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Setback to US's
Indonesian ties
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - A recent appeals court
decision in Indonesia to acquit 12 soldiers
convicted last year of a 1984 massacre in Jakarta
could complicate efforts by the administration of
US President George W Bush to normalize military
ties with the country.
The acquittal,
which was reported by the BBC but has yet to be
officially confirmed, follows a series of court
decisions that have freed military officers from
responsibility for major abuses of human rights,
particularly the 1999 rampage by military-backed
militias in East Timor.
It also follows
approval by the US House of Representatives of an
administration request to lift all restrictions on
military aid for Indonesia in next year's pending
foreign aid bill.
The Senate, however, is
expected to approve its own version later this
summer, according to one aide, who warned that the
reported acquittal would make it more likely that
the upper chamber would maintain existing curbs.
"This kind of action suggests that it
would be premature to drop existing restrictions,"
said the aide, noting that a recent finding by a
commission appointed by President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono that agents of the military-run State
Intelligence Agency were behind the
murder-by-poison of a prominent human-rights
activist would also bolster lawmakers who opposed
rapid normalization of military ties.
Human Rights Watch also strongly denounced
the reported court acquittals in the case of the
so-called Tanjung Priok massacre, which took place
in September 1984 when security forces fired on
Muslim protestors during anti-government
demonstrations in north Jakarta, killing 33
people. The demonstration was held to denounce the
arrests of several key Muslim leaders.
"Whether it is a massacre from the Suharto
era or killings in East Timor, these verdicts show
that the Indonesian military continues to get away
with murder," said Human Rights Watch.
The
Tanjung Priok case was one of two tried in 2001
under then-president Abdurrahman Wahid, based on a
law passed by the Indonesian parliament the year
before that established special human-rights
courts.
The other was aimed at
investigating and prosecuting those responsible
for the 1999 rampage in Timor in which hundreds of
people were killed and most of the territory's
infrastructure was destroyed. Sixteen military
officers and two civilians were put on trial. Last
year, an appeals court overturned the convictions
of all of the military officers, including Major
General Adam Damiri, the highest-ranking military
officer to be convicted of crimes against
humanity.
The only convictions that were
sustained were of ethnic Timorese civilians,
including a militia leader, whose sentence was
reduced from 10 to five years in prison, and the
former governor of the province, Abilio Jose
Soares, who is currently serving a three-year
term.
This appeals court decision elicited
protests from the Bush administration which,
however, has made little secret of its desire to
normalize military ties that were initially
restricted following the massacre of over 200
civilian demonstrators in Dili, East Timor, in
1991 and then virtually severed altogether after
the 1999 rampage.
As the world's most
populous Muslim nation, and one where Islamic
extremists have made some inroads, the Pentagon,
in particular, believes that Jakarta has a key
role to play in its "war on terror".
Since
2001, the Pentagon and the administration have
waged a relentless and largely successful effort
to ease restrictions on US military ties with
Jakarta and open up new channels of military aid,
mostly through the provision of "anti-terrorism"
assistance and military exercises.
Under
administration pressure, Congress gradually
dropped a series of conditions on the resumption
of military assistance after 2001, including
accountability for the East Timor rampage and
subordination of the military to civilian
authority.
By late last year, only one
condition on renewing military aid and non-lethal
military sales to Indonesia remained - that the
secretary of state certify that both the armed
forces were cooperating fully with a Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation of the
August 2002 killings of two US schoolteachers and
an Indonesian colleague in an ambush in Papua
province.
In late February, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice certified accordingly,
despite the fact that the individual named by the
FBI as a perpetrator of the killings had
well-known links to the local armed forces
commanders and was probably acting at their
behest.
Indeed, the suspect, Anthonius
Wamang, remains at large in Papua and has yet to
be indicted, let alone arrested, fueling
suspicions that he has received military
protection. The certification paved the way for
the renewal of Indonesia's eligibility for the
International Military Education and Training
program, a giant step towards the Indonesian
military's full rehabilitation.
This was
followed late last month by the House, acting at
the behest of the Pentagon and its Republican
leadership, agreeing to lift all restrictions on
military aid for Indonesia, beginning at the start
of fiscal year 2006 on October 1.
Now this
could be in jeopardy.
(Inter Press
Service) |
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