U.S. to resume aid to controversial Indonesian army unit

The Obama administration said Thursday that it would resume limited assistance to Indonesia’s special forces, which have been barred from receiving U.S. military aid for more than a decade because of human rights abuses.

The decision probably will face criticism from human rights groups and some members of Congress who contend that human rights violations by the special forces, including their role in a violent crackdown on separatists in East Timor in the late 1990s, have not been thoroughly investigated.

The move comes after months of negotiations with the Indonesian government, which agreed to remove several special forces soldiers convicted of human rights violations and pledged to suspend any troops accused of abuses, senior U.S. Defense officials said.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates informed Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of the decision after arriving in Jakarta on Thursday, the fourth day of an Asia trip.

In a statement to reporters at the presidential palace, Gates emphasized that the U.S. assistance to the unit would be limited and, at least initially, would not involve combat training or other forms of lethal assistance.

“The United States will begin a gradual, limited program of security cooperation activities with the Indonesian Army Special Forces,” Gates said. Resumption of assistance does “not signal any lessening of the importance we place on human rights and accountability,” he said.

But critics probably will focus on whether the commitments by the Indonesian government to address human rights violations go far enough in addressing abuses by the 5,000-member special forces, known by the acronym Kopassus.

Human Rights Watch, for example, had urged the Obama administration not to resume assistance until the Indonesian government took steps, including establishing an ad hoc tribunal to investigate the disappearance of student activists in the late 1990s and permanently discharging all military personnel convicted of human rights violations.

Some soldiers who were convicted or had serious allegations against them have left Kopassus but remain in the armed services, some at senior levels, according to the rights organization.

The rights organization noted in February in a letter to Gates that Lt. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin was implicated in a massacre in East Timor while serving in Kopassus and “has never been subjected to a credible investigation.” He was appointed deputy defense minister in January.

But Pentagon officials argued that the Indonesian government had made strides in cleaning up the special forces and that resuming ties was important because of the central role it plays in Indonesia.

Many top generals in the Indonesian armed forces are drawn from Kopassus, and the unit is deployed overseas in international peacekeeping forces. It also can be called to assist the police with counter-terrorism missions within the country, which has been the target of periodic bombings of hotels and other targets by militant groups.

Gates said that the United States had laid out a path for resuming ties during discussions with Indonesian officials and that all of the U.S. conditions had been met.

One condition was that members of the unit who had been convicted of human rights abuses had to be removed. The U.S. was aware of “fewer than a dozen” such individuals, said a senior defense official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. All of them have been removed from Kopassus, the U.S. officials said, though some may still be in the armed forces.

In its letter to Gates, Human Rights Watch cited the case of Lt. Col. Tri Hartomo, who it said was convicted in 2003 of abuse in the death two years earlier of an activist from Papua, Indonesia’s largest province. After his conviction, Hartomo continued to serve in a senior position in Kopassus, but he was removed this year, the U.S. official said.

Details about what the United States will provide are still being worked out, Gates said. But the aid probably will begin with training in human rights, rule of law and other basic types of assistance, the senior official said. Assistance aimed at improving combat capabilities is not under immediate consideration, he said.

“Our ability to expand on these initial steps will depend on continued implementation of reforms within Kopassus and TNI as a whole,” Gates said. TNI is the Indonesian armed forces.

The United States broke off contact with Kopassus in 1999, after allegations about its role in aiding militias in East Timor that massacred about 1,400 Timorese. In response, Congress passed a law prohibiting assistance unless the recipients had been vetted to ensure they had not committed human rights abuses.

Gates said members of Congress had been briefed on the decision and that “by and large the feedback I’ve gathered is that they thought these limited steps were OK.”

He said the State Department, which is responsible for vetting Indonesian soldiers and had long been seen as more skeptical of the human rights reforms in Indonesia than the Pentagon, had backed a limited resumption of aid.

Pentagon officials said many other special forces soldiers suspected of abuses have left the unit over the last decade as part of an Indonesian effort to improve the professionalization of its armed forces. Under former President Suharto, who was driven from office in 1998 after decades of authoritarian rule, the Indonesian military was often employed to suppress internal opposition.

david.cloud@latimes.com