|
From
|
Andrew.Bacelis@directory.Reed.EDU (Andrew Bacelis)
|
|
Date
|
19 Sep 99 22:53:54 PDT
|
|
Subject
|
globe_l: US Training of Indonesian Butchers; Indonesian Unionist -- East Timorese Solidarity
|
(1) How US trained butchers of Timor [London Observer]
(2) Indonesian Unionists back East Timor freedom struggle [FNPBI]
(3) US aided Indonesian military in covert programme [Agence France Presse]
############################
--- Forwarded Message from MichaelP <papadop@peak.org> ---
>Subject: [ykboo] How US trained butchers of Timor
>Sender: owner-ykboo@peak.org
==========================
OBSERVER (London) September 19
Exclusive:special report: Ed Vulliamy in New York and Antony Barnett
How US trained butchers of Timor
Washington trained death squads in secret while Britain has spent #1m
helping Indonesian army
Indonesian military forces linked to the carnage in East Timor were
trained in the United States under a covert programme sponsored by the
Clinton Administration which continued until last year.
The Observer can also disclose that the (brit) Government has spent about
#1 million in training more than 50 members of the Indonesian military in
Britain since it came to power.
Human rights campaigners claim a number of these are likely to have links
with those complicit in the attrocities.
The US programme, codenamed 'Iron Balance', was hidden from legislators
and the public when Congress curbed the official schooling of Indonesia's
army after a massacre in 1991. Principal among the units that continued to
be trained was the Kopassus - an elite force with a bloody history - which
was more rigorously trained by the US than any other Indonesian unit,
according to Pentagon documents passed to The Observer last week.
Kopassus was built up with American expertise despite US awareness of its
role in the genocide of about 200,000 people in the years after the
invasion of East Timor in 1975, and in a string of massacres and
disappearances since the bloodbath. Amnesty International describes
Kopassus as 'responsible for some of the worst human rights violations in
Indonesia's history'.
The Pentagon documents - obtained by the US-based East Timor Action
Network and Illinois congressman Lane Evans - detail every exercise in the
covert training programme, conducted under a Pentagon project called JCET
(Joint Combined Education and Training). They show the training was in
military expertise that could only be used internally against civilians,
such as urban guerrilla warfare, surveillance, counter-intelligence,
sniper marksmanship and 'psychological operations'.
Specific commanders trained under the US programme have been tied to the
current violence and to some of the worst massacres of the past 20 years,
including the slaughter at Kraras in 1983 and at Santa Cruz in 1991. The
US-trained commanders include the son-in-law of the late dictator General
Suharto, Prabowo Subianto, and his mentor, General Kiki Syahnakri - the
man appointed last week by the so-called 'reform' government as
commissioner for martial law in East Timor.
The secret programme unveiled in the document became the focus for
military training when above-board aid was curtailed by Congress after the
Santa Cruz massacre. Congress had stepped in after up to 270 peaceful
protesters - many of them schoolchildren - were murdered by Kopassus shock
troops as they paraded through Dili.
American sponsorship of the Indonesian regime began as a matter of Cold
War ideology, in the wake of defeat in Vietnam. The left-wing movement in
East Timor was feared by Jakarta and seen by the US as an echo of those in
southern Africa and of Salvador Allende's government in Chile. Jakarta's
harassment of the Timor government and the invasion of 1975 were duly
encouraged by the United States.
The training of Indonesia's officer corps peaked during the mid-Eighties.
In 1990 a former official at the US Embassy in Jakarta cabled the State
Department to say US sponsorship had been 'a big help to the (Indonesian)
army. They probably killed a lot of people and I probably have a lot of
blood on my hands'.
But the horror of Santa Cruz in 1991, when trucks were seen dumping bodies
in the sea, was too much. The US decided that the training, while still
available, should be paid for by the recipient nation - in other words, it
would no longer be military aid. The covert programme then became the main
means of training Indonesia's military - still at the American taxpayers'
expense.
In an undated prospectus, the Pentagon says the prime mission was to 'to
develop, organise, equip, train, advise and direct indigenous militaries'.
The scale was small, to offer concentrated 'significant special training'
which would create 'self-sufficient small units'. In 1996, for instance,
10 exercises involved 376 US personnel and 838 Indonesians or 'loyal'
Timorese.
Britain also made a significant contribution to Indonesia's military
training. The Observer has established that, since May 1997, 24 senior
members of Indonesia's forces have been trained in UK military colleges.
This included training in running military units efficiently and how to
used technical equipment like guided missiles. In addition, 29 Indonesian
officers have studied at non-military establishments.
Revelations of the extent to which Labour has used taxpayers' money to aid
the Indonesian military has angered many MPs, who claim it makes a mockery
of Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's 'ethical foreign policy'. In the last
four years of the Tory Government, only one Indonesian soldier was trained
in the UK.
Ann Clwyd, the Labour chair of the all-party group on human rights, has
previously shown that Indonesian military trained here have subsequently
committed atrocities. She said: 'It is simply not acceptable that we have
been training these people. We know the police, the army, the militia are
all interlinked. How many of those trained by this Government are now
involved in the East Timor operation?'
Last week both America and Australia suspended military co-operation with
Indonesia.
Funding for the military training would have been made available by the
Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence through the Defence Military
Assistance Fund. Earlier this year Defence Minister Doug Henderson
admitted that training one Indonesian navy officer at the Joint Service
Command and Staff College and another on the International Principal
Warfare Course at HMS Dryad cost the Government #170,000.
Many of the Indonesian officers were trained at the Royal Military College
at Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, as part of a ' private and commercial
initiative' by Cranfield University. As well as courses on managing army
units, the training includes map-making and electronics.
In the past two years the Foreign Office has also given #200,000 to eight
Indonesian high-flyers through its Chevening scholarship programme. This
included two policemen, two from the army and two from the navy. On
Friday, the Indonesian authorities stopped three servicemen taking up
their scholarships.
Both the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office defend the training given
as 'constructive engagement'. A spokesman for the MoD said: 'It is a way
of ensuring professionalism in foreign armies. It encourages higher
standards, good governance and greater respect for human rights.'
The Foreign Office points out that many of the Indonesian officers on
non-military courses are studying subjects such as international law and
human rights.
Last summer seven members of Kopassus finished a post-graduate course in
defence studies at Hull University. The Ministry of Defence arranged the
deal after liaising with General Prabowo. Although the course was
initiated before the general election, it started after Labour's victory.
George Robertson, then Defence Secretary, was happy for it to continue.
Despite Prabowo's links to atrocities in East Timor, Robertson once
described him as 'enlightened'.
The Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, meanwhile, says in today's Observer
that 'there is a mopping-up operation to be done in Britain on the myths
that have mushroomed among commentators who have only discovered the
plight of East Timor in the last fortnight'. He denies that Britain has
'armed Indonesia to the teeth', or provided weapons to the militias, and
says that Britain has not given fresh subsidies to buy Hawk trainers.
Amnesty International's East Timor country specialist, Deborah Sklar,
traces the regime's 'over-reliance on thuggish military operations' as
being due to the demands of the foreign investment community and even from
the World Bank.
She cites a blueprint called The East Asian Miracle, written by US
Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, in which he urges governments to
'insulate' themselves from 'pluralist pressures' and to suppress trade
unions. This, she says, became a primary Kopassus role during the years of
training by the United States.
'If the US,' says Sklar, 'has supplied to the Indonesians equipment that
has been concerned in the perpetration of human rights abuses, then that
is an outrage.'
############################
(2)
--- Forwarded Message from John Percy <johnp@dsp.org.au> ---
>Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 16:55:33 +1000
>Subject: PRD statement Sept 13; FNPBI statement Sept 11; DSP ET web page
Indonesian Unionists back East Timor freedom struggle
FNPBI statement on East Timor
The ballot, offered as a way to resolve the 24-year old crisis in East
Timor has been completed. The results show that the Timorese people
reject the special autonomy offered by the Indonesian government and
have chosen to be a free nation.
The Timorese struggle to be a free nation have gone on for many
centuries against Portuguese colonialism and then against the
militaristic Indonesian government. They have paid a high price, both
physically and materially to wage that struggle. The Indonesian military
invasion since 1975 has cost more than 200,000 lives and led to many
human rights abuses including beatings and rapes. The international
community's response to the military acts of Indonesia depended on the
Cold War interests of each country at the time.
After the ballot was completed and a series massacres of
pro-independence forces, UN staff and journalists by pro-integration
militia members (supported by Indonesian military and police) commenced,
the international community has again taken a position on the issue of
East Timor. In this case, the international community has condemned the
Indonesian government who are thought of as no longer able to provide
security in the territory.
Condemnation and international pressure has come from Australia from its
government and through the call for bans on Indonesian products by
Australian trade unions. In one instance, there was even the incident of
flag burning at a demonstration outside an Indonesian consulate. The
response to this by several forces was to retaliate and burn the
Australian flag and to invade the Australian Embassy in Indonesia.
These actions show the low level of understanding of the history of the
struggle in East Timor and the shifting of the conflict from the
massacres carried out in East Timor to a conflict between two countries.
In responding to the situation that has arisen since the ballot in East
Timor, the National Front for Indonesian Labour Struggle (FNBPI) hereby
express:
* Our full support for the results of the ballot in East Timor, as a
reflection of the aspirations of the East Timorese to determine their
own fate
* Our condemnation of the anti democratic acts committed by the
pro-autonomy forces of TNI and POLRI (Indonesian police)
* Our condemnation of all acts of murder and destruction by TNI and
POLRI committed against the innocent civilians of East Timor
* Our condemnation of all acts of violence by TNI and POLRI which have
driven out the Timorese from their own country
The FNPBI therefore demand:
* Immediate withdrawal of TNI and POLRI from East Timor
* Disbanding of militias which are supported and armed by TNI and POLRI
* Formation and entry of international peacekeeping forces into East
Timor
* That all forces to respect the results of the ballot which is a
reflection of the aspirations of the Timorese
* End to all support given by the Indonesian government to the militias
* End to the sending of Indonesian security forces to East Timor
We declare our full support for all the solidarity actions and strikes
conducted by trade unions worldwide.
We call on the international community, especially the workers to
maintain pressure on the Indonesian government through
strikes/industrial action, economic sanctions and other forms of
pressure.
Jakarta 11 September 1999
National Front for Indonesian Labour Struggle
Dita Indah Sari Chairperson
Ilham Syah General Secretary
#############################################
(3) US aided Indonesian military in covert programme: report
--- Forwarded Message from MichaelP <papadop@peak.org> ---
>Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 10:17:24 -0700 (PDT)
>From: MichaelP <papadop@peak.org>
>To: "unlikely.suspects":;
>Subject: [ykboo] more about butcher training
>Sender: owner-ykboo@peak.org
Agence France Presse
US aided Indonesian military in covert programme: report
LONDON, Sept 19 (AFP) - Indonesian military forces linked to the violence
in East Timor were trained in the United States under a covert programme
sponsored by the Clinton administration, the Observer newspaper reported
here Sunday.
The newspaper also said London had spent around one million pounds
training more than 50 members of the Indonesian military in Britain.
Human rights campaigners claim a number of those trained in Britain and
the United States are likely to have links with those involved in
atrocities against supporters of independence in East Timor.
The US programme, codenamed Iron Balance, was hidden from legislators and
the public when Congress curbed the official schooling of Indonesia's army
after a massacre in 1991, the newspaper said.
It said the programme continued until last year.
Quoting Pentagon documents, the Observer said one of the units trained was
the Kopassus special forces unit, an elite force with a "bloody history".
The force was built up with US expertise despite awareness of its role in
the genocide of about 200,000 people in the years after the invasion of
East Timor by Indonesia in 1975, the report said.
Rights organisation Amnesty International describes Kopassus as
"responsible for some of the worst human rights violations in Indonesia's
history."
The training programme, conducted under a Pentagon project called Joint
Combined Education and Training, included urban guerrilla warfare,
surveillance, counter-intelligence and sniper marksmanship, the newspaper
said.
The US-trained commanders were said to include the son-in-law of former
Indonesian President Suharto, Prabowo Subianto, and General Kiki
Syahnakri, the man appointed last week as commissioner for martial law in
East Timor.
The covert programme became the focus for training after Congress stepped
in to curtail official aid in 1991 after 270 peaceful protesters were
massacred by Kopassus as they paraded through the East Timor capital Dili.
The Observer said that since May 1997, when British Prime Minister Tony
Blair's Labour government was elected, 24 senior members of the Indonesian
military had passed through British military colleges.
A further 29 officers reportedly studied at non-military establishments.
The revelations are likely to further embarrass the British government,
whose so-called "ethical foreign policy" has already come under fire over
dealings with Indonesia, including arms exports to Jakarta.
#####################################
-
-
G L O B E
- - - - - - - - - - - -
european counter network
contact e-mail : samizdat@ecn.org
www.ecn.org/samizdat
envoi de messages sur la liste : globe_l@ecn.org
archives web : www.ecn.org/lists/globe_l
![[<--]](/icons/prev.gif){kind=icon}
![[-->]](/icons/next.gif){kind=icon}