| Subject: CONG: Rep. Kucinich on IMET
Statement of Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich
U.S. House of Representatives
Extension of Remarks
In Opposition to the Certification of IMET for Indonesia
March 9, 2005
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the certification of
International Military Education and Training (IMET) for Indonesia by
Secretary Rice. Since 2004, Foreign Operations Appropriations legislation
has indicated that the Secretary of State must determine if Indonesia is
eligible to receive IMET funds. According to the law, what determines
eligibility is the cooperation of the Indonesian government and armed
forces with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into the
August 31, 2002 murders of two American citizens and one Indonesian
citizen in Timika, Indonesia. Last year, then-Deputy Secretary of State
Armitage defined "cooperation" in the Freeport killings as
seeing the case through to "its exhaustion."
Yet the present Secretary of State has indicated that she has certified
IMET for Indonesia, despite the fact that the Indonesian authorities have
not "cooperated" by any definition of the term. In July 2004,
when U.S. investigators notified Indonesian police that they were willing
to return to Indonesia to assist in apprehending the only person thus far
indicted by a US grand jury, Anthonius Wamang, it took the Indonesian
police well over six months to respond. Furthermore, Indonesian
authorities have not indicted or apprehended Wamang or anyone else. For
the first six month after the indictment was unsealed in June 2004,
Indonesian police did not inform US investigators as to what they were
doing in the investigation.
The cooperation or lack thereof of the Indonesian government and armed
forces with the FBI investigation is further complicated by the initial
Indonesian police report, as well as NGO and media investigations, which
pointed to Indonesian military involvement in the attack. Wamang also
admitted ties to the notorious Special Forces Kopassus in a video
interview broadcast in Australia.
Providing IMET now will remove the key U.S. leverage to assure justice
is done in the Timika case, on the eve of the return of the FBI team to
Indonesia.
Congress prohibited full IMET for Indonesia for years because of its
extremely poor human rights record. Indonesia has yet to fulfill these
previous conditions on IMET, and human rights violations, especially in
Aceh and West Papua, continue.
Furthermore, there has been no justice for war crimes and crimes
against humanity committed in 1999 in East Timor. The few Indonesian
trials were a whitewash; not one Indonesian officer has been held
accountable. Indonesia refuses to extradite anyone, including senior
military officers, indicted in a separate and credible UN-East Timor
justice process. On top of that, there are increasing reports of militia
infiltration into East Timor from Indonesia.
The Indonesian armed forces TNI are massively corrupt and have direct
ties to terrorist groups. The TNI engages in drug running, illegal
logging, extortion of U.S. and other domestic and foreign firms, and human
trafficking, among others. A number of Islamic jihadist militia that have
terrorized and killed thousands within Indonesia collaborate with and are
even empowered by the TNI. The TNI operates a shadow government extending
from the central government down to the village level. It continues to
resist subordination to civilian authority and is a threat to democracy in
Indonesia.
While the amount of money for IMET may be small, it has tremendous
symbolic value. The Indonesian military will view any restoration of IMET
as an endorsement of business as usual, not as a reward for extremely
limited reforms.
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