| Subject: ETAN letter on IMET
Green Bay Press Gazette
Posted Mar. 21, 2005
People’s Forum
Government plan stuns this writer
GREEN BAY — I was stunned by the recent announcement that the State
Department plans to renew ties with the Indonesian military, TNI, despite
its noncooperation with FBI investigations into the murder of two
Americans and an Indonesian in West Papua.
According to the State Department’s Country Report on Human Rights
Practices released just two days after it reinstated full IMET for
Indonesia, “Security force members murdered, tortured, raped, beat and
arbitrarily detained civilians and members of separatist movements,
especially in Aceh and to a lesser extent in Papua.”
The TNI continues to resist reform and those responsible for atrocities
in East Timor still dodge justice. We should not reward behavior that has
killed some 2,000 civilians in recent years, and around 10,000 the 10
before that in Aceh under Suharto. Yes, that Aceh, where the recent
tsunami has only complicated an already human-made tragedy that only gets
worse the more repressive the government gets.
While largely symbolic, the message is: We don’t care about your
crimes against humanity; keep it up.
Congressman Mark Green should protest this move and vote to strengthen
restrictions to the TNI in this year’s FY2006 Foreign Operations
Appropriations Bill and upcoming State Department authorization
legislation.
Scott Dempsky
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