DENPASAR, Bali - Indonesia's military scored a major victory this week without firing a shot. The re-election of US President George W Bush ensures restoration of full military ties between the US and Indonesia, including millions of dollars in aid, and also ensures that US demands for military reform will remain muted. That's bad news for democracy in Indonesia and the United States' standing in Indonesia in the long run.
In addition to its symbolic value as the world's largest predominantly Muslim country, Indonesia also lies along the strategically vital Strait of Malacca shipping lanes. But the Bush administration has seen Indonesia largely through the prism of its "war on terror", and despite a brief presidential fly-in last year, the administration's policy has mainly been one of neglect (see Bush in Bali: Hello, you must be going, October 29, 2003).
The administration of president Bill Clinton cut off aid to the Indonesian military, known by its Indonesian abbreviation TNI (Tentara Nasional Indonesia), in 1999 after TNI-backed militias, if not army units, killed hundreds in East Timor. However, as part of its declared "war on terrorism", the Bush administration wants to get back into bed with TNI.
Indonesia's then-president Megawati Sukarnoputri's lucky star made her the first foreign leader to visit the White House after September 11, 2001. She secured a promise of increased aid, including funding for the police force that, until 1999, was part of the military. After the Bali bombings of October 2002, the US, its ally Australia, and other countries have stepped up cooperation with the police.
Help, police While the police gained stature for cracking the Bali case (see Police earn 'A', Megawati gets 'F', November 29, 2002), the increased engagement with the West hasn't encouraged deep reform. Endemic corruption has not eased; a police job in Bali requires a gratuity of Rp20 million (US$2,200) despite a salary of Rp500,000 per month. Last month, police stood by as Muslim vigilantes sacked a bar in Jakarta for serving alcohol during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. While the attackers wore the robes of Islam, these attacks are often associated with payoffs or failure to make them.
In his valedictory address at the end of his tenure in Jakarta, US ambassador to Indonesia Ralph Boyce called the failure to reinstitute full military ties as his biggest disappointment. Boyce laid the blame on TNI for failing to reform. The carrot of restored US aid hasn't encouraged TNI to change meaningfully.
It's been a very good four years for the Indonesian military during Bush's watch. TNI remains dominated by henchmen of deposed president Suharto and his autocratic regime. No military officers have been convicted for the atrocities in East Timor, or the murder of Theys Eluay, leader of a peaceful separatist movement in Papua. The war against separatists in resource-rich Aceh in the far western corner of the archipelago grinds on with widespread reports of abuses against civilians, lucrative shakedown opportunities, and no prospect of a political settlement.
Despite giving up its appointed seats in parliament, TNI remains deeply enmeshed in politics. TNI has not scrapped its regional command system of troops posed in the provinces, a remnant of its "dwi fungsi " (dual function) doctrine that put it in charge of internal security. Suharto's last chief of staff, Wiranto, under United Nations indictment for his role in the East Timor killings, won the former ruling party's nomination for the presidency and nearly made it to a runoff against another former general, newly elected President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who appointed Wiranto's successor, retired admiral Widodo A S, as his top minister for political, security and legal affairs.
Play ball Rather than push for reform, the Bush administration has shown it's willing to play ball with the brass in the name of fighting terrorism. Ironically, TNI bears a great deal of the responsibility for unleashing the forces of radical Islam behind Indonesia's most recent terror attacks. The military's support of jihad against Christians in Ambon and central Sulawesi gave Muslim militants legitimacy and a fertile breeding ground. That was part of generals' campaign to destabilize the regime of then-president Abdurrahman Wahid, who threatened real military reform, a campaign that included the 1999 bombing of the Jakarta Stock Exchange Building (see Terrorism links in Indonesia point to military, October 8).
None of that seems to matter to the Bush administration. The US Justice Department has endorsed the indictment of a petty crook for the attack on a convoy of Americans and Indonesians working at the Freeport MacMoRan mine in Papua in 2001, when all signs point to military involvement. (see Terrorism key in US support for Indonesian army, September 23). That incident has been the latest roadblock to resumed military aid. Expect the second Bush administration to fight to sweep this attack under the rug and sweep aside congressional opposition.
Embracing TNI distances the US from the forces of reform and democracy in Indonesia, and carries a double or triple whammy for long-term US interests. The most successful reform party in Indonesia's new parliament is the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), and former president Wahid, a Muslim cleric, remains the leading figure of reform and moderate Islam. Despite its use of Muslim militants to do its dirty work as far back as the mass killing after the 1965 coup that deposed founding president Sukarno in favor of Suharto, TNI is seen as an enemy of Islam in Indonesia.
Low ratings Under Bush, specifically since the invasion of Iraq, favorable impressions of the United States plummeted from 61% to 15%. Even though it has been a victim of Muslim terrorists, Indonesians largely see the "war on terror" as a war on Islam, and the Bush administration's policies in the Middle East, featuring unwavering support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and opposition to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, as well as the occupation of Iraq, are red meat for radical Islam and push Muslim reformers toward anti-Americanism.
Despite Indonesia's strategic and symbolic importance, the Bush administration hasn't made Indonesia a priority. The country's 220 million people in need of economic and political help are likely to continue to take a back seat to Thailand and its Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, with his free-market rhetoric and authoritarian streak, as well as Singapore and even Malaysia, among US favorites in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations group.
The second Bush term may feature a larger role for Paul Wolfowitz, the current deputy secretary of defense. Wolfowitz was a respected ambassador to Indonesia in the 1980s, though that may have had to do with his then-wife, a student of Javanese culture. Despite its lip service to building bridges to the Islamic world and the vital plank Indonesia could play in it, Wolfowitz has never traveled to Indonesia as an emissary of goodwill. In fact, he's one of the architects of the Iraq invasion that has destroyed US standing in Indonesia. The Bush administration's neglect of the past four years could wind up looking good compared with the four years ahead.
Gary LaMoshi, a longtime editor of investor rights advocate eRaider.com, has also contributed to Slate and Salon.com. He has worked as a broadcast producer and as a print writer and editor in the United States and Asia. He moved to Hong Kong in 1995 and now splits his time between there and Indonesia.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
US lifts ban on sale of lethal arms to Indonesia By Jim Lobe
Apr 1, 2006
WASHINGTON - Moving with unusual speed, the administration of US President George W Bush officially normalized military relations with Indonesia on Wednesday when the State Department posted a formal notice permitting the sale of lethal military equipment to Jakarta for the first time in seven years.
The announcement in the Federal Register came just two weeks after Condoleezza Rice made her maiden visit as US secretary of state to the Indonesian capital, where she called for closer ties with the military as part of an expanded "strategic partnership" with the sprawling Southeast Asian nation of more than 200 million people.
It also follows the State Department's announcement last November that it intended to waive congressionally imposed human-rights conditions on military aid and sales to Indonesia in appreciation of Jakarta's "unique strategic role in Southeast Asia".
"This marks the final legal step to open up the arms flow to the Indonesian military," John Miller, director of the East Timor and Indonesian Action Network (ETAN), said of the Federal Register notice. "It remains for Indonesia to draw up a shopping list of items they want to buy."
ETAN, along with several other major rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, has strongly opposed the restoration of full military ties with Indonesia until the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono makes much greater progress in asserting control over the country's armed forces (TNI) and prosecuting officers responsible for serious abuses, particularly in East Timor.
They have argued that normalizing military relations now gives the army a "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" that will in effect encourage it to resist reforms that would make it more accountable to civilian authority and improve its human-rights practices.
"The thing about the renewal of the military relationship is that it gives a political boost to the army and makes it more likely that they will stave off pressure for reforms," said Daniel Lev, an Indonesia expert at the University of Washington in Seattle. Yudhoyono, he said, "is pushing very hard for reforms, but none really has to do with the army, which is the core of the problem".
The US Congress first imposed military-related sanctions against the TNI in 1991 after a widely reported massacre against unarmed protesters in East Timor, a province that had been invaded and subsequently annexed by Suharto's New Order regime in the mid-1970s. Over the next eight years, Congress gradually added restrictions on the military-to-military relations because of evidence that the army's human-rights performance had not improved.
In August 1999, the TNI and TNI-backed militias went on a deadly and destructive rampage in East Timor after its inhabitants voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence in a United Nations-backed plebiscite. Congress responded by severing virtually all military ties, making their restoration conditional on a number of mostly rights-related reforms, including the prosecution and punishment of those responsible for the mayhem in East Timor.
But the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, changed the mood in Washington. The Bush administration began pressing Congress to exempt from the ban certain kinds of military assistance, such as "anti-terrorist" training and equipment, joint military maneuvers, and the supply of some "non-lethal" military equipment.
This was despite overwhelming evidence that the TNI was not only refusing to cooperate in efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of the East Timor violence, but was also engaged in serious abuses on other islands, including Aceh, West Papua, and the Malukus.
After the tsunami disaster of December 2004, the administration accelerated the pace toward normalization. In February, it lifted the ban on Indonesia's participation in its International Military Education Training (IMET) program and in May, it exempted from the ban on military sales certain kinds of "non-lethal" military equipment.
Congress nonetheless remained skeptical and last November extended the ban on certain kinds of financing for military equipment and training and on licenses for the export of "lethal" military equipment until the secretary of state could certify that three conditions are being met by Jakarta and the TNI.
They included the prosecution and punishment of TNI members "who have been credibly alleged to have committed gross violations of human rights"; cooperation by the TNI with civilian judicial authorities and international efforts to resolve gross abuses in East Timor and elsewhere; and implementation of reforms "to improve civilian control of the military".
The bill, however, also provided that the administration could waive these conditions in the interests of "national security". Unable to certify that Jakarta was indeed meeting these conditions, the State Department decided to waive them in late November, although in doing so, it stressed that it remained "committed" to the fulfillment of Congress' conditions and would only approve sales of "lethal equipment" on a "case-by-case basis". The latter assurance was included in the Federal Register's announcement on Wednesday.
Between November and this week, however, Washington made no secret of its eagerness to normalize ties fully despite the emergence of new evidence in January that the TNI had been involved in the murders of two US teachers in Papua in 2002.
In its budget request for 2007, the State Department increased Indonesia's IMET allocation by 50% and asked Congress to approve more than US$6 million dollars to aid Indonesia's purchases of military equipment - a nearly sevenfold increase over the previous year.
At the same time, Admiral William Fallon, commander of the US Pacific Command, publicly urged a "rapid, concerted infusion of assistance" to the Indonesian military.
Washington's major strategic interests in Indonesia relate to its status as, in the words of the State Department, "the world's most populous majority-Muslim nation" and "a voice of moderation in the Islamic world" at a time when Washington is engaged in its "global war on terror" against radical Islamists. In addition, its proximity to and control over some of the world's most important sea lanes has long given it a special cachet with the United States.
Indonesia has also long been seen as a potential ally in US efforts to "contain" China in Asia and the Pacific, a theme that dominated Rice's tour in the region this month, which climaxed in a meeting with her Australian and Japanese counterparts.
The Pentagon reportedly is most eager to upgrade Indonesia's maritime forces to help it secure the strategic sea lanes against potential threats, which include piracy, terrorist operations, and, presumably, China's efforts to build a blue-ocean navy. In addition, Indonesia's navy is considered the least problematic of the country's armed forces from a human-rights perspective.
The TNI, according to analysts, has placed a higher priority on upgrading and securing spare parts for its fleet of aging fleet of warplanes, some of which have been used for counter-insurgency operations.
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