubled task of clearing the way to resume limited military cooperation between the United States and Indonesia now lies in the hands of agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The investigators are tasked with determining if the Indonesian army was responsible for a deadly assault on a mist-shrouded Papua mountain road last August 31 that killed two Americans and an Indonesian schoolteacher, and injured 11 others, mostly Americans. The ambush took place just down the road from one of the world's largest gold-and-copper mines, operated by Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of US miner Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.
Indonesian police have blamed the military for the killings. The military denies that its men were involved in the attack, and has carried out two separate investigations, which proved inconclusive. No arrests have been made.
In a country where the circumstances behind momentous historic events remain shrouded in mystery and most high-profile investigations fizzle out, the FBI has a tough job ahead. At stake is the next step on the road to resuming military ties: a US Senate pledge of $400,000 for Indonesian military officers through the newly revived International Military and Education Training programme. The training programme, known as Imet, was scrapped in the wake of a 1991 massacre in an East Timor churchyard, when soldiers shot dead 57 people.
Two senior US officials interviewed by the Review say that FBI investigators in Papua will have to determine if troops carried out the ambush, and if so, if it was ordered by military leaders or was the work of low-ranking elements of the military involved in a botched extortion plot. "We don't have a basis for concluding it was the [Indonesian military]," says one of the officials. "A credible outcome" in the Papua investigation, says the other, "will affect not only Imet, but the whole relationship, meaning it can go forward from there."
Both officials support the view that Imet should be resumed, as do others in Washington who argue that continuing to suspend such aid prevents a new generation of officers from developing the skills needed to build a more professional army. Last year, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld encouraged the resumption of military ties with Indonesia to benefit the US global war on terrorism. The US officials make it clear, however, that the outcome of the Papua investigation will only affect the future of Imet. The resumption of military cooperation will go no further, they insist, unless Indonesia clears the bigger hurdle of East Timor.
US Congress has banned military contacts until Indonesia punishes officers involved in a military-led militia rampage that killed hundreds in the wake of East Timor's vote for independence in 1999. Three generals are now on trial on charges of complicity in the killings. The courts have yet to convict any senior military officer in connection with the incident.
Says Sen. Patrick Leahy, author of the human-rights conditions on US assistance: "We want better relations with the Indonesian military, but they need to show that they want to reform. So far there is no evidence of that ... As in so many cases, the military has been an obstacle to justice." In Papua, the US officials say, the critical test is to make sure that the FBI receives full cooperation, even if the case remains unsolved. "If the FBI gets full cooperation and there is still a mystery," then the killings in Papua will no longer be "a basis for policy" that would prohibit military cooperation, says one of the officials.
An FBI agent in Washington familiar with the investigation says that Indonesian cooperation with the FBI has gone well. Freeport pays a 650-man combined-forces task force to guard the mine, but in the wake of the ambush the company is drawing up memorandums with the army, police, air force and navy defining more clearly the nature of its relationship with the four services, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Freeport declined to answer questions related to the FBI investigation. The US officials say the FBI investigation is open-ended. Whether the FBI finds who is responsible may depend simply on patience.