Joseph Moakley, a member of the US Congress from the Republican Party, has said: "The US must get out of the business of training the foreign military.
Democracy cannot be taught at the point of a bayonet." However, he made this statement five years ago, when the US military training project known as International Military Education and Training (IMET) was being criticized by international NGOs.
Now, IMET has been reopened. Actually, the IMET program is not the only US military program for foreign nations. In addition to IMET, there are still a number of other programs connected with the sale of weapons, as well as military exchange programs. Specifically, IMET is a grant program which was formed by the US Congress in 1976 as a part of the Arms Export Control Act.
Although the IMET program first started in 1976, training programs for Indonesian Military officers in the US had been underway since the 1950s.
In 1950, Commodore Suryadi Suryadarma, the Indonesian Air Force Chief of Staff at that time, sent 60 cadets to the TALOA (Trans Ocean Airlines Oakland Airport) flight school in California. A number of young officers who were sent there went on to become Air Force chiefs of staff, such as Air Marshal Omar Dhani, Air Marshal Sri Mulyono Herlambang, and Air Chief Marshal Saleh Basarah.
A number of high-ranking Indonesian Army officers have also studied in the US. The late General Ahmad Yani, former Army Chief of Staff General Soerono Reksodimedjo, former Head of the State Intelligence Coordinating Agency (Bakin) Lt. Gen. Soetopo Juwono, former Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Lt.
Gen. Alamsyah Ratuperwiranegara, and dozens of other TNI (Indonesian Military) officers are graduates from the US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is one officer from the National Military Academy (now Akabri) who completed his military education in Kansas.
Other graduates from Fort Leavenworth include former Army Chief of Staff General (ret) R. Hartono, former Head of Territorial Staff Lt. Gen. (ret) Agus Widjojo, and former Commander of the Army Strategic Reserves Command the late Lt.
Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah. "Over there we learned a lot about how to use logical reasoning in critical fashion," said Agus Widjojo.
Before beginning the advanced education in the US, Indonesian officers usually have to study English at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. "All branches of the armed forces must study there first," said Air Vice Marshal Zacky Ambadar, a former Commander of the National Air Defense Command.
From here, they would spread out depending on which branch of the armed forces they were from, as well as their military function.
The United States has made many schools available to Indonesian Army officers. For the infantry, young Indonesian officers are usually sent to Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia. This is the headquarters of the US Army Infantry Training Brigade, US Infantry School, Ranger Training Brigade, Airborne School, and the School of the Americas, which recently changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation after being criticized on account of many of its graduates becoming human rights violators.
Officers from the Army Special Forces usually take courses at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The former Commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces, the late General L.B. Moerdani, also studied at this headquarters of the Green Berets.
Those in the cavalry study at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Artillery officers study at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, while army pilots take up flight lessons at Fort Rucker, Alabama. The military police are educated at Fort Gordon, Georgia. In these forts, TNI officers take up education which is similar to special training and advanced course for officers in Indonesia.
In addition to this, there are nine US Air Force bases that accept young TNI officers as flight students. Zacky Ambadar, for example, studied at Vance Air Force Base (AFB) in Oklahoma. There is also Laughlin AFB and Shepperd AFB, both of which are in Texas. Maxwell AFB in Georgia offers a course at the level of the Indonesian Air Force Command and Staff School and Air War College for Indonesian officers. However, not many educational choices are available for the Indonesian Navy. One of them has even become a place for intelligence courses at the US Navy's Little Creek Base in Virginia.
When the IMET was criticized for teaching too many lethal skills, the US Congress formed E-IMET (Expanding IMET), which taught more non-combative skills, such as negotiation skills, civilian-military relations, the laws of war, and others. However, behind Congress's back, training in lethal skills continued under the name JCET (Joint Combined Exchange Training).
Now the IMET program is being reopened because, in the eyes of the US, Indonesia has met certain conditions of reform. So, the decision to open or close the program depends on whether or not the point of the bayonet benefits the US.
[Hanibal W.Y. Wijayanta.]