| Subject: BG: Indonesian
army recruits training in Vermont This
story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 10/04/99.
Indonesian army recruits training in Vermont
Students at private military school linked to 'most feared,
most abusive' special force
By Terry J. Allen, Globe Correspondent, 10/04/99
NORWICH, Vt. - Quietly tucked away in the hills of Vermont,
Norwich University, the only private military college in the country, has continued to
educate and train future members of the Indonesian army, even as President Clinton has
effectively frozen all relations with that country's military in the wake of the violence
in East Timor.
According to Norwich records, 11 of the school's current
crop of 13 Indonesian undergraduates list their billing address as the Jakarta
headquarters of Kopassus, the Army's elite special forces.
''Kopassus played an especially brutal role in East
Timor,'' Sidney Jones of Human Rights Watch said. ''They were unquestionably the most
feared, most hated, and most abusive of all Indonesian units in East Timor.''
The US government blocked Indonesians from programs at
federally funded military institutions such as West Point, citing human rights concerns.
But Norwich, a private institution, has continued with its cooperative program, which
brings in about $20,000 annually in tuition and fees for each student.
According to Norwich spokesman Richard Greene, the
Indonesian students in the two-year-old cooperative program were chosen and paid for by
the Indonesian Embassy in Washington with funds wired ''by order of the military
attache.''
The undergrads, ostensibly civilians, are obligated to
serve 10 years in the Indonesian army after graduation. Thirteen of them are enrolled in
Norwich's Army ROTC program, where they take the standard course that includes weapons
training, intelligence gathering, field training, and tactics, as well as military ethics.
''The curriculum is dictated from US Army Cadet Command,''
said Captain Mike Lefebvre, who teaches ROTC at Norwich.
ROTC instructors are active duty Army officers chosen by
the Pentagon. ''The training of these foreign students [at Norwich] came about from an
agreement made between university and the US Army,'' Lefebvre said.
Ten graduate students, who returned to service in Indonesia
in 1999 after completing master's degrees in military science and diplomacy, have served
as active duty officers.
The worst violence in East Timor erupted after the island
voted for independence from Indonesia on Aug. 30. Pro-Jakarta militia backed by, and often
part of, the Indonesian army killed hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians. Another
300,000 either fled the violence or were forcibly repopulated to various islands in the
Indonesian archipelago.
At least four of the Norwich graduate students served in
East Timor around the time of the referendum.
According to an August report from Norwich President Thomas
W. Schneider, the four were ''in East Timor serving under the United Nations flag.'' The
Indonesians, however, could not have been a part of a UN mission, according to the United
Nations. ''There is no room for confusion,'' said Manuel de Almeida e Silva, deputy
spokesman for secretary-general of the UN.
Some Norwich faculty oppose the university program,
including one member who quit in protest in late 1997.
''When I resigned my teaching position at Norwich, I
believed they were profoundly misguided. I am very sorry my predictions were true,'' said
James Chapados, referring to the service of the four Norwich graduates in East Timor.
Schneider said he has no plans to end the program and
thinks that it performs a valuable service. The curriculum, he said, includes a heavy dose
of military ethics.
''We are not claiming that [Norwich graduates] will behave
humanely when they go back, but what we do is talk about human rights, civil rights, and
give them a new way of thinking,'' he said. ''We would take Communist students from Red
China. What better way to teach them that their system is screwed up?''
The Indonesian students now at Norwich did not want to
speak with the media, according to Greene.
The Norwich-Indonesia program was set up after a visit to
Jakarta by Norwich officials who met with Major General Zacky Anwar Makarim and General
A.M. Hendropriyono. The generals, who have been implicated in serious human rights abuses
by Human Rights Watch and have been members of Kopassus, visited the Norwich campus in
fall and winter 1997.
Zacky, as the general is more commonly known, had been head
of BIA Indonesia's national intelligence body until January and spent a large part of his
career in Kopassus, according to Jane's Intelligence Review, a British military journal.
One of the country's most experienced covert operatives, he is generally believed to have
helped set up and organize the militias in each of East Timor's 13 districts.
Zacky was in charge of Indonesian army operations in East
Timor. After meeting with him in Dili in September, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa,
called for the general's resignation. ''He was very hostile toward the referendum,'' said
an aide to Harkin. ''His troops intimidated people and tried to stop them from going to
vote; he was working with the militias.''
The other officer, Hendropriyono, is nicknamed ''The
Butcher of Lampung,'' according to Human Rights Watch. In 1989, he commanded troops that
opened fire on a Muslim school in Lampung province and massacred an estimated 100 people.
Formerly an officer in Kopassus and chief of the Jakarta
Military Command, Hendropriyono was minister for transmigration and resettlement until
Sept. 27.
In that capacity, he oversaw the establishment of camps and
proposed resettlement of some 200,000 East Timorese refugees to various Indonesian
islands.
Schneider said he did not know the generals' backgrounds or
that the students' billing address was Kopassus. But, he said, that information would not
have deterred him from accepting the young men.
Others might find the links more troubling.
Vermont's Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, who has been
particularly vociferous in condemning Indonesian repression, sponsored legislation passed
in 1998 that prohibits assistance or military training to units implicated in human rights
abuses. The ban includes some Kopassus units, Leahy aide Tim Rieser said.
After the postreferendum violence, the United States also
stopped all military cooperation, training, assistance, and commercial arms sales and
pushed the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to suspend loans to Indonesia.
With Norwich receiving federal funds in the form of
financial aid and the Indonesian students receiving military training from US Army
officers through ROTC, the program could be in conflict with US government policy.
''One could argue,'' Rieser said, ''that the US government
is subsidizing the training of future Indonesian soldiers.'' The Norwich program, ''if not
strictly illegal,'' he said, ''may be inconsistent with President Clinton's order ending
cooperation with the Indonesian military.''
This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 10/04/99.
---- Boston Globe Norwich program draws fire
Two lawmakers criticize training of Indonesian recruits
By Terry J. Allen, Globe Correspondent, 10/07/99
NORTHFIELD, Vt. The Department of Defense should
investigate a Norwich University program that trains future members of the Indonesian
military, two members of Congress said this week.
In a letter sent Tuesday, Democratic Representative James
P. McGovern of Massachusetts and Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, called on Defense
Secretary William S. Cohen to identify ''all members of the Indonesian military, including
recruits,'' currently studying in the United States. ''We strongly recommend their
immediate return to Indonesia.''
McGovern said that he was meeting today with National
Security Adviser Sandy Berger on another matter and would take the opportunity to discuss
the training at Norwich.
The Globe reported Monday that 13 Indonesian undergraduates
now at Norwich, a military college in Vermont, are funded by the Indonesian government and
that 11 of the students are linked to that country's elite special forces, Kopassus.
Kopassus has been implicated in human rights abuses, and in the violence that followed
East Timor's vote for independence.
The US government, citing human rights concerns, has told
federally funded military institutions such as West Point to not invite Indonesian
students to enter the classes of 2003 and 2004. Norwich, a private institution, has
continued its program.
The Indonesian students at Norwich are enrolled in ROTC
classes, where their curriculum is dictated by the US Army and their instructors are
active duty officers.
Norwich president Richard W. Schneider defended the
program. ''I still don't have evidence that [the students] will be working with Kopassus''
after they return, he said. The mailing address for 11 of the undergraduates is the
Jakarta headquarters of Kopassus. Graduating students are obligated to serve 10 years in
the Indonesian military.
Schneider said he has not asked the Indonesian embassy or
military about the students' relationship to Kopassus, but he said he did verify with the
ROTC that ''we are in compliance with the law, which does not allow college presidents to
discriminate on who takes ROTC courses. They are basically benign courses,'' he said.
McGovern, who was part of a State Departmentsponsored
congressional mission to Indonesia and East Timor in midSeptember, said the Norwich
program should be eliminated. ''These are foreign nationals bankrolled by an organization
engaged in human rights violations. The school has to have the shades pulled down not to
figure out what is going on here. They aren't there because Vermont is pretty in the fall;
they are there to get training and expertise Norwich provides.''
Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, has also
contacted the White House. ''They are looking at whether Norwich's training of Indonesian
cadets is consistent with the president's decision to end military cooperation with
Indonesia,'' Leahy said. ''They have told me they will have an answer soon.''
Schneider condemned the Indonesian army's record of
repression and its role in East Timor. But he said he believes that the Norwich students
will exert a positive influence when they return there because ''they are well trained in
how to work in a democracy, get ethical and moral training and learn how to relate to
civil society.''
This story ran on page B09 of the Boston Globe on 10/07/99.
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