A-Infos (en) Chaos Tests Ties to the Pentagon

[Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>]

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                 CHAOS TESTS TIES TO THE PENTAGON
_________________________________________________________________
 
     Despite Recent Access, U.S. Now Lacks Window on Strife in
     Indonesian Army
 
     THE WASHINGTON POST
     Friday, May 15, 1998; Page A01
     By Dana Priest
     Washington Post Staff Writer
     http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-05/15/
 
     JAKARTA, Indonesia, May 14 -- For five years the U.S.
military has sent a continual parade of generals and teams of
elite troops to Indonesia in an effort to gain access and
influence within the insular military forces that dominate the
world's fourth-most populous country.
   
     As a result, the U.S. military now has more contact with the
Indonesian armed forces than with any other in Asia, except South
Korea's. Despite a congressional ban on some military aid, U.S.
Special Forces have been scheduled this year to conduct nearly
monthly training exercises with Indonesian units. Top U.S.
officers boast a network of contacts cultivated at the highest
levels of the Indonesian officer corps.
   
     But as the country has erupted into chaos, the U.S.
military, despite its investment here, has been shut out from the
inner workings of the armed forces, including a possible power
struggle that could divide the 400,000-troop force.
   
     Today, as Indonesian military leaders were closeted at
Cilankap, their headquarters, hashing out what could be a new
military coordinating body with martial law powers, the U.S.
Defense Department postponed a mission by Adm. Joseph Prueher,
commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Command. The trip was put
off on the recommendation of U.S. Ambassador Stapleton Roy, in
part, officials in Washington said, because the unrest has made
the drive from the Jakarta airport hazardous.
   
     Prueher, who is based at the command headquarters in
Honolulu and has made numerous trips here, was to meet with armed
forces chief Gen. Wiranto and Lt. Gen. Prabowo Subianto, another
military leader seen as his rival, and tell them that world
opinion would not support the use of lethal force by the military
against demonstrators. He would not, however, advocate that the
military leadership abandon President Suharto, defense officials
said.
   
     During the past week, amid congressional criticism, the
Pentagon has ordered the postponement of a training mission here
and announced other moves to scale back contacts between the two
military forces. But senior defense sources said Prueher views
the suspension of the U.S. training as a temporary measure and
has told Wiranto that he wants to continue it when the situation
calms and Indonesian troops are not in the streets confronting
students.
   
     "It is important to maintain military-to-military contacts,"
Prueher said in an interview last week, the day after the
suspension of the training exercises, a jumpmaster program that
would have involved 50 U.S. Army Special Forces troops over a
month. "Indonesia is important to the United States, and it is in
our interest that Indonesia gets through this."
   
     Despite congressional bans on small-arms sales and on
certain U.S. military education programs that allow foreign
officers to attend military schools in the United States, the
Defense Department's in-country training program has grown
steadily since 1992, when 10-man U.S. Special Forces detachments
made three trips to Indonesia to train troops in close-quarters
combat. This year 10 training exercises were planned and four had
already taken place when the jumpmaster course was cut short.
   
     The training, which would cost $3.5 million this year, has
included basic infantry skills, rapid rappelling from
helicopters, conducting amphibious assaults, blowing up buildings
and raiding enemy-controlled territory, and detailed instruction
on how U.S. Special Forces plan their missions.
   
     U.S. military officers involved in the program counter
congressional criticism by saying the training is a way to
maintain access in a place where it is hard to come by, and to
expose Indonesian soldiers and officers to U.S. values, such as
respect for human rights and civilian control of the military.
   
     "My take is, if you don't talk, you're guaranteed to achieve
zip," Brig. Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, commander of U.S. Special
Operations in the Pacific Command, said in an interview last
week.
   
     Similar reasoning has been behind U.S. military relations
with a succession of foreign armed forces, in countries such as
El Salvador, with poor human rights records and dubious
commitments to democratic reform. In some cases, U.S. military
officials have discovered that they ultimately have less
influence than they believed, with their allied officers fighting
internal enemies.
   
     The stakes in Indonesia are seen as especially large because
of the dominant role of the military here. The armed forces,
while relatively small for a country of more than 200 million
people, hold seats in parliament, own sectors of the economy and
act as the internal security force.
   
     Because of this, "our military-to-military relationship in
this region goes beyond the traditional military-to-military
relationship," said a senior U.S. defense official.
   
     In January, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen visited
Suharto in Jakarta to discuss expanding security ties in what
aides said then was intended as a gesture of support. At the
time, Cohen focused on talk of continuity and stability in
military relations rather than on the financial and political
crisis.
   
     The Indonesian military has been accused of serious human
rights violations, including mass killings in East Timor, an
island Indonesia occupied in 1975. They have been accused by
human rights groups of kidnapping and killing suspected
insurgents and their supporters in three outlying regions and of
detaining and torturing political dissidents.
   
     Most U.S. training has been conducted by the Special Forces,
the most elite units in the U.S. armed forces, with their
counterparts in an elite Indonesian unit known as Kopassus, which
until March was commanded by Prabowo. Although among the most
highly trained and disciplined in the country, they have been
accused of serious human rights violations, charges Prabowo has
denied.
   
     The training program, known as J-CET for Joint Combined
Exchange and Training, is designed primarily to provide training
for U.S. troops. Special Forces officials say the Indonesian
program has allowed U.S. soldiers of the 1st Special Forces Group
based in Okinawa, Japan, to practice skills that are too
politically sensitive to practice on the Japanese bases, such as
helicopter infiltration and demolitions.
   
     The training, as well as a tradition of future Indonesian
generals attending U.S. officer schools before the congressional
ban, has created an American following among Indonesian troops.
To maintain the American influence over the development of young
officers, Prabowo sends 25 lieutenants a year at Indonesian
expense to the Virginia Military Institute and the Citadel.
   
     Prabowo, who is married to one of Suharto's daughters, is
seen as involved in a rivalry with Wiranto. "There is a battle
within the Armed Forces between the pro-Suharto and pro-reform
elements," said one U.S. defense official.
   
     Prabowo is a favorite in some U.S. military quarters, where
his ease in English and his familiarity with American culture has
smoothed the way for a comfortable relationship. The Special
Forces training, in particular, helped boost his prestige, and
over the past several years he is believed to have doubled the
number of Kopassus troops from 4,000 to 8,000.
   
     "The U.S. military assistance program has benefited him
greatly," said one U.S. businessman with close ties to the
military.
 
     Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
 
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