Kenji Hall, Jakarta – Human rights groups on Tuesday called on the United States not to ease restrictions on ties with Indonesia's military saying it continues to commit "brutal human rights violations."

The US Congress, which cut military ties in 1999 when Indonesian troops devastated the province of East Timor, is considering easing a six-year ban on training links with the southeast Asian nation.

Congress later prohibited resumed military ties until Indonesia cooperated with a US investigation into the slayings of two American teachers in Indonesia's Papua province.

In recent weeks, the two countries' armed forces have worked together to offer relief to Indonesia's tsunami-hit Aceh province, and US officials have suggested they are considering closer contact with Indonesia's military.

But rights officials said that Indonesian generals haven't met congressional demands – or reformed their brutal ways. "The argument is that restoring ties would improve their behavior. But we think just the opposite would happen," East Timor Action Network's John Miller told The Associated Press, by telephone from New York. He accused Indonesian troops of "nothing less than brutal human rights violations and impunity for crimes against humanity."

The administration of President George W. Bush says it needs the cooperation of the Indonesian armed forces in its global war on terrorism. But critics say the effort is motivated more by Washington desire to counterbalance China's growing economic and strategic clout in Southeast Asia.

Abigail Abrash Walton, with the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights in Washington, said US officials were trying to capitalize on "post-tsunami politics."

"The Indonesian government has not cooperated fully with the FBI investigation of the brutal murders of two American teachers at the Freeport copper and gold mine in West Papua," Walton said.

"There has been absolutely no progress since June in resolving this criminal attack. How can the State Department credibly claim that more than seven months of stonewalling by Indonesian authorities constitutes 'cooperation'?"

Separately on Monday, rights groups criticized the Indonesian government's plans to relocate to barracks hundreds of thousands of refugees left homeless in Aceh after the December 26 earthquake and tsunami. The disaster killed more than 110,000 people, and left more than 120,000 others missing.

Indonesian officials said they plan later this month to move up to a fourth of the estimated 400,000 refugees in the province, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, while villages are rebuilt. The barracks will likely be guarded by Indonesian soldiers, who are feared and disliked by large sections of the population.

In a joint statement, New York-based Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First said military control of the barracks would effectively create ghetto communities with little contact with the outside.

"In the context of the war in Aceh, a military presence at the camps can be a form of intimidation and abusive control," said Neil Hicks, Human Rights First's director of international programs.

Since the 1970s, the country's abusive army has forced thousands of villagers into camps to try to cut off widespread support for Aceh province's separatist guerrillas.

The government has denied it has a political agenda in setting up the camps, and says no one will be forced into them.