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Campaigns Military Cooperation with Kopassus and TNI An alliance against? – or with? – terrorism             The Australian Government has restored military ties with Indonesia’s army.  We ask why.   Australia’s army (ADF) exercised with & trained Indonesia’s army (TNI) for 8 years in the 1990s.  Our elite special forces, SAS, & theirs, Kopassus, were closest allies.  It ended in September 1999 when Australia led the coalition-of-the-willing InterFET force into East Timor to restore peace – following weeks of killing, looting, destruction & mass forced relocation.  Australia fully resumed military ties with the Lombok treaty in November 2006; SAS is training Kopassus again.  Why?   The Howard Government says terrorism is the greatest threat we face, Australians have already been killed in Indonesia, & improving Kopassus’ skills is in Australia’s interest.  It could save Australian lives in Indonesia.  Former Defence Minister Hill first spoke to Parliament about allying with Kopassus against terrorism on October 16th 2002.  That was the 27th anniversary of the murder of 5 Australian journalists at Balibo, East Timor by Kopassandha (renamed Kopassus in 1986). [1]   TNI and Terror Canberra’s knowledge of Indonesia, TNI, Kopassus & terrorism is as limited & selective as its grasp of history.  An American expert on terror called TNI “a major facilitator of terrorism” due to “the radical Muslim militias they had organised, trained & financed”. [2]  Shortly after Senator Hill’s speech, an Australian Foreign Affairs official described links between Kopassus & radical Islamic groups like Laskar Jihad. [3]  2 Kopassus officers were convicted & jailed for blowing up the Jakarta Stock Exchange in a huge car-bomb blast, killing 15 people, in September 2000.  16 more people died in several church explosions on Christmas Eve 2000.  “Tempo” weekly published evidence of ‘phone calls at the time between the bombers & TNI officers. In January 2000, thousands of armed Laskar Jihad “warriors” sailed from Surabaya to Maluku to “wage holy war against Christians”.  Reformist President Wahid ordered TNI to stop them boarding.  TNI stood by as they boarded & sailed.  In September 2000, the Navy seized a huge arms shipment being smuggled to these “warriors” on Maluku; the smugglers were 5 Kopassus officers.  Many thousands were killed on Maluku in 2000 in these religious wars.  Police named several Kopassus officers in the murder of Papuan leader Theys Eluay in November 2001.  The police chief was transferred & no arrests were made.  Eluay was only one of many Papuan leaders murdered by TNI.  The “best case study of a Kopassus operation” was the militia violence in East Timor in 1999. [4]  Kopassus Generals financed & trained the militias; over 1,000 people were killed in a bloody rampage.  Section 4 of Kopassus Group 4’s training manual provides training in the methods of terrorism, not counter-terrorism. [5]   Freeport ambush – a major blunder Kopassus made a serious mistake when it planned, coordinated & joined an ambush outside the Freeport mine in Papua on August 31st 2002. [6]  2 American teachers & an Indonesian teacher were killed.  They did it to prove Freeport needed their protection. [7]  Congress responded by blocking military ties for several years.  Congress renewed the ban in November 2005.  2 weeks later, President Bush over-ruled the ban & restored military ties.  The FBI hastily rounded up “the usual suspects” (any Papuans involved) & handed them over to police for trial in Jakarta. [8] They were convicted & sentenced in November 2006. None of the abundant evidence of TNI’s role was presented. Since the Freeport ambush TNI is wary of killing foreign nationals.  They now recruit radical Islamists to fight Christians only in Papua.     Crime pays very well But TNI does use radical Islamist thugs for business purposes elsewhere.  The Islamic Defenders Front publicly denounces vice & then ransacks any nightspots & bars not paying protection to TNI.  White-robed vigilantes smashing liquor bottles get big media coverage but no punishment; religious violence looks heroic. [9]  TNI gets 1/3 of its funding from the Jakarta Government.  The rest comes from its 64 business companies, some of which are legal – shopping centres, airlines, golf courses.  Most of TNI’s money, laundered through its companies, comes from protection rackets, extortion, gambling, drugs, prostitution, arms trading, slave trading & illegal logging. [10]  In Papua alone TNI runs the biggest illegal logging racket in the world.  In Sumatra, TNI attacked police with grenades & automatic weapons, killing several, to recover a drug haul seized by police. [11] In May 2005, President Yudhoyono promised President Bush he would reform TNI as a condition of resuming military ties.  He passed a law requiring TNI to divest itself of all business interests.  Now the Government says it will take over only 12 companies, leaving TNI with 52, including the most profitable ones.  The President also announced an extension of TNI’s regional network to “fight terrorism”.  There is widespread opposition to this (55% - 58% in surveys) from people fearing a huge increase in crime & human rights abuses. [12]    Papua suffers most TNI’s abuses are worst in West Papua.  In 2001, Parliament passed the Special Autonomy Law, giving Papuans their own Upper House & control of 80% of revenue from their vast resources.  To protect their profits from Papua, TNI persuaded nationalist MPs to pass a law in 2003 dividing Papua into 3 provinces.  The US Council on Foreign Relations urged the Government to postpone plans to divide Papua, & to implement the Special Autonomy Law at once.  But President Yudhoyono allowed elections in one new province to go ahead, sabotaging the Autonomy Law.  TNI uses its militias to sustain the violence in Papua so that businesses, especially Freeport, seek TNI’s protection.  TNI & militia murder, torture & rape of Papuans continue unchecked. [13]  The UN Secretary-General’s special adviser on genocide this year said West Papua’s indigenous population is in danger of extinction.   See no evil Dismissing objections to military ties, Foreign Minister Downer says “rogue elements” of TNI commit the atrocities.  He is ignoring a mountain of evidence in reports by CAVR, the US State Department, Sydney University & Yale University. The Government says “we will teach them human rights”.  That’s exactly what both the Keating & Howard governments said throughout the 1990s.  8 years of extensive Australian training ended in the 1999 bloodbath in East Timor; a so-called “special relationship” between our armies amounted to nothing.  New Zealand’s Government says President Yudhoyono is trying to resolve issues in Aceh & Papua, but it is much too soon to restore military ties.  Why is the Australian Government so wilfully blind to what is happening?  It’s a chilling echo of the Australian Wheat Board scandal – a “head in the sand” approach to foreign policy.   Hear no evil Author & journalist John Martinkus tries to explain this attitude:  “Maybe Canberra doesn’t know what is happening.  As a US State Department official told me in Papua in 2002, Australian embassy officials in Jakarta showed no interest in events there, & they didn’t want to be caught out by knowing too much, as they had been in East Timor.” [14]  I first met John Martinkus at a beachside hotel in Dili, East Timor, in August 1998.  The dictator Suharto had recently been deposed by popular uprising; TNI was rudderless & thousands of people all over East Timor were flocking to meeting places to talk about their hopes for independence.   Speak no truth Just before John Martinkus arrived, I spoke to 2 Australian diplomats from the Jakarta embassy in the hotel’s beer garden.  I asked what they thought of the obvious mass expression of a Timorese desire for independence.  They simply denied any such meetings were going on.  For 5 minutes I tried to tell them what they could see if they just opened their eyes.  It was a futile exercise.   Massive destruction & suffering could have been prevented.  They could have saved 1,000 lives by telling Canberra the truth.   References:  1. Jolliffe, Jill 2001, “Cover-Up:  the inside story of the Balibo Five”, Scribe, Melbourne,  page 7 2. Christopherson, Dr. Gaye 2002 (March), “Strategic Insight:  the War on Terrorism in South-East Asia”, Centre for Contemporary Conflict, National Security Affairs Dept, Naval Postgraduate School 3. Rawson, Jennifer 2002, Foreign Affairs first assistant secretary for South & South-East Asia, Senate Estimates hearing, Nov 22nd http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/view_document.aspx?id=69725&table=ESTIMATE 4. Dunn, James 2002, “Using war criminals to fight terrorism replaces one poison with another”, Sydney Morning Herald, Nov 14th http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/13/1037080784389.html 5. Kingsbury, Dr. Damien 2002, Assoc. Professor, Deakin University, “Getting it right on Indonesia”, The Age, Nov 20th http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/19/1037682015437.html 6. Greenlees, Don 2002, “Rights group fingers Kopassus for Papuan ambush”, The Australian, Sept 26 7. “Indonesia:  Military admit receiving payments from mining company” 2006 (Jan 2), Asia-Pacific, ABC radio                 www.abc.net.au/ra/asiapac/programs/s1540530.htm                     (accessed 2/2/06)   8. LaMoshi, Gary 2006, “Papuan puppetry leaves murders unsolved”, Asia Times, Jan 19th http://atimes01.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HA19Ae01.html 9. LaMoshi, Gary 2004, “Terrorism links in Indonesia point to military”, Asia Times Online, Oct 8th http://atimesOl.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/FJ08AeOl.html   (accessed 20/4/06) 10. McCall, Chris 2002, “Washington renews ties with a tarnished ally”, South China Morning Post, Sept 9th http://www.asia-pacific-action.org/southeastasia/indonesia/netnews/2002/ind_35v6.htm#Washington%20renews%20ties%20with%20a%20tarnished%20ally 11. McDonald, Hamish & Moore, Matthew 2002, “Partners in Crime”, Sydney Morning Herald, Nov 2 http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/01/1036027034920.html 12. Dwi Atmanta 2005, “Military fight against terrorism could be the terror itself”, Jakarta Post, Oct 8th http://www.infid.org/newinfid/old-docu/military_terror_itself.htm 13. US Department of State 2005, “Indonesia:  country report on human rights practices 2005” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61609.htm                     (accessed 16/4/06) 14. Martinkus, John 2006, “Muffled cry of freedom falls on deaf ears”, Sydney Morning Herald, April 12th  (author of “Indonesia’s Secret War in Aceh”(2004) & “A Dirty Little War: eyewitness account of East Timor’s descent into Hell”(2001)) http://www.missionandjustice.org/muffled-cry-of-freedom-falls-on-deaf-ears/  © AETFA 2005      ---      Created as part of the CommunityWebs project         hits since 24/3/05