U.S. and Indonesia Resume Military Ties

The United States has resumed military contacts with Indonesia to try to foster reform, the State Department said Wednesday, less than a year after Washington suspended the ties over violence in East Timor.

Indonesian air force officers observed U.S. military exercises in Thailand this month, and Washington has authorized participation by Indonesian air force and navy personnel in a disaster relief exercise in July, U.S. officials said.

“The Indonesian government has demonstrated its interest in pursuing reform, including in the military area, where it has moved to establish civilian control over the military and accountability for the military abuses in East Timor and throughout Indonesia,” said Philip T. Reeker, a State Department spokesman.

Washington froze military ties with Indonesia in September after hundreds were killed in massacres in East Timor after the territory voted overwhelmingly Aug. 30 for independence from Indonesia. The former chief of the Indonesian armed forces, Gen. Wiranto, is under investigation for failing to rein in several army units in East Timor.

Reeker and other U.S. officials, however, dismissed a report in Wednesday’s New York Times that the two exercises were a prelude to large-scale military cooperation.

He did say, however, that U.S. officials “have been looking at ways to encourage this positive change in the Indonesian military.”

The U.S. had close ties with the Indonesian military for decades. But those ties soured in the waning years of President Suharto’s 32-year rule, which ended in May 1998 amid mass protests and civil unrest.