Asad Ismi: Indonesia in Crisis

The sniper's bullet ripped through Hafidhin Royan's head, killing him instantly.Elang Mulya was shot in the chest and Hery Hartano in the back. Henriawan was running when bullets hit his back and neck. He was able to reach a flag pole in the centre of the campus before dying. The four students were among six killed by Indonesian security forces at Trisakti University in Jakarta on May 12. The killings ignited massive riots which caused 1,200 deaths and led to the resignation of General Suharto, Asia's longest serving, most brutal and corrupt dictator. Suharto ruled Indonesia for 33 years.

Police were blamed for the shootings but police officials have denied issuing live ammunition. Several Indonesian sources suspect the U.S.-trained Indonesian Army Special Forces called KOPASSUS Red Berets, of being behind the murders because of the skill required to carry them out. According to Marzuki Darusman of the official National Commission on Human Rights, "This was not an unfortunate action. The high degree of skill ... and sophisticated weaponry indicates only certain units which have that." A Western diplomat added: "It was not a sudden burst of fire. It was slow, deliberate fire for over an hour.... You're talking about targeting -that accounts for the high number of kills for the number of wounded." Almost all of those killed and wounded were shot in the chest, neck, head or back, indicating that the shootings were not random.

TRAINED KILLERS

Amnesty International holds KOPASSUS "responsible for some of the worst [human rights] violations in Indonesia's history." According to journalist Allan Nairn, KOPASSUS is "legendary for specializing in torture, disappearances and night raids on civilian homes." In Jakarta,the unit was used to contain street demonstrations since March. KOPASSUS has been the main recipient of special U.S. training. Pentagon documents reveal that 20 of the 28 joint U.S.-Indonesian Army/Air Force exercises carried out since 1992 have involved KOPASSUS. U.S. exercises for KOPASSUS have included Sniper Level II, Advanced Sniper Techniques, Close Quarters Combat, Psychological Operations, Special Air Ops, and Air Assaults. From July 1996 to late 1997, there were eight KOPASSUS exercises.

The U.S. emphasis on KOPASSUS appears to be part of an effort to build it up. In 1997, with U.S. support, KOPASSUS was expanded from 3,000 to 4,800 men. This was done "with an eye on potential domestic instability," according to Colonel John Haseman, former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) attache in Jakarta. In January 1998, William Cohen, U.S. Secretary of Defense, praised the "very impressive...discipline" of KOPASSUS and during his visit to Jakarta the same month, refused to advocate restraint for the armed forces. "I am not going to give him [Suharto] guidance in terms of what he should or should not do in terms of maintaining control of his country," Cohen said. Indonesian officials stated tha they took Cohen's visit as a "green light" to crack down on dissent.

In a March 18, 1998 letter to President Clinton, Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia's leading dissident, pointed out that "military training from the United States directly undermines the democratic movement in Indonesia." She asked: "In view of the fact that Indonesia has no significant external security threats ... who in the view of the U.S. government is the target or enemy for this specialized training?" Street demonstrations were the only way for the Indonesian people to express their democratic aspirations and it was government policy to meet such protests with force. In this context, according to Sukarnoputri, "Psy Ops, urban terrain training, and sniper training all play a key role in suppressing the people."

Sukarnoputri also mentioned that the U.S. military training was "secret." In 1992, the U.S. Congress banned funding for the training of the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) under the International Military Education and Training Program (IMET). But unknown to Congress, the Pentagon circumvented the ban and continued the training under the Joint Combined Exchange Training Program (JCET), which "dwarfs IMET in size and scope." When Allan Nairn exposed the JCET program in March, many Congress members were outraged. On May 8, the Pentagon suspended the exercises to forestall the cancellation of JCET by Congress.

DEATH LIST

The U.S. has backed ABRI's rule-by-massacre for 33 years. This help has included military aid and training as well as diplomatic and intelligence support. As the head of the Army Strategic Command (KOSTRAD), Suharto came to power in a military coup in October 1965. He overthrew Sukarno (Megawati's father), the elected founder of independent Indonesia, and massacred up to a million people in six months. The New York Times called this "one of the most savage mass slaughters in modern political history." The U.S. trained and armed the military and provided it with the names of 5,000 supposed Communists. These people were hunted down and killed by the army.

Robert Martens, a former member of the U.S.Embassy in Jakarta, remarked in 1990: "It really was a big help to the army. They probably killed a lot of people and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that's not all bad. There's a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment." The killing began with the advice of "U.S. government agents," teams of whom "were on the job through all of it." Former CIA operative Ralph McGehee, who was involved with the Indonesian operation, called the coup and massacre "a CIA operation." According to him, a secret CIA study declared the operation a success and recommended it as a model for future interventions.

The massacre was aimed at eliminating the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) which had three million members and was in a coalition government with Sukarno. The U.S. also wanted to get rid of Sukarno due to the independent,nationalist nature of his regime.The CIA had launched an unsuccessful military coup against the Indonesian president in 1958. In April 1962, according to a CIA memo,U.S. President Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan met and "agreed to liquidate President Sukarno,depending on the situation and available opportunities." The CIA officer who wrote the memo, noted: "it is not clear to me whether murder or overthrow is intended by the word liquidate."

In 1975, the Indonesian Army invaded East Timor killing 200,000 Timorese out of a population of 600,000 - the greatest genocide (on a per capita basis) since that carried out by Hitler. The U.S.approved the invasion and prevented the U.N. Security Council from acting. Between 1983 and 1985, an estimated 3,500 to 4,500 people were murdered by army death squads in all of Indonesia. By 1991, up to 5,000 people had been killed or disappeared in Aceh province alone. In November of that year, Indonesian forces gunned down 270 peaceful demonstrators in Dili, the capital of East Timor. Following this, the U.S. helped ABRI with "damage control" and assured it that Washington did "not believe that friends should abandon friends in times of adversity."

The U.S. supported Suharto till the end, and today continues to back the Indonesian Army's murderous reign. Washington now hopes for a political arrangement dominated by the armed forces led by General Wiranto who is also the Defense Minister. The snipers who killed the six students were under Wiranto's command. The general threatened the students demonstrating against Suharto with a "Tiananmen." Under Wiranto, the ABRI intelligence unit, BIA (which coordinates daily with the U.S. DIA) is responsible for the disappearance of more than a dozen activists (since January), some of whom have been tortured. Yet the U.S. State Department has told opposition groups that ABRI should form the "core of a new government" and that the opposition should compromise with the Army. Admiral Prueher, Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, has called Wiranto, "a man of integrity and a true Asian patriot." As one official put it, "It's simple. The U.S. is close to and loves the army."

OIL AND GOLD

Such consistent devotion to the military can be explained by the U.S.' economic stake in Indonesia. As one observer put it, "Washington's primary interest [in Indonesia] is economic stability and ensuring a secure environment for U.S. investments." Rich in natural resources (Indonesia contains the world's largest deposits of natural gas and its purest oil) and as the fourth most populous country (209 million) with a huge supply of cheap labour, Indonesia has long been as an economic prize. One-third of the world's commerce passes through its strategically important sea lanes, including the oil that Japan, Korea and China depend on.

U.S. companies have invested $9 billion (U.S.) in Indonesia. They include Freeport McMoRan, General Motors, General Electric,AT&T, Unocal, Goodyear, Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), Mobil,DuPont, Nike, Merrill Lynch and McDonald's. Many U.S. companies, like other multinationals, have made deals with the Suharto family and other members of the military elite which dominates the economy. ARCO, for instance,is building a pipeline with Suharto's son Bambang, who owns 49 percent of the venture.

Through such agreements Suharto and his family have acquired assets worth $56 billion, almost half the gross national product. In turn, U.S. multinationals are free to exploit Indonesians and wreck the environment with the Indonesian government's approval. Nike employs 14-year-olds at 90c a day. The right to strike and form unions is severely restricted and workers and labour activists have been tortured, raped and killed by the military. Freeport McMoRan, which operates the world's largest gold mine and third largest copper
mine in Irian Jaya, has cut the top 500 feet off Puncuk Jaya Mountain. Freeport dumps more than 100,000 tons of waste rock a day into mountain rivers, killing the fish that indigenous people downstream depend on for sustenance. Freeport has also been accused of dumping toxic waste into rivers.

When the Amungme and Komoro people protested Freeport's actions, many of them were beaten, tortured and killed by ABRI. This pattern has been repeated all over Indonesia with local communities contesting pillage of their resources and pollution of their lands and water by multinational mining, oil and timber companies operating with the Indonesian military's protection. According to Fortune magazine, U.S. companies in Indonesia (just like the U.S. government) look to ABRI for stability. Fortune described ABRI admiringly as "this highly versatile, disciplined force."

Some U.S. executives are also positive about B.J. Habibie, the new President, who, they think, will be good for American business.Habibie is a Suharto protege and similarly corrupt. He runs a family corporate empire with its own "preferred relationships with foreign companies and many cross-shareholdings with ... companies controlled by the Suharto family." A U.S. corporate consultant said about Habibie: "He's tight with Boeing, he's tight with General Electric."

Published in:

Briarpatch, September 1998

CCPA Monitor, April 1999
www.policyalternatives.ca


	Indonesia in Crisis: Washington's Blood Money has Propped Up the Military Dictatorship for 33 Years

The sniper's bullet ripped through Hafidhin Royan's head, killing him instantly.Elang Mulya was shot in the chest and Hery Hartano in the back. Henriawan was running when bullets hit his back and neck. He was able to reach a flag pole in the centre of the campus before dying. The four students were among six killed by Indonesian security forces at Trisakti University in Jakarta on May 12. The killings ignited massive riots which caused 1,200 deaths and led to the resignation of General Suharto, Asia's longest serving, most brutal and corrupt dictator. Suharto ruled Indonesia for 33 years. Police were blamed for the shootings but police officials have denied issuing live ammunition. Several Indonesian sources suspect the U.S.-trained Indonesian Army Special Forces called KOPASSUS Red Berets, of being behind the murders because of the skill required to carry them out. According to Marzuki Darusman of the official National Commission on Human Rights, "This was not an unfortunate action. The high degree of skill ... and sophisticated weaponry indicates only certain units which have that." A Western diplomat added: "It was not a sudden burst of fire. It was slow, deliberate fire for over an hour.... You're talking about targeting -that accounts for the high number of kills for the number of wounded." Almost all of those killed and wounded were shot in the chest, neck, head or back, indicating that the shootings were not random. TRAINED KILLERS Amnesty International holds KOPASSUS "responsible for some of the worst [human rights] violations in Indonesia's history." According to journalist Allan Nairn, KOPASSUS is "legendary for specializing in torture, disappearances and night raids on civilian homes." In Jakarta,the unit was used to contain street demonstrations since March. KOPASSUS has been the main recipient of special U.S. training. Pentagon documents reveal that 20 of the 28 joint U.S.-Indonesian Army/Air Force exercises carried out since 1992 have involved KOPASSUS. U.S. exercises for KOPASSUS have included Sniper Level II, Advanced Sniper Techniques, Close Quarters Combat, Psychological Operations, Special Air Ops, and Air Assaults. From July 1996 to late 1997, there were eight KOPASSUS exercises. The U.S. emphasis on KOPASSUS appears to be part of an effort to build it up. In 1997, with U.S. support, KOPASSUS was expanded from 3,000 to 4,800 men. This was done "with an eye on potential domestic instability," according to Colonel John Haseman, former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) attache in Jakarta. In January 1998, William Cohen, U.S. Secretary of Defense, praised the "very impressive...discipline" of KOPASSUS and during his visit to Jakarta the same month, refused to advocate restraint for the armed forces. "I am not going to give him [Suharto] guidance in terms of what he should or should not do in terms of maintaining control of his country," Cohen said. Indonesian officials stated tha they took Cohen's visit as a "green light" to crack down on dissent. In a March 18, 1998 letter to President Clinton, Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia's leading dissident, pointed out that "military training from the United States directly undermines the democratic movement in Indonesia." She asked: "In view of the fact that Indonesia has no significant external security threats ... who in the view of the U.S. government is the target or enemy for this specialized training?" Street demonstrations were the only way for the Indonesian people to express their democratic aspirations and it was government policy to meet such protests with force. In this context, according to Sukarnoputri, "Psy Ops, urban terrain training, and sniper training all play a key role in suppressing the people." Sukarnoputri also mentioned that the U.S. military training was "secret." In 1992, the U.S. Congress banned funding for the training of the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) under the International Military Education and Training Program (IMET). But unknown to Congress, the Pentagon circumvented the ban and continued the training under the Joint Combined Exchange Training Program (JCET), which "dwarfs IMET in size and scope." When Allan Nairn exposed the JCET program in March, many Congress members were outraged. On May 8, the Pentagon suspended the exercises to forestall the cancellation of JCET by Congress. DEATH LIST The U.S. has backed ABRI's rule-by-massacre for 33 years. This help has included military aid and training as well as diplomatic and intelligence support. As the head of the Army Strategic Command (KOSTRAD), Suharto came to power in a military coup in October 1965. He overthrew Sukarno (Megawati's father), the elected founder of independent Indonesia, and massacred up to a million people in six months. The New York Times called this "one of the most savage mass slaughters in modern political history." The U.S. trained and armed the military and provided it with the names of 5,000 supposed Communists. These people were hunted down and killed by the army. Robert Martens, a former member of the U.S.Embassy in Jakarta, remarked in 1990: "It really was a big help to the army. They probably killed a lot of people and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that's not all bad. There's a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment." The killing began with the advice of "U.S. government agents," teams of whom "were on the job through all of it." Former CIA operative Ralph McGehee, who was involved with the Indonesian operation, called the coup and massacre "a CIA operation." According to him, a secret CIA study declared the operation a success and recommended it as a model for future interventions. The massacre was aimed at eliminating the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) which had three million members and was in a coalition government with Sukarno. The U.S. also wanted to get rid of Sukarno due to the independent,nationalist nature of his regime.The CIA had launched an unsuccessful military coup against the Indonesian president in 1958. In April 1962, according to a CIA memo,U.S. President Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan met and "agreed to liquidate President Sukarno,depending on the situation and available opportunities." The CIA officer who wrote the memo, noted: "it is not clear to me whether murder or overthrow is intended by the word liquidate." In 1975, the Indonesian Army invaded East Timor killing 200,000 Timorese out of a population of 600,000 - the greatest genocide (on a per capita basis) since that carried out by Hitler. The U.S.approved the invasion and prevented the U.N. Security Council from acting. Between 1983 and 1985, an estimated 3,500 to 4,500 people were murdered by army death squads in all of Indonesia. By 1991, up to 5,000 people had been killed or disappeared in Aceh province alone. In November of that year, Indonesian forces gunned down 270 peaceful demonstrators in Dili, the capital of East Timor. Following this, the U.S. helped ABRI with "damage control" and assured it that Washington did "not believe that friends should abandon friends in times of adversity." The U.S. supported Suharto till the end, and today continues to back the Indonesian Army's murderous reign. Washington now hopes for a political arrangement dominated by the armed forces led by General Wiranto who is also the Defense Minister. The snipers who killed the six students were under Wiranto's command. The general threatened the students demonstrating against Suharto with a "Tiananmen." Under Wiranto, the ABRI intelligence unit, BIA (which coordinates daily with the U.S. DIA) is responsible for the disappearance of more than a dozen activists (since January), some of whom have been tortured. Yet the U.S. State Department has told opposition groups that ABRI should form the "core of a new government" and that the opposition should compromise with the Army. Admiral Prueher, Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, has called Wiranto, "a man of integrity and a true Asian patriot." As one official put it, "It's simple. The U.S. is close to and loves the army." OIL AND GOLD Such consistent devotion to the military can be explained by the U.S.' economic stake in Indonesia. As one observer put it, "Washington's primary interest [in Indonesia] is economic stability and ensuring a secure environment for U.S. investments." Rich in natural resources (Indonesia contains the world's largest deposits of natural gas and its purest oil) and as the fourth most populous country (209 million) with a huge supply of cheap labour, Indonesia has long been as an economic prize. One-third of the world's commerce passes through its strategically important sea lanes, including the oil that Japan, Korea and China depend on. U.S. companies have invested $9 billion (U.S.) in Indonesia. They include Freeport McMoRan, General Motors, General Electric,AT&T, Unocal, Goodyear, Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), Mobil,DuPont, Nike, Merrill Lynch and McDonald's. Many U.S. companies, like other multinationals, have made deals with the Suharto family and other members of the military elite which dominates the economy. ARCO, for instance,is building a pipeline with Suharto's son Bambang, who owns 49 percent of the venture. Through such agreements Suharto and his family have acquired assets worth $56 billion, almost half the gross national product. In turn, U.S. multinationals are free to exploit Indonesians and wreck the environment with the Indonesian government's approval. Nike employs 14-year-olds at 90c a day. The right to strike and form unions is severely restricted and workers and labour activists have been tortured, raped and killed by the military. Freeport McMoRan, which operates the world's largest gold mine and third largest copper mine in Irian Jaya, has cut the top 500 feet off Puncuk Jaya Mountain. Freeport dumps more than 100,000 tons of waste rock a day into mountain rivers, killing the fish that indigenous people downstream depend on for sustenance. Freeport has also been accused of dumping toxic waste into rivers. When the Amungme and Komoro people protested Freeport's actions, many of them were beaten, tortured and killed by ABRI. This pattern has been repeated all over Indonesia with local communities contesting pillage of their resources and pollution of their lands and water by multinational mining, oil and timber companies operating with the Indonesian military's protection. According to Fortune magazine, U.S. companies in Indonesia (just like the U.S. government) look to ABRI for stability. Fortune described ABRI admiringly as "this highly versatile, disciplined force." Some U.S. executives are also positive about B.J. Habibie, the new President, who, they think, will be good for American business.Habibie is a Suharto protege and similarly corrupt. He runs a family corporate empire with its own "preferred relationships with foreign companies and many cross-shareholdings with ... companies controlled by the Suharto family." A U.S. corporate consultant said about Habibie: "He's tight with Boeing, he's tight with General Electric." Published in: Briarpatch, September 1998 CCPA Monitor, April 1999 www.policyalternatives.ca

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