Prepared Statement of Allan Nairn
US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Human Rights
May 11, 2000
Aceh
West Kalimantan
TNI Tactics
CARAT (upcoming U.S.-Indonesia military exercise)
Police Training
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is Allan Nairn.
Last fall I testified before this committee after witnessing the final
days of the physical destruction of East Timor by the Indonesian armed
forces (TNI). I recently returned to a free East Timor, and also managed
to enter Indonesia and examine military operations in the rural zones.
The Indonesian military and security forces are now politically
discredited, and the movement against them -- that began in the streets --
has now reached the Jakarta elites. Freedom and democracy are now within
realistic reach in Indonesia, but only if the illegitimate power of the
armed and security forces can be broken. The key determining factors in
this struggle will be continued protest on the ground and action by the US
Congress to maintain and strengthen the current military aid ban.
Pro-democracy action will have to come from Congress, though, because
the Clinton administration is now attempting to shore up the politically
fading TNI. Unbeknownst to the public and to many in Congress they are
looking for ways to aid a military that still pursues a policy of terror
against civilians.
In Aceh, where I visited, the Army and National
Police (POLRI) [backed by the Air Force and Navy], are sweeping through
rural villages, sometimes killing civilians at a rate of three to six per
day. Some of the units leading this campaign, including the POLRI's Gegana
and BRIMOB have now been slated for new lethal training from Washington.
In several areas, including West Kalimantan,
where I also was, military and police intelligence have been stirring and
exacerbating ethnic fighting. Near one town I visited, the POLRI were
actually handing out a printed hit list of eight individuals who were
being hunted by a lynch mob of armed young men who had seized the town.
The police stood back and watched as they burned buses and ran wild. Local
residents said that this was a common occurrence in the zone.
These tactics are consistent with the policy
enunciated in secret TNI documents recently left behind after the TNI quit
East Timor. The documents,
many recovered by Yayasan Hak, the Timorese human rights group, include a
covert operations manual for the notorious Kopassus red berets. This
classified manual (Buku Petunjuk tentang Sandi Yudha TNI AD, Nomor
43-B-01; issued June 30, 1999) states that Kopassus personnel are to be
prepared in the "tactic and technique" of "terror" and
"kidnapping." It is signed and authorized by numerous senior
officers including Gen. Johny Lumintang, the longtime US protégé touted
by the State Department as a "moderate," who was recently served
with a crimes against humanity lawsuit
shortly after attending a gathering at the US National Defense
University (After the suit was filed, US Ambassador Gelbard expressed
regret and praised Gen. Lumintang as a "friend" of the United
States). The Kopassus manual meshes with other recovered documents which
make it clear that violence against civilians is still a core doctrine of
TNI.
Yet, despite this, the administration is now trying to move on several
fronts to restore material US support for the Indonesian armed forces.
Unbeknownst to the public and to many in Congress
the administration is now going forward with plans to stage a CARAT
(Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training) military exercise with the TNI
this summer. CARAT is a large scale exercise involving Navy, Marines, and
other forces that stages simulated amphibious invasions of Indonesian
islands. According to a Pentagon memo ("Response to Congressman Lane
Evans et. al," July 15, 1998) previous CARATs have included
"Amphibious landing, patrolling, live fire cross training, parachute
training, fast rope, small boat ops, reconnaissance surveillance, [and]
raids."
The 1998 CARAT was cancelled after the Congressional uproar over JCET
(Joint Combined Exchange Training), the program under which the US taught
urban warfare and sniper technique in circumvention of the congressional
ban on US military training for Indonesia.
But last year, in 1999, as the Timor terror built toward a climax, the
Pentagon went ahead with another CARAT just before the independence vote
(CARAT was August 11-25. The vote was on August 30.). Not only, by this
timing, did the US reaffirm faith in TNI at the crucial moment, but it
also explicitly prepared Indonesian officers who immediately after CARAT
went straight into East Timor for the final weeks of the terror campaign.
One of these officers, Lt. Col. (later Col.) Willem, helped coordinate
the Indonesian naval forces in CARAT and then went to Dili where he served
as a senior official in KOREM military headquarters, the very base from
which the Aitarak militias staged their terror raids during late
September. I saw this first hand since I was a prisoner in KOREM and was
interrogated by Col Willem, who , since his Timor stint, has been promoted
to head the personal staff of Admiral Widodo, the new national TNI
commander.
If the Pentagon and TNI hold another CARAT this summer they will not
have missed a beat Exercise in August, 1999. Move on to destroy East
Timor. Then exercise again in summer 2000, as if nothing untoward had
happened.
In addition to CARAT the administration has also approved TNI
attendance at a US-Thai exercise, Cobra Gold, that is underway right now
(May 9-23). In the recent past, according to the Pentagon's Asia-Pacific
Defense FORUM (Spring, 1998 issue) Cobra Gold has involved "combined
air assault," "combined amphibious assault," infantry
insertion, "unconventional warfare," "weapons training,
[and] camouflage techniques," simulated "guerrilla" bases,
"direct action, special reconnaissance, foreign internal defense and
counter terrorism."
If Congress lets the administration get away with this attempt to shore
up the TNI, they then intend to move forward with a multi-phased plan to
restore other types of aid.
On another bureaucratic track, the U.S. Embassy in
Jakarta, the CIA and other agencies are already planning new lethal
training for the POLRI, including their notorious Gegana and BRIMOB
special units. The Police were an integral part of the Timor terror. They
took the lead in the mass abductions. And they are at the forefront of the
sweeps killing civilians in Aceh. A 1999 US Marine Corps intelligence
seminar (The Indonesia Joint Cultural Intelligence Seminar, Wargaming
Division, Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. Seminar held January 14,
1999) concluded that "The Indonesian Police Force is one of the most
disliked/hated organizations in the country -- on a daily basis the Police
are the most visible instrument of government oppression." The
categorized the POLRI as being among the "Groups to Avoid" in
Indonesia.
Yet POLRI documents indicate that the Police have in the recent past
received training from the FBI and other US agencies in topics including
"explosive incident and counter measures." Now the
administration is privately planning to resume police counter-terrorism
training with a specific eye to what Ambassador Gelbard has called Muslim
extremists in Aceh.
Since there is little dispute that POLRI kills civilians for political
ends -- and since such a use of violence is, of course, the definition of
terrorism -- the Clinton administration is now, in effect, planning to
train terrorists in anti-terrorism. These are lethal skills that up to now
have been applied not to defend civilians but rather to abduct and kill
them if the military and police do not like their views.
Note: For those without a fax application on their computer - CallCenter
V3.5.8, is a Native 32-bit Voice Telephony software application integrated with fax and
data communications... and it's free of charge! Download from http://www.v3inc.com/ |