By Malik Miah
SAN FRANCISCO — Congressional outrage. Anger from human rights activists. Protests from democratic forces inside Indonesia. That has been the response to the revelation that the Pentagon continues to train Suharto's notorious army.
Allan Nairn, a reporter and human rights activist, revealed this dirty truth in the March 30 issue of the Nation, and at a press conference in Jakarta on March 17. Nairn reported on a six-page Pentagon document outlining which army units it trains, and how. The document was also released, along with other information, by the US solidarity group East Timor Action Network.
Nairn was deported from Indonesia on March 18. He had previously been banned from the country as "a threat to national security" for his opposition to the military's 1991 massacre of some 270 civilians during a protest in Dili, East Timor. Nairn was severely beaten by the army at that protest.
In 1992, Congress banned Indonesia from receiving military training under the International Military Education and Training program, or Imet. The ban was imposed after the 1991 massacre. East Timor was invaded and occupied by the Suharto regime in 1975 with US approval.
The US Defense Department opposed the ban and a legal loophole was found to continue the military support. The Pentagon's new program to do this, known as Joint Combined Exchange and Training or J-Cet, although completely legal, violates the spirit of the Imet ban.
The Defense Department says that such programs are essential to maintain friendships with future foreign military leaders and adds, with a straight face, that they give trainees greater respect for civilian authority and human rights.
The J-Cet program involves training army units in anti-riot techniques and psychological warfare. In Indonesia, that means providing the police and army with better ways to put down peaceful protests and to destroy opposition to President Suharto's rule.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress are crying foul over the Pentagon manoeuvre. New Jersey Republican representative Christopher Smith said the military training "appears to be a dramatic end run around the rules that Congress has carefully prescribed for military training and education of Indonesian forces".
Democratic representative Lane Evans of Illinois said he was "curious to know why US tax dollars are being wasted on aiding and abetting a ruthless military organisation".
New York Democratic representative Nita Lowry announced on March 24 plans to introduce new legislation to end the J-Cet instruction and ban the Pentagon from "training an army that has been implicated in cases of torture, murder and disappearances".
Even the editors of the New York Times, the main national newspaper in the US, consider the Pentagon action goes too far: "The case for an end to the riot troop training", it editorialised on March 23, "is now especially strong because it seems likely that the troops will be used to crush legitimate democratic protests. President Suharto's erratic response to the severe economic crisis and his stage-managed re-election have sent demonstrators into the streets and his Government's legitimacy to a new low.
"Washington faces difficult enough challenges as the Indonesian crisis unfolds", the editorial continued. "It should not be complicating its agenda by tying the reputation of the United States to anti-riot troops whose history is marked by gratuitous violence and whose future behaviour Washington is powerless to control."
Despite the outcry in Congress, a Pentagon spokesperson, in an off-the-record comment, said it is false to claim the training program was kept secret. Well-informed members of Congress, he explained, knew about it.
Of course, that is true. The Defense Department has gone out of its way during the current economic and political crisis to strengthen ties with Indonesia's military. The chief aim of Defense Secretary Cohen's February trip to Indonesia was to make clear to Indonesia's armed forces the Pentagon's strong support. Political and economic stability — not human rights or democracy — is long-standing US policy in south-east Asia.
Meanwhile, envoys from the International Monetary Fund and the White House have been in Jakarta to pressure Suharto to live up to the IMF austerity package first agreed to in October, and again in January. Suharto is seeking to modify the terms because of growing public protest inside Indonesia. While using nationalist rhetoric to divert attention from his own economic failures and undemocratic rule, Suharto's aim is to buy time to protect the wealth of his family and closest business partners.
The Clinton administration refuses to turn its back on Suharto because it sees no viable pro-western political figure who Washington feels can keep the country unified and protect US interests. Not surprisingly, on March 24, Washington announced that it would send more than US$70 million in emergency food and medical aid to Indonesia. The aid package is independent of IMF negotiations.
A separate deal is being brokered by the IMF (with US approval since it has de facto veto power over all IMF decisions) to delay the pace at which food and fuel subsidies are eliminated. The urban poor, workers and students have targeted these IMF-imposed mandates in protests.
Washington is also seeking approval from Congress for US$18 billion in additional funds to the IMF. While the Senate has approved it, many in Congress do not because the IMF helps prop up dictators like Suharto.
In this context, a letter sent to President Bill Clinton from Indonesian opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri on March 18 is significant. Megawati and other opposition leaders continue to press for democracy, and demand that foreign leaders who claim to support democracy stand up for change.
"Who, in the view of the US government, is the target or enemy for this specialised training since there is no foreign threat to Indonesia?", Megawati asked Clinton. "It is the explicit policy of the Indonesian security forces to meet peaceful and unarmed demonstrators with force and thus military training from the US directly undermines the democratic movement in Indonesia.
"In light of the US government's stated support for democracy around the world, I respectfully request an explanation of this secret training program that contradicts this noble foreign policy goal", she said.
Allan Nairn's Nation article will be reprinted in the next issue of Green left Weekly.
[Malik Miah is co-editor of the new quarterly newsletter IndonesiaAlert! published in San Francisco. Subscriptions are US$12/18 for four issues. Send to PO Box 267, Oakland, CA 94604-0267 USA. Email