Month: July 2010

OPM pledge to increase attacks against Indonesian forces

Please note: this is a repost of a Indonesian press report. West Papua Media Alerts makes no assertion as to its accuracy.

The separatist Free Papua Movement, which has been engaged in a low-profile armed resistance against the Indonesian presence in the province since the 1960s, on Thursday threatened to step up attacks against the government until Papuan independence was granted.

“We, the people of Papua, remain steadfast in our initial stand to safeguard the dignity of the Papuan nation by gaining independence,” Anton Tabuni, secretary general of the group, known as the OPM, said in a video released to journalists in Papua.

“The people of Papua will continue to struggle to secede from the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia,” continued Tabuni, who claimed to be speaking on behalf of OPM commander Goliat Tabuni .

The video was released a day after armed men believed to be from the OPM ambushed and burned a convoy of three trucks carrying diesel oil and food in Pagargom, in the Tingginambut area of Puncak Jaya district.

“Whether civilians, plainclothes or uniformed security members, we will rid Papua of them,” Tabuni said.

The video also showed an OPM gathering in Tingginambut, believed to be a congress held by the organization on June 31. The meeting ended in a renewed resolve to fight for independence.

Papua Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Wahyono declined to comment, saying police had yet to see the video. “We have not watched the video, so we cannot comment on it,” Wahyono said. “But we are going to investigate it.”

Adrianna Elizabeth, a researcher of conflict areas at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said the government should not dismiss the threat, even though the OPM was not a heavily armed organization.

“Even if the social and economic conditions of Papuans improve, the OPM will always be there because it wants its political demands to be met,” Adrianna said, adding that OPM’s vast network had spread throughout urban and rural areas in the territory.

“Human rights are not being upheld in the province and we should also realize that the Papuan autonomy law has not been well implemented,” she said, citing possible reasons for the persistence of separatist aspirations in the province .

In a report released in March, the global think tank International Crisis Group warned that some elements of OPM were becoming increasingly militant.

It also said OPM and the National Committee for West Papua (KNPB) — a group with its roots in the student movement — were likely behind the deadly attacks last year on workers near a mine run by a unit of Freeport McMoran Copper and Gold.

The ICG recommended broadening talks between Jakarta and Papuan leaders to address political, historical and economic grievances.

Meanwhile, police in pursuit of the perpetrators of Wednesday’s attack in Pagargom are concentrating on Tingginambut, known to be home to OPM’s central headquarters.

“Since [Thursday] morning, our officers have been hunting them, especially in the Tingginambut area,” Wahyono said, adding that a thick fog and the mountainous, thickly forested terrain were hindering the operation.

Wahyono said there were no plans yet to send reinforcements since the force already in Puncak Jaya was considered to be adequate. Papua Police have already deployed about 100 members of the elite Mobile Brigade (Brimob) to Tingginambut .

Amnesty International Disappointed by U.S. Government Decision to Train Suspected Human Rights Violators in Indonesian Military

Amnesty International today expressed disappointment in the announcement from the Department of Defense that the United States will provide training to the Indonesian Special Forces unit, Kopassus, which is known for grave human rights violations. The following statement can be attributed to T. Kumar, AIUSA’s director for international advocacy.

“Amnesty International is disappointed by the decision that U.S. forces will train the Kopassus unit. It sends the wrong message in a country where mass and severe human rights violations have taken place in an atmosphere of impunity. U.S. support to this unit undercuts the recent efforts advocating reform within the Indonesian military.  Amnesty International calls upon the U.S. administration to make public what commitments they received from the Indonesian authorities about bringing Kopassus military leaders to justice and also calls upon President Obama, in his upcoming visit to Indonesia, to speak publicly about human rights abuses in Indonesia and to meet the families of those killed by the Kopassus.

The Kopassus unit has been linked to serious human rights violations in Indonesia including killings and torture in East Timor, Papua, Aceh and elsewhere. Amnesty International calls for all crimes allegedly perpetrated by Kopassus members and others in the Indonesian military to be brought to court in proceedings that meet fair trail standards and victims should receive reparations.

While the Secretary of Defense offered assurances that all training will be conducted within the confines of U.S. law and that the collaboration does not weaken U.S. support of human rights, Amnesty International recommends that background screenings be conducted prior to any Indonesian military official suspected of involvement in human rights abuses, before receiving  U.S.-backed training.”

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.8 million supporters, activists and volunteers who campaign for universal human rights from more than 150 countries. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

For more information, please visit: http://www.amnestyusa.org

HRW: US Resumes Military Assistance to Abusive Force Obama Administration Lifts Ban Despite Military’s Lack of Reform, Accountability

Reposting from HRW
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/07/22/indonesia-us-resumes-military-assistance-abusive-force

Indonesia: US Resumes Military Assistance to Abusive Force
Obama Administration Lifts Ban Despite Military’s Lack of Reform, Accountability
July 22, 2010

Related Materials:
Letter to US Department of Defense Regarding US Military Assistance to Indonesia
Letter to US Departments of Defense and State Regarding US Plans to Reengage with Indonesia’s Special Forces
“What Did I Do Wrong?”

The Obama administration has just failed a key test. This is not the way to encourage reform with a military that has yet to demonstrate a genuine commitment to accountability for serious human rights abuses. This decision rewards Kopassus for its intransigence over abuses and effectively betrays those in Indonesia who have fought for decades for accountability and justice.
Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch

(New York) – The Obama administration’s decision to lift a more than decade-long ban on US military assistance to Indonesia’s abusive special forces seriously undermines its commitment to promoting respect for human rights in Indonesia and weakens US standards for military cooperation globally, Human Rights Watch said today. The US secretary of defense, Robert Gates, announced a limited program of engagement with the elite force, Komando Pasukan Khusus (Kopassus), while in Jakarta today.

Kopassus has been responsible for numerous serious human rights abuses – including killings, enforced disappearances, and torture – since the 1990s. The Indonesian government’s failure to remove Kopassus soldiers convicted of serious abuses from the military, and its recent appointment of officers credibly linked with abuses to leadership posts within Kopassus and the Defense Ministry made repealing the ban particularly inappropriate, Human Rights Watch said.

“The Obama administration has just failed a key test. This is not the way to encourage reform with a military that has yet to demonstrate a genuine commitment to accountability for serious human rights abuses,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “This decision rewards Kopassus for its intransigence over abuses and effectively betrays those in Indonesia who have fought for decades for accountability and justice.”

Defense Secretary Gates said that initial reengagement with Kopassus “will take place within the limits of US law and do[es] not signal any lessening of the importance we place on human rights and accountability.”

The administration has apparently detailed to the Indonesian government various criteria to resume interactions with Kopassus: that personnel convicted of human rights violations be removed from the special forces; that the military and Kopassus pledge to cooperate with future civilian or military investigations and prosecutions of human rights abuses; that anyone convicted of human rights abuses in the future be prohibited from serving in the military; and that personnel credibly alleged to have committed human rights abuses in the future be suspended pending an investigation. However, Human Rights Watch noted that those criteria are not currently being met, and in any case, are far from adequate to address the problem.

“These standards disregard the difficulty of prosecuting Indonesian military personnel for even the most serious abuses,” said Richardson.

The Indonesian military justice system presently has exclusive jurisdiction over military personnel except in cases in which they are accused of genocide or crimes against humanity, or are alleged to have committed crimes with civilian accomplices. Human Rights Watch pointed to the structural weaknesses of the military court system, which has repeatedly failed to investigate and adequately prosecute alleged abusers in the past, in an April 2010 letter to a key Indonesian lawmaker urging him to support a bill that would transfer jurisdiction over such cases to civilian courts.

“The Indonesian justice system rarely vigorously investigates or prosecutes anyone from the military, so forces like Kopassus will likely still be able to commit abuses with impunity and still meet the Obama administration’s standards,” said Richardson. “It’s hard to see the administration’s decision as anything other than a victory for abusive militaries worldwide.”

The US government cut off all aid to the Indonesian military in 1999 as a result of widespread human rights violations in East Timor and has refused to resume aid to Kopassus in particular because of ongoing concerns about its record and lack of accountability. Human Rights Watch has acknowledged important human rights improvements in Indonesia since the end of the authoritarian Suharto regime, but has also expressed ongoing concerns that security sector reform in Indonesia has stalled in critical areas, such as accountability for human rights violations.

Kopassus members have been implicated in serious human rights abuses, including abducting and “disappearing” student activists in 1997-98, launching a scorched-earth campaign and forming deadly militia forces in East Timor in 1999, and abducting and killing Papuan activist and traditional leader Theys H. Eluay in 2001. In 2003, Human Rights Watch documented allegations that Kopassus soldiers engaged in torture during military operations in Aceh. A 2009 Human Rights Watch report entitled “What Did I Do Wrong?” found that Kopassus soldiers were engaging in a pattern of arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of civilians in Merauke, Papua.

In none of these cases did the Indonesian military take sufficient steps to ensure that perpetrators were held accountable. A series of ad hoc trials of soldiers implicated in crimes against humanity in East Timor in 1999 ultimately failed to convict a single defendant. A number of the soldiers convicted by a military court for the student disappearances remained in the Indonesian military as of 2007, and two remained in Kopassus until March 2010. One of the seven Kopassus members convicted of mistreatment and battery leading to Eluay’s death, Colonel Tri Hartomo, was later promoted to a senior position in the Kopassus leadership and as of March 2010 serves elsewhere in the Indonesian military. Kopassus has denied the allegations in “What did I do Wrong,” and to Human Rights Watch’s knowledge has not sanctioned any of the soldiers implicated in the misconduct documented in the report.

In April 2010, Col. Nugroho Widyo Utomo, who has been credibly accused of involvement in serious human rights abuses in East Timor as the commander of the Combined Intelligence Task Force in 1998, was appointed to the position of deputy commander of Kopassus. Widyo Utomo is alleged to have had an active role in establishing the militias that the Indonesian military used to intimidate, harass, and kill an estimated 1,400 East Timorese suspected of supporting independence from Indonesia in the run-up to a 1999 referendum – the events that prompted the United States to impose its ban on all aid to the Indonesian military. Widyo Utomo’s appointment follows the January 2010 appointment of Maj. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, who was implicated in the 1997-98 student disappearances, abuses in East Timor in 1999, and the Santa Cruz Massacre in East Timor in 1991, to the position of deputy defense minister by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“The Indonesian government’s recent appointment of two individuals implicated in the very abuses that led the US to cut off aid in the first place to senior positions within Kopassus and the Defense Ministry shows that it is not serious about reform, and the Obama administration ignores this at its peril,” said Richardson.

The debate over resuming US assistance to Kopassus began in early 2010, prior to President Barack Obama’s then-planned trip to Indonesia. In response to initial demands made by the administration, the Indonesian government shifted at least three officers previously convicted of human rights abuses from Kopassus to other positions within the Indonesian military and stated, through an interview by the minister of defense to an English-language newspaper, that soldiers found to have committed genocide or crimes against humanity would be suspended and questioned, and if found responsible by the military, would be brought before a civilian court. The US government appears to have considered these steps satisfactory to ensure future accountability, even though there are no judicial mechanisms sufficiently robust and independent to reliably deliver on the necessary kind of investigations or prosecutions envisioned under the plan.

Human Rights Watch called on the Obama administration to insist that more stringent and systemic standards be met prior to the resumption of training for security forces.

Those include:

* encouraging passage of legislation in the Indonesian parliament that would transfer the prosecution of abuses committed by members of the military against civilians to civilian courts;
* that the military should permanently discharge personnel convicted of serious human rights abuses;
* that the government adopt transparent measures to ensure credible, impartial, and timely investigations into all future allegations of human rights abuse; and that
* President Yudhoyono should establish an ad hoc tribunal to investigate the enforced disappearance of student activists in 1997-98, as Indonesia’s House of Representatives recommended in September 2009.

“The Obama administration’s decision to start training Kopassus now risks undermining the limited progress towards professionalism that the Indonesian military has made thus far,” said Richardson. “The US is rewarding Indonesia for blocking justice, which sends the worst possible message for the future.”

Background:

Limitations mandated by the US Congress on providing training to foreign military forces under what is known as the “Leahy Law” bar the US from providing training, in the absence of corrective steps, to military units that are credibly alleged to have committed gross violations of human rights.

In a February 4, 2010 letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Human Rights Watch outlined three key steps Indonesia should take to address accountability for past and future abuses by Kopassus prior to resuming engagement with the force. First, the military should permanently discharge personnel convicted of serious human rights abuses. Second, it should adopt transparent measures to ensure credible, impartial, and timely investigations into all future allegations of human rights abuse. Third, President Yudhoyono should establish an ad hoc tribunal to investigate the enforced disappearance of student activists in 1997-98, as Indonesia’s House of Representatives recommended in September 2009.

In March 2010 four prominent Indonesian nongovernmental organizations called on the US to refrain from reengaging with Kopassus until it investigated past human rights abuses involving Kopassus, including by establishing the ad hoc court on the student disappearances, and took action to ensure that similar abuses would not occur. In a May 2010 letter, 13 members of the US Congress, including Senators John Kerry and Patrick Leahy, wrote to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Gates expressing serious concerns regarding their intention to resume training Kopassus and calling for prior consultation with Congress before such engagement began to ensure it met the requirements of US law. The letter also called for US government officials to encourage Indonesian legislators to enact a bill that would give the civilian courts the power to hear cases involving human rights offenses committed by members of the military and to condition US reengagement on the passage of such legislation.

Human Rights Watch has regularly raised concerns regarding the US government’s ability to effectively vet and monitor elements of Kopassus, and particularly its counter-terrorism unit, in a March, 2010 letter to Secretaries Clinton and Gates. Human Rights Watch also urged the Obama administration to refrain from providing unconditional assistance to Kopassus until Indonesia has adopted a number of structural reforms to address Kopassus’ lack of accountability, including making genuine progress in eliminating all forms of military business; launching renewed investigations into other serious human rights abuses in which security services have been implicated, such as the 2004 murder of Indonesian human rights activist Munir bin Said Thalib; and enacting legislation allowing civilian courts to investigate and prosecute crimes committed by military personnel against civilians.

ETAN Condemns U.S. Plan to Get Back in Bed with Indonesia's Kopassus Killers

ETAN Condemns U.S. Plan to Get Back in Bed with Indonesia’s Kopassus Killers
July 22, 2010 – The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) today condemned the Obama administration’s decision to resume engagement with Indonesia’s notorious Kopassus special forces.

“Slipping back into bed with Kopassus is a betrayal of the brutal unit’s many victims in Timor-Leste, West Papua and throughout Indonesia. It will lead to more people to suffer abuses,” said John M. Miller, National Coordinator of ETAN. “Working with Kopassus, which remain unrepentant about its long history of terrorizing civilians, will undermine efforts to achieve justice and accountability for human rights crimes in Indonesia and Timor-Leste (East Timor).”

“For years, the U.S. military provided training and other assistance to Kopassus, and when the U.S. was most involved Kopassus crimes were at their worst. While this assistance improved the Indonesian military’s deadly skills, it did nothing to improve its behavior,” Miller added.

“Engagement with Kopassus would violate the Leahy Law, which prohibits military assistance to units with unresolved human rights violations,” said Miller. “Even the previous Bush State Department’s legal counsel thought so, ruling that the Leahy prohibition applied to Kopassus as a whole.”

U.S. officials, speaking to the New York Times, distinguished between soldiers who were “only implicated, not convicted’ in human rights crimes. Administration officials have said that some Kopassus soldiers convicted of crimes no longer served with the unit, however many of them remain on active duty, including Lt. Col. Tri Hartomo, convicted by a military court of the murder of Papuan leader Theys Eluay in 2001.

The official American Forces Press Service wrote that a “senior defense official said Indonesia has pledged that any Kopassus member who is credibly accused of a human rights violation will be suspended pending an investigation, will be tried in a civilian court, and will be removed from the unit if convicted.” Legislation transferring members of military to civilian courts for trials has yet to pass.

“The problem remains that the Indonesian military (TNI) as a whole and Kopassus in particular rarely take accusations of human rights violations seriously and few end up in any court,” said ETAN’s Miller. “Engaging Kopassus with only token concessions will not encourage reform, respect for rights or accountability. It may do the opposite.”

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced in Jakarta that the U.S. “will begin a gradual, limited program of security cooperation activities” with Kopassus. U.S. officials told the media that “there would be no immediate military training,” However, Gates did not say exactly what criteria will be used to decide if “to expand upon these initial steps [which] will depend upon continued implementation of reforms within Kopassus” and the TNI.

Background

Engagement with Kopassus has been opposed by human rights and victims associations in Indonesia, Timor-Leste and internationally. It has been debated within the Obama administration and in Congress.

In May 2010, 13 senior members of Congress wrote the Secretary Gates and Secretary of State Clinton concerning plans to cooperate with Kopassus. The letter called for “a reliable vetting process critical… for identifying Kopassus officials who have violated human rights” and said “the transfer of jurisdiction over human rights crimes committed by members of the military to civilian courts should be a pre-condition for engagement with Kopassus.” Legislation to transfer members of the military to civilian courts has long been stalled. Trials of some soldiers before ad-hoc human rights courts, such as on East Timor, have resulted in acquittals.

Kopassus troops have been implicated in a range of human rights violations and war crimes in Aceh, West Papua, Timor-Leste and elsewhere. Although a few special forces soldiers have been convicted of the kidnapping of activists prior to the fall of the Suharto dictatorship and the 2001 murder of Theys Eluay, the perpetrators of the vast majority of human rights crimes continue to evade prosecution. Kopassus and other troops indicted by UN-backed prosecutors in Timor-Leste for crimes committed in 1999 during Timor’s independence referendum remain at large.

Kopassus was involved in Timor-Leste from the killings of five Australian-based journalists at Balibo in 1975 prior to Indonesia’s full scale invasion through its destructive withdrawal in 1999. Kopassus soldiers are alleged to have been involved in the 2002 ambush murder of three teachers (including two from the U.S.) near the Freeport mine in West Papua. The crimes of Kopassus are not only in the past. A Human Rights Watch report published last year documents how Kopassus soldiers “arrest Papuans without legal authority, and beat and mistreat those they take back to their barracks.” A report by journalist Allan Nairn describes security force – including a U.S.-trained Kopassus general – involvement in the killing of activists in Aceh last year. http://www.etan.org/news/2010/03nairn.htm

The leaders of Kopassus have consistently rejected calls to hold it accountable. In April 2010 at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the unit’s founding, Kopassus commander Maj. Gen. Lodewijk Paulus called allegations of past rights violations a “psychological burden.” He told The Jakarta Globe “Honestly, it has become a problem and people just keep harping on them. It’s not fair.”

Lt. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, who served with Kopassus and is accused of human rights violations in East Timor and elsewhere, remains as deputy defense minister. His position is being challenged in court by victims of human rights violations in the 1998 Jakarta riots and the 1997/1998 kidnapping of student and political activists.

In 2005, the Bush administration exercised a national security waiver that allowed for full engagement with the Indonesian military for the first time since the early 1990s. The conditions for U.S. military engagement, which the Bush administration abandoned, included prosecution of those responsible for human rights violations in East Timor and elsewhere and implementation of reforms to enhance civilian control of the Indonesian military. The Bush administration waited until 2008 to propose restarting U.S. training of Kopassus, which was suspended in 1998. The State Department’s legal counsel reportedly ruled that the 1997 ban on training of military units with a history of involvement in human rights violations, known as the ‘Leahy law,’ applied to Kopassus as a whole and the training did not go forward.

ETAN was founded in 1991 to advocate for self-determination for Indonesian-occupied Timor-Leste. Since the beginning, ETAN has worked to condition U.S. military assistance to Indonesia on respect for human rights and genuine reform. The U.S.-based organization continues to advocate for democracy, justice and human rights for Timor-Leste and Indonesia. For more information, see ETAN’s web site: http://www.etan.org.

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Support ETAN make a contribution here http://etan.org/etan/donate.htm
Thank you for your support.

John M. Miller, National Coordinator
East Timor & Indonesia Action Network (ETAN)
PO Box 21873, Brooklyn, NY 11202-1873 USA
Phone: +1-718-596-7668 Mobile phone: +1-917-690-4391
Email john@etan.org Skype: john.m.miller
http://www.etan.org

Twitter: http://twitter.com/etan009
Blog: http://etanaction.blogspot.com/
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Send a blank e-mail message to info@etan.org to find out how to learn more about East Timor and Indonesia on the Internet

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STATEMENT BY THE WEST PAPUA ADVOCACY TEAM REGARDING THE U.S. GOVERNMENT'S DECISION TO RESUME COOPERATION WITH THE INDONESIAN SPECIAL FORCES (KOPASSUS)

STATEMENT BY THE WEST PAPUA ADVOCACY TEAM REGARDING THE U.S. GOVERNMENT’S DECISION TO RESUME COOPERATION WITH THE INDONESIAN SPECIAL FORCES (KOPASSUS)

The decision of the Obama Administration to begin “gradual and limited” engagement with the Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus) ignores more than a decade-old, bi-partisan, bi-cameral Congressional consensus opposing assistance to that organization.

Opposition to U.S. military cooperation with Kopassus is based on that unit’s undisputed record of human rights abuse, criminality and unaccountability before the law. U.S. Administration claims that the organization has recently adopted a reform course is belied by credible independent reporting that Kopassus continues to abuse human rights with impunity. A June 2009 Human Rights Watch report detailed Kopassus abuse of civilians in Merauke in the troubled province of West Papua.

Administration claims that those Kopassus personnel “convicted” of human rights abuse have been removed from the organization ignores the reality that the impunity enjoyed by Kopassus personnel for decades has ensured that only a handful of Kopassus personnel have ever faced justice in a credible criminal court. In a rare example of judicial action, seven Kopassus officers were convicted of the 2001 murder of the leading Papuan political figure, Theys Eluay. Of the seven convicted of what the judge in the case termed a “torture-murder,” all remain on active duty after serving brief sentences (the longest being three and one half years imprisonment). Six left Kopassus but one remains in the organization.

Administration assurances that any Kopassus candidate for U.S. training will undergo “vetting” by the State Department ignores past failures of the State Department to screen out Kopassus rights abusers and criminals.

The Administration announcement correctly notes that since the fall of the dictator Suharto, with whose military the U.S. military maintained close ties, Indonesia has been on a democratic course. But the Administration fails to acknowledge that the gravest threat to ongoing democratic progress is the Indonesian military which continues to evade civilian control. Despite 2004 legislative requirements that the military divest itself of its vast empire of legal and illegal businesses by 2009, the military retains this source of off-budget funding.

Kopassus and other military personnel continue to enjoy impunity before the law for human rights abuse and criminal activity including people trafficking and drug running as acknowledged in past U.S. State Department human rights reporting.

The Indonesian military, and particularly Kopassus and intelligence agencies continue to repress peaceful protest, most notably targeting the people of West Papua. The military, especially Kopassus, but also the U.S.-funded “Detachment 81” and the militarized police (BRIMOB), routinely intimidate, threaten and accost Papuans who non-violently resist denial of fundamental rights, illegal expropriation of their lands and marginalization. Military and police units have repeatedly conducted purportedly anti-rebel “sweep operations” in the remote Central Highlands forcing thousands of villagers into the forests where they suffer lack of food, shelter and access to medical care. Twenty percent of Kopassus personnel (approximately 1,000 personnel) are stationed in West Papua.

The U.S. Administration’s decision to resume cooperation with the most criminal and unreformed element of the Indonesian military removes critical international pressure for reform and professionalization of the broader Indonesian military. It signals to Indonesian human rights advocates who have born the brunt of security force intimidation that they stand alone in their fight for respect for human rights and genuine reform in Indonesia.

contact: Ed McWilliams, edmcw@msn.com, +1-575-648-2078

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