Restrict U.S. Military Assistance to Indonesia to Promote Human Rights and Reforms, Urge American Rights Groups

Sat, 2006-11-18 16:44
Daya Gamage – US National Correspondent Asian Tribune

Washington, D.C., 18 November (Asiantribune.com): A wide range of U.S. organizations, 53 human rights, labor, religious and peace groups, have urged President Bush "to refrain from promising any military assistance to Indonesia’s armed forces" on his upcoming visit to Indonesia.

Bush is scheduled to be in Indonesia on Monday to meet with his counterpart President Yudhoyono.

Currently, the United States Congress is considering a foreign spending bill for the fiscal year that began October 1 that would provide US $5 million in military aid and US $70 million in economic assistance to Indonesia.

In a letter to Bush, the organizations, all U.S.-based, called "restriction on U.S. assistance to the Indonesian military are essential to promote concrete, demonstrable progress in the areas of military reform, accountability, and respect for human rights in Indonesia and Timor-Leste."

The group urged the president "to maintain the best leverage the U.S. has – withholding prestigious U.S. military assistance, including foreign military financing and training such as IMET and JCET – to demonstrate that the U.S. government’s commitment to these issues goes deeper than words to actual action."

The letter cited ongoing human rights violations, military involvement in illegal businesses and militia, and the “traditional command” system, through which the military operates a shadow government exerting undue influence.

"Indonesia’s human rights courts have proven incapable of bringing Indonesian military and police perpetrators of serious human rights violations to justice," the letter further stated.

The letter was organized by the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN). Among the signatories are Amnesty International, Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Torture Abolition and Survivor Support Coalition International, United for Peace and Justice, Peace Action, Pax Christi USA, School of the Americas Watch, Veterans for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and the West Papua Advocacy Team.

In November 2005, the U.S. Congress agreed to continue restrictions on foreign military financing (FMF) and export of lethal military equipment to Indonesia until human rights and other conditions were met. Two days after the bill became law, the State Department issued a waiver removing these restrictions. Congress had imposed various restrictions on military assistance for Indonesia since 1992.

When issuing the waiver, the State Department pledged that the Bush administration would "carefully calibrate" any assistance to the Indonesian military (TNI), Instead, the administration’s actions have demonstrated a policy of nearly unrestrained engagement with the Indonesian military.

One of the premier American rights group Human Rights First, early this week wrote two letters, one to President Bush and the other to the U.S. Congress, saying that Mr. Bush should ask the Indonesian president about his government’s failure to convict anyone for the fatal poisoning of Munir Said Thalib two years ago.

Munir, a leading human rights lawyer, was fatally poisoned with arsenic on an international flight in September 2004. An off-duty pilot alleged to have links to the state intelligence agency was later convicted of murder, but the charge was reversed in the Supreme Court in October 2006. Others implicated in the crime, including state officials, have never been charged, according to the reports reaching here.

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