| Subject: Testimony by Ed McWilliams on
Recent Indonesia Reform
wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/109/mcw031005.htm
Committee on International Relations U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515-0128
March 10, 2005 Testimony for Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
Hearing: Implications of Recent Indonesia Reform
By Edmund McWilliams, Senior Foreign Service Office (Ret.) Board of
Directors, Indonesia Human Rights Network
The Indonesian Military’s Threat to Human Rights and Democracy
The Annual Human Rights Report regarding Indonesia, recently released
by the State Department accurately portrays the Indonesia as a fragile,
fledgling democracy whose government is not yet capable of protecting the
fundamental human rights of its people. As documented clearly in the State
Department’s report, the principal menace to those rights and to that
fledgling democratic government itself is a rogue institution with vast
wealth and power that has committed crimes against humanity and perhaps
genocide and which remains unaccountable.
That institution, the Indonesian military, recently saw its stature
dangerously enhanced by a decision of the U.S. administration to end a
bipartisan Congressionally imposed sanction against the military, imposed
over a decade ago.
The decision, announced by Secretary of State Rice, restored
International Military Education and Training (IMET) assistance to the
Indonesian military. The Congress banned that assistance in 1992 in
response to the military’s murder of 276 peaceful demonstrators in East
Timor. The Congress reinforced the ban in 1999 in response to the military’s
ravaging of East Timor following the Timorese people’s courageous vote
for freedom. In 2004, the Congress narrowed the ban to a single condition.
It required that the State Department certify that the Indonesian
government and military were cooperating in an FBI investigation of an
August 31, 2002 assault on a group of U.S. citizens at the Freeport copper
and gold mine in West Papua that saw two U.S. citizens killed and eight
wounded.
Dr. Rice’s February 26 certification that the Indonesians were
cooperating manifestly misrepresents the obstructions and malign inaction
of the Indonesian side with regards to that investigation. Contrary to the
State Department’s contention that the Indonesian side is “cooperating,”
the Indonesians have failed to bring charges against or even detain the
one individual indicted by a U.S. grand jury in the attack. Moreover, for
over eight months it has stalled a return of the FBI team to Indonesia to
continue its investigation.
This Indonesian obstruction of the FBI investigation is possibly
explained by indications that the Indonesian military itself was involved
in the attack. The initial Indonesian police report, as well as reports by
independent researchers, journalists and others, all point to military
involvement. Recently, evidence of ties between the one indicted
individual and the military was provided to the FBI and the State
Department. Moreover, the military’s presentation of false evidence and
subsequent military threats and intimidation targeting those Indonesian
human rights advocates who had assisted the FBI also suggest the military’s
culpability.
Ms. Patsy Spier who was wounded and widowed in the attack has asked me
to share with you her concern about the importance of genuine Indonesian
cooperation in the investigation:
“The investigation into the Timika Ambush, a terror attack, is
completely in Americans interest. Two American citizens who were working
in Indonesia for an American company were murdered on a secure road. The
ambush lasted from 35 to 45 minutes before help came. The eight Americans
wounded were American citizens working in Indonesia (the eighth American
being a 6 year old girl). The investigation, and cooperation needed, is in
Americans interest to assure the safety of the other thousands of
Americans working and living in Indonesia. The Indonesian authorities must
cooperate fully with our US investigators. American companies working, and
thinking of working, in Indonesia must be assured that the murder of
Americans is taken seriously by the Indonesian Government...and
cooperating with our investigators would show that.”
In addition to being indefensible on the basis of the “cooperation”
criterion established by the Congress, the decision was also a practical
blunder. Restoration of IMET assistance removes the only leverage
available to the U.S. to press for the genuine Indonesian cooperation
essential to a successful completion of the FBI’s investigation. On the
basis of this erroneous certification alone, the Congress should restore
the ban on IMET in FY2006. It is also imperative that the Congress
maintain the ban on FMF for the Indonesian military which remains in place
despite the restoration of IMET.
But there are broader issues in play than even the critical matter of
ensuring justice in this case of murdered and wounded U.S. citizens.
The restoration of IMET dangerously conveys to the Indonesian military
that long-standing U.S. concerns about its notorious and continuing human
rights abuses, its threats to its neighbors, illegal business empire and
its impunity in committing these acts is no longer on the U.S. agenda.
Such a U.S. exoneration of the Indonesian military removes a well-founded
international censure that has given Indonesian government and civil
society members the political space to press for reform of that notorious
institution. It is not surprising that leading Indonesian human rights
activists reacted with dismay to the U.S. action.
The notorious record of the Indonesian military is well documented by
reliable reporting of well-respected human rights organizations such as
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Tapol as well as in the State
Department’s Annual Human Rights Reports. Therefore, I will only
summarize that record here and then focus the rest of my remarks on the
current activity of the Indonesian military, specifically its ongoing
abuse of human rights, its involvement in a broad range of criminal
enterprises, its contempt for and threat to democratic institutions and
its unaccountability.
In 1965-68 the Indonesian military engineered the slaughter of more
than a half million Indonesians whom it alleged had been involved in a
"coup" against the sitting President Soekarno. Employing a
tactic it would resort to again in the current period, the Indonesian
military allied itself with Islamic forces that did much of the actual
killing. The Soeharto regime which rose to power as a consequence of the
coup and which directed the massive killings sought to justify them in
U.S. and western eyes by labeling the victims as “communists.”
Following the Indonesian military's invasion of East Timor in 1975, an
estimated 200,000 East Timorese, one quarter of the population, died as a
consequence of living conditions in TNI-organized re-location camps or as
direct victims of Indonesian security force violence.
In West Papua, it is estimated that over 100,000 Papuans died in the
years following the forced annexation of West Papua under a fraudulent
"Act of Free Choice," perpetrated by the Soeharto regime in
1969. An April 2004 study by the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human
Rights Clinic at the Yale Law School concluded that the atrocities in West
Papua are "crimes against humanity" and may constitute genocide.
In Aceh, over 12,000 civilians have fallen victim to military
operations that have included mass sweeps and forced relocations. These
operations, almost constantly since the late 1970’s, have entailed
brutal treatment of civilians including extra judicial killings, rape,
torture and beatings. While the military’s quarry in these attacks, the
pro-independence Gerakan Aceh Merdeka or GAM has also been responsible for
human rights abuses, the State Department's Annual Human Rights reports
have consistently reported that most of those civilians died at the hands
of the military.
Throughout this period, extending from 1965 to the early 1990's the
U.S. military maintained a close relationship with the Indonesian
military, providing training for thousands of officers as well as arms.
From the late 1970’s to 1992, that training included grant assistance
under IMET. The arms provided by the U.S. were employed by the Indonesian
military not against foreign foes (the Indonesian military has never
confronted a foreign foe except for brief clashes with the Dutch in West
Papua) but rather against their own people. In the 70's and 80's, U.S.-
provided OV-10 Broncos bombed villages in East Timor and in West Papua.
Military offensives conceived and directed by IMET-trained officers
against usually miniscule resistance caused thousands of civilian deaths.
Even with the end of the cold war, the U.S. embrace of the dictator
Soeharto and his military continued as if U.S. policy were on auto pilot.
That relationship endured largely unquestioned until 1991 when the
Indonesian military was caught on film by U.S. journalists slaughtering
peaceful East Timorese demonstrators. The murder of over 270 East Timorese
youth by Indonesian soldiers bearing U.S.-provided M-16's so shocked the
U.S. Congress that in 1992 it imposed tight restrictions on further U.S.
military-to-military aid, including training for the Indonesian military.
Since the imposition of those restrictions various U.S.
Administrations, with the support of non-governmental organizations
bankrolled by U.S. corporations with major interests in Indonesia have
sought to expand military to military ties. Those efforts were accompanied
by claims that the Indonesian military had reformed or was on a reform
course.
Claims of Indonesian military reform were confounded in 1999, when,
following an overwhelming vote by East Timorese for independence from
Indonesia, the Indonesian military and its militia proxies devastated the
tiny half island. U.N. and other international observers were unable to
prevent the killing of over 1,500 East Timorese, the forced relocation of
over 250,000 and the destruction of over 70 percent of East Timor's
infrastructure. The Indonesian justice system has failed to hold a single
military, police or civil official responsible for the mayhem. That
failure to render justice demonstrated that even when confronted by
unanimous international condemnation, the Indonesian military remained
unaccountable.
Moreover, TNI abuse of human rights is not a matter only of history.
Indonesian military operations that began in mid-2004 in West Papua
continue. Burning villages and destroying food sources, the Indonesian
military has forced thousands of villagers into the forests where many are
dying for lack of food and medicine. A government ban on travel to the
region by journalists and even West Papuan senior church leaders has
limited international awareness of this tragedy. More critically, the ban
has prevented Papuan church leaders and others from distributing
humanitarian relief to the thousands forced into the forests. A similar
campaign in West Papua in the late 1990s led to the death of hundreds of
civilians who did not survive their forced sojourn in the deep jungles of
West Papua.
The recent devastating Indian Ocean tsunami turned international
attention to Aceh, another primary arena in which the Indonesian military
continues a brutal military campaign. Notwithstanding calls by President
Yudhoyono for a ceasefire and declaration by GAM of unilateral ceasefire
the Indonesian military has continued to conduct operations. These
operations jeopardize relief operations and will likely stall
rehabilitation and reconstruction. Both GAM and the Government appear to
be genuinely pursuing a settlement through talks organized by former
Finish President Martti Atahisaari. But as the former Finnish President
has emphasized, to be successful, both sides must act with restraint in
the field. With boasts that it has killed over 230 GAM members since the
tsunami struck, the TNI clearly is not acting with restraint.
Throughout the Soeharto period (1965-1998) critics and dissenters
generally were not tolerated. Despite the genuine democratic progress made
since the fall of the Soeharto dictatorships, critics of the military and
those whom the Indonesian military regard as enemies are in grave
jeopardy. Reflecting the Indonesian military’s power in
"democratic" Indonesia, those critics who meet untimely ends are
often the most prominent. Indonesia’s leading human rights advocate,
Munir, a prominent critic of the Indonesian military died of arsenic
poisoning in 2004. An independent investigation authorized by the
Indonesian President has uncovered evidence of Government involvement in
this murder. In recent years Jafar Siddiq, a U.S. green card holder who
was in Aceh demanding justice for Achenese suffering military abuse was
himself tortured and murdered. Theys Eluay, the leading nonviolent Papuan
proponent of Papuan self-determination was abducted and strangled to
death. In a rare trial of military officials, his Indonesian Special
Forces (Kopassus) killers received sentences ranging up to three and one
half years. Yet Army Chief of Staff, Ryamazad Ryacudu publicly described
the murderers as “heroes.” Farid Faquih, a leading anti-corruption
campaigner who has targeted military and other government malfeasance
recently was badly beaten in Aceh by military officers as he sought to
monitor tsunami aid distribution. He was arrested and is now facing
charges of theft of the assistance he was monitoring. Papuan human rights
advocates who supported FBI investigations of the U.S. citizens murdered
in 2002 in West Papua are under continuing intimidation by the military
and were sued by the regional military commander.
More generally, the Indonesian military poses a threat to the fledgling
democratic experiment in Indonesia. It receives over 70 percent of its
budget from legal and illegal businesses and as a result is not under
direct budget control by the civilian president or the parliament. Its
vast wealth derives from numerous activities, including many illegal ones
that include extortion, prostitution rings, drug running, illegal logging
and other exploitation of Indonesia’s great natural resources, and as
charged in a recent Voice of Australia broadcast (August 2, 2004), human
trafficking. With its great institutional wealth it maintains a
bureaucratic structure that functions as a shadow government paralleling
the civil administration structure from the central level down to
sub-district and even village level.
There are also reasons why many of us should be directly concerned
about the TNI’s lawlessness. As investors through our pension and
mutual funds our hard-earned wealth is invested with U.S.-based
corporations: ExxonMobil and Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc.,
among others that are subject to extortion of “protection money”
from the TNI for their Indonesian operations. Recognizing the reputational
risks and potential and actual shareholder liabilities resulting from
these financial relationships between U.S. companies and the TNI,
institutional investors including all of New York City’s employee
pension funds have brought shareholder resolutions this year calling on
Freeport and ExxonMobil management to review and report to shareholders
about the risks associated with corporate ties to the TNI. In short,
investors should be concerned, too, about the TNI’s human rights record
and the implications for the bottom line.
For much of the last decade, advocates of closer ties between the
Indonesian military and the U.S. military have contended that a warmer
U.S. embrace entailing training programs and education courses for TNI
officers could expose them to democratic ideals and afford a professional
military perspective. This argument ignores the decades of close U.S. -
Indonesian military ties extending from the 1960's to the early 1990's
when U.S. training was provided to over 8,000 Indonesian military
officers. This 30-year period also encompasses the period when the
Indonesian military committed some of its gravest atrocities and when a
culture of impunity became ingrained.
The argument for reform through engagement also ignores the fact that
the U.S. Defense Department already maintains extensive ties and channels
for assistance under the guise of "conferences" and joint
operations billed as humanitarian or security-related.
In the wake of 9/11, proponents of restored U.S.-Indonesian military
ties have also argued that the U.S. needs the Indonesian military as a
partner in the war on terrorism. This argument overlooks the Indonesian
military’s close ties to and support for domestic fundamentalist Islamic
terror groups, including the Laskar Mujahidin and Front for the Defense of
Islam. The Laskar Jihad militia, which the Indonesian military helped form
and train, engaged in a savage communal war in the Maluku Islands in the
years 2000 to 2002 that left thousands dead. Many thousands more died in
Central Sulawesi in the same period, in fighting that involved militias
with security force ties.
Absent tangible evidence of Indonesian military action to curb abuses,
to allow itself to be held accountable, to end corruption, to submit
itself to civilian rule and to end its sponsorship of terrorist militias,
the Indonesian military should be seen for what it is: a rogue institution
that directly threatens democracy in Indonesia. Existing restrictions on
military-to-military ties between the United States and Indonesia must
remain in place, conditionality should be strengthened and the IMET ban
reinstated in FY 2006.
Finally, a word about the future. The Indonesian people, Indonesian
non-governmental organizations, the Indonesian media and individual
Indonesians have demonstrated great courage in standing up to the
intimidation of entrenched corrupt interests in their society and most
especially its security forces to demand their right to live in a
democratic society. The brave students who rallied in the streets in 1998
wrought a revolution, though since that historic victory, entrenched
undemocratic elements have sought to undo reforms. Sadly, in some parts of
Indonesia the 1998 reforms have had little meaning. The military, often
employing terrorist militias, have most brutally repressed the popular
struggle for reform in Aceh, West Papua and the Maluku Islands. It is
vital that the central government engage civil society in these areas in
peaceful dialogue and, in order to make such a dialogue viable,
demilitarize those areas.
The U.S. should encourage reform and peaceful dialogue where it can. It
should encourage the Government to enforce worker rights, to make far more
serious efforts and to end injurious exploitation of child labor and human
trafficking. The U.S. should encourage the Indonesian Government to pass
legislation implementing the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The U.S. should also urge an end to
intimidation of journalists through physical threat and intimidation
through misuse of the courts. Moreover, the U.S. Government should itself
recognize the importance of social, economic and cultural rights and
encourage the Government of Indonesia to pursue development strategies
that address the urgent health, education and shelter needs of the poor.
But direct U.S. involvement in Indonesian affairs would be unwelcome
and most likely ineffective. Critical questions such as the role of Islam
in modern Indonesia and the shape and character of its economy are for
Indonesians to decide. The most pro-active course for the U.S. at this
time is to step back from its growing embrace of the Indonesian military
that remains the gravest threat to democracy and human rights throughout
the archipelago.
see also
U.S.-Indonesia Military Assistance
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