Slobodan Lekic, Jakarta – The widow of an American schoolteacher killed in a 2002 attack initially blamed on Indonesian soldiers urged the Bush administration Friday not to lift a ban on military ties with Jakarta until the case if fully resolved.
The effort to normalize ties between the two militaries received a boost after last month's tsunami when thousands of US troops were deployed to work with Indonesian forces to handle relief efforts.
"The Indonesian people have suffered through so much because of the latest natural disaster, but we must not let the tsunami wash away the need to address human rights abuses from the past," Patsy Spier said in a telephone interview from her home in Littleton, Colorado.
Her husband Rick, another American teacher, Ted Burgon of Sunriver, Oregon, died in the Aug. 31, 2002 ambush by gunmen near the giant Timika gold and copper mine in Papua province. Eight other Americans – including a six-year-old child – were wounded.
Indonesian police blamed a special forces unit for the killings. The attack was seen as an effort by the military unit to discredit the pro-independence movement in the province, whose mainly Christian inhabitants have been strongly opposed to Indonesian rule since the region was forcibly incorporated 35 years ago.
A subsequent FBI probe led to the indictment by a US grand jury of an Indonesian citizen, Anthonius Wamang in connection with the attack. Wamang, who pro-independence activists maintain is a military informer, remains at large.
Washington first imposed a ban on military ties with Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, in 1999, after its troops had devastated the Roman Catholic province of East Timor following a UN-organized independence referendum.
Congress later passed legislation making the reestablishment of contacts contingent on Jakarta's cooperation in bringing to justice those responsible for both the Timor and Timika cases.
But the Bush administration, spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz – a former ambassador to Jakarta – has been keen to improve military ties with the strategically located nation that straddles critical sea lanes linking the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Indonesia is also seen as an important ally in the war on terrorism.
Western diplomats in Jakarta predict that new Secretary of State Rice Condoleezza Rice may soon lift the restrictions on Indonesia's involvement in the Pentagon's International Military Education and Training (IMET) program.
The training program, worth about US$600,000 (euro460.617,23), is designed to foster professional links between the two militaries. But restoring it is generally seen as a first step in the lifting of the ban on military-to-military ties.
"I am not blaming the Indonesian military for the Timika attack," Spier said. "The whole point is just to have a proper investigation."
She said she disagreed with Rice's testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month, when Rice said Indonesian authorities had cooperated in the FBI probe which had uncovered no evidence implicating the military.
Spier noted that in the past six months Indonesian authorities have not even issued an arrest warrant for Wamang. "My advocacy in all of this is for a transparent investigation, to find the truth in who carried out the ambush and who ordered it," Spier said.
"What message will the United States be sending to the new Indonesian government if we certify (IMET) funds when the man who is indicted by a US grand jury has not been apprehended."