For educational purposes only

Sun Sep 19 1999 07:23:10 UTC

US trained butchers of Timor

The Guardian, London

Exclusive: Washington trained death squads in secret while Britain has spent #1m helping Indonesian army

Ed Vulliamy in New York and Antony Barnett Sunday September 19, 1999

Indonesian military forces linked to the carnage in East Timor were trained in the United States under a covert programme sponsored by the Clinton Administration which continued until last year.

The Observer can also disclose that the Government has spent about #1 million in training more than 50 members of the Indonesian military in Britain since it came to power. Human rights campaigners claim a number of these are likely to have links with those complicit in the attrocities.

The US programme, codenamed 'Iron Balance', was hidden from legislators and the public when Congress curbed the official schooling of Indonesia's army after a massacre in 1991. Principal among the units that continued to be trained was the Kopassus P an elite force with a bloody history P which was more rigorously trained by the US than any other Indonesian unit, according to Pentagon documents passed to The Observer last week. Kopassus was built up with American expertise despite US awareness of its role in the genocide of about 200,000 people in the years after the invasion of East Timor in 1975, and in a string of massacres and disappearances since the bloodbath. Amnesty International describes Kopassus as 'responsible for some of the worst human rights violations in Indonesia's history'.

The Pentagon documents P obtained by the US-based East Timor Action Network and Illinois congressman Lane Evans P detail every exercise in the covert training programme, conducted under a Pentagon project called JCET (Joint Combined Education and Training). They show the training was in military expertise that could only be used internally against civilians, such as urban guerrilla warfare, surveillance, counter-intelligence, sniper marksmanship and 'psychological operations'.

Specific commanders trained under the US programme have been tied to the current violence and to some of the worst massacres of the past 20 years, including the slaughter at Kraras in 1983 and at Santa Cruz in 1991. The US-trained commanders include the son-in-law of the late dictator General Suharto, Prabowo Subianto, and his mentor, General Kiki Syahnakri P the man appointed last week by the so-called 'reform' government as commissioner for martial law in East Timor.

The secret programme unveiled in the document became the focus for military training when above-board aid was curtailed by Congress after the Santa Cruz massacre. Congress had stepped in after up to 270 peaceful protesters P many of them schoolchildren P were murdered by Kopassus shock troops as they paraded through Dili.

American sponsorship of the Indonesian regime began as a matter of Cold War ideology, in the wake of defeat in Vietnam. The left-wing movement in East Timor was feared by Jakarta and seen by the US as an echo of those in southern Africa and of Salvador Allende's government in Chile. Jakarta's harassment of the Timor government and the invasion of 1975 were duly encouraged by the United States.

The training of Indonesia's officer corps peaked during the mid-Eighties. In 1990 a former official at the US Embassy in Jakarta cabled the State Department to say US sponsorship had been 'a big help to the (Indonesian) army. They probably killed a lot of people and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands'.

But the horror of Santa Cruz in 1991, when trucks were seen dumping bodies in the sea, was too much. The US decided that the training, while still available, should be paid for by the recipient nation P in other words, it would no longer be military aid. The covert programme then became the main means of training Indonesia's military P still at the American taxpayers' expense.

In an undated prospectus, the Pentagon says the prime mission was to 'to develop, organise, equip, train, advise and direct indigenous militaries'. The scale was small, to offer concentrated 'significant special training' which would create 'self-sufficient small units'. In 1996, for instance, 10 exercises involved 376 US personnel and 838 Indonesians or 'loyal' Timorese.

Britain also made a significant contribution to Indonesia's military training. The Observer has established that, since May 1997, 24 senior members of Indonesia's forces have been trained in UK military colleges. This included training in running military units efficiently and how to used technical equipment like guided missiles. In addition, 29 Indonesian officers have studied at non-military establishments.

Revelations of the extent to which Labour has used taxpayers' money to aid the Indonesian military has angered many MPs, who claim it makes a mockery of Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's 'ethical foreign policy'. In the last four years of the Tory Government, only one Indonesian soldier was trained in the UK.

Ann Clwyd, the Labour chair of the all-party group on human rights, has previously shown that Indonesian military trained here have subsequently committed atrocities. She said: 'It is simply not acceptable that we have been training these people. We know the police, the army, the militia are all interlinked. How many of those trained by this Government are now involved in the East Timor operation?'

Last week both America and Australia suspended military co-operation with Indonesia. Funding for the military training would have been made available by the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence through the Defence Military Assistance Fund. Earlier this year Defence Minister Doug Henderson admitted that training one Indonesian navy officer at the Joint Service Command and Staff College and another on the International Principal Warfare Course at HMS Dryad cost the Government #170,000.

Many of the Indonesian officers were trained at the Royal Military College at Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, as part of a ' private and commercial initiative' by Cranfield University. As well as courses on managing army units, the training includes map-making and electronics. In the past two years the Foreign Office has also given #200,000 to eight Indonesian high-flyers through its Chevening scholarship programme. This included two policemen, two from the army and two from the navy. On Friday, the Indonesian authorities stopped three servicemen taking up their scholarships.

Both the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office defend the training given as 'constructive engagement' . A spokesman for the MoD said: 'It is a way of ensuring professionalism in foreign armies. It encourages higher standards, good governance and greater respect for human rights.'

The Foreign Office points out that many of the Indonesian officers on non-military courses are studying subjects such as international law and human rights.

Last summer seven members of Kopassus finished a post-graduate course in defence studies at Hull University. The Ministry of Defence arranged the deal after liaising with General Prabowo. Although the course was initiated before the general election, it started after Labour's victory. George Robertson, then Defence Secretary, was happy for it to continue. Despite Prabowo's links to atrocities in East Timor, Robertson once described him as 'enlightened'.

The Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, meanwhile, says in today's Observer that 'there is a mopping-up operation to be done in Britain on the myths that have mushroomed among commentators who have only discovered the plight of East Timor in the last fortnight'. He denies that Britain has 'armed Indonesia to the teeth', or provided weapons to the militias, and says that Britain has not given fresh subsidies to buy Hawk trainers.

Amnesty International's East Timor country specialist, Deborah Sklar, traces the regime's 'over-reliance on thuggish military operations' as being due to the demands of the foreign investment community and even from the World Bank.

She cites a blueprint called The East Asian Miracle, written by US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, in which he urges governments to 'insulate' themselves from 'pluralist pressures' and to suppress trade unions. This, she says, became a primary Kopassus role during the years of training by the United States.

'If the US,' says Sklar, 'has supplied to the Indonesians equipment that has been concerned in the perpetration of human rights abuses, then that is an outrage.'

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), September 19, 1999

Answers

STAY ON TOPIC!! THIS IS A Y2K FORUM. YOUR POST DOES NOT BELONG HERE AND DOES NOT INTEREST OR CONCERN 99% OF THE PEOPLE HERE.

-- cody varian (cody@y2ksurvive.com), September 19, 1999.

cody: It would have been much better if "OT:" had led the title of the thread, I agree. It is indirectly relevant to Y2K because, like Waco, it shows the kind of sneaky stuff the government routinely pulls, completely unknown to the American people. So, putting on our Y2K hats, can we say "martial law"?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), September 19, 1999.

I think it is emminently ON Topic. The situation in Indonesia as a whole is a microcosm of what happens to Industrialized nations when the economy, banks, and infrastructure collapse. A situation we well may be facing here as a direct result of Y2K, and as KOS points out the potential of martial law by our government, the same one who turned delta force on the branch davidians and ran military ops on american cities this year, leaves a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach especially when you look at their worldwide track record as reflected in this article. So little forum nazi you can kiss my....

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), September 19, 1999.

My, my, Nik, ol' buddy, you seem to be getting yourself all in a snit. What's going on in Indonesia will be completely forgotten by 99% of the rest of the world in about four months from now, and it's nothing new anyway. That kind of situation has occurred all over the world for ages.

There are appropriate places to post your message. I simply do not think this is one of them.

By the way, childish namecalling only leads people to disregard you and what you have to say.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), September 19, 1999.

So cody the other day when that fellow posted his problems with credit cards and Blockbuster and you tried to make him look foolish and said he should GOTO YOUR WEBSITE and hit amazon.com that was ON TOPIC?

Surely you remember the guy who was renting movies for his son with the HEAD INJURY?

Your self-promotion was vulgar!

-- Take your rose colored (Glasses@off.Chumphead), September 19, 1999.

Actually, I don't remember the post you're referring to. Can you provide a thread or copy it into a message here? Also, I never have to try to make people look foolish; if they are fools, they will demonstrate that perfectly well themselves without my help.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), September 19, 1999.

Your tax dollars at work.

Nikoli & Cody -- valuable contributors both. Please let this one pass. Cody -- you've shown your depth is up to this topic, I think.

This has been happening all through history, sure. Y2k is unlikely to stop it. The Romans used to line the roads with rebels nailed up on crosses. USA no different, no better. We just hire local butchers to make domestic repercussions more convenient.

We live here, born here. All born with a conscience. Some use it. Some rent it out to various political causes. Is your conscience right-wing or left-wing? Thomas More asked: "Why has every man a conscience then?"

To (badly -- sorry) paraphrase More: "If using one's conscience on this forum is OT, then I long not to frequent this forum."

-- jor-el (jor-el@krypton.uni), September 19, 1999.

Big OOPS! (Before the quotation police get me.)

"Why has every man a conscience then?" was Henry Thoreau.

Thomas More (via playwrite Robert Bolt) is a little harder for me to recall at the moment, but I know I was stretching for something.

-- jor-el (jor-el@krypton.uni), September 19, 1999.

CODY, PLEASE PULL IN YOUR HORNS and BE CIVIL!MUCH OF THE PACIFIC RIMS OIL AND PROPANE AND CHIP BOARDS ORIGANATE THERE. AND WHAT WE ARE DOING THERE COULD EFFECT A GENERATION OF OUR YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN ,VIS A VIS THE VIETNAM FIASCO. SO LETS NOT GET TOO GEEK OR SMALL MINDED. KNOW THE TRUTH AND YOU'LL REMAIN FREE! WHY2K ,CAUSE IT'S A UNIVERSAL PROBLEM

-- willie nerdpounder (geekilluminator@broadminded.edu), September 19, 1999.

Glasses: Now that I think about it, I do remember the man with the Blockbuster question. You threw me for a minute with your charge that I was trying to make him look foolish and I didn't remember doing that.

I must not have been communicating very well that day if you thought I was trying to make this man look foolish. Actually, I was trying to be of some help. My point was that there is no reason to go to Blockbuster for videos or to Tower Records for CDs or whatever when you can buy them so much cheaper online at Amazon Books.

For example, a CD costing $16.99 or more at Tower is usually $12.99 at Amazon; a book that lists for $26.99 at a retail bookstore is usually around $19.99 or less at Amazon. Plus you don't pay sales tax and you get the product in three days most of the time. Even with the Amazon shipping charge, which is minimal, you still save several dollars per item by buying it from them online.

Sorry if I didn't make it clear what I was trying to do.

-- cody varian (cody@y2ksurvive.com), September 19, 1999.

Nik,

Whether your post is OT or not doesn't matter to me. What matters is that East Timor is just the first of the many such actions I expect to see before, during and after Y2K.

What's interesting is the Clinton - Indonesian political contribution angle. After Congress denies such training to Indonesian forces, Clinton directs the military to provide the training. At the request of the Indonesian leadership, of course. Who just happen to be BIG Clinton contributors, second only to the Chinese in fact.

What other Pre-Y2K foreign atrocities with ties to our current political situation await?

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), September 19, 1999.

jor-el:

My conscience doesn't bother me a bit about East Timor because I had nothing to do with what's going on there. In fact, I never even heard of the place until a few days ago. I'm sure there is much suffering going on there and this is distressing but I suspect it's nothing compared to the amount of suffering Y2K will bring worldwide. I think most OT postings are a distraction from the real purpose and function of this message board and I would prefer that we all stayed on topic.

This doesn't mean that I won't occasionally respond to an OT thread once it's up, but responding to OT stuff is not the same as introducing it to the forum.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), September 19, 1999.

Nik, thanks for posting!

Cody: "My conscience doesn't bother me a bit about East Timor because I had nothing to do with what's going on there. In fact, I never even heard of the place until a few days ago."

cody...do you pay taxes?

-- Mumsie (Shezdremn@aol.com), September 19, 1999.

The last thing I wanted to do was start a squabble over on or off topic. Cody I apologize if I over reacted to your comeback but I have adopted a zero tolerance policy when it domes to people trampling on my freedoms, which include speech if I remember correctly. And no I'm not in a "snit", but I have been known to throw a wall eyed fit when I am being screwed over. Something our government is becoming very adept at, and a policy being widely adapted or mimiced by a large segment of the population.

I have been following the situation in Indonesia for a long time now because it is the closest paralell I could find to what life in the United States would be like under a level 7 y2k impact. Anything over a 7 will be much worse, leading to an unstoppable slide into anarchy and total chaos.

The way our government has handled and manipulated this situation in Indonesia gives clear insight into the likely actions they will take domestically. You would do well to read that article and some of the other chronology of the implosion of the once worlds 5th largest economy over a year and a half period, with a death toll now approaching half a million.

You might also want to pay attention to the fact that our government has openly sided against Christians and soverign nations rights in the last two innsurections. In the case of East Timor we trained and armed the military then stood to the side while they slaughtered the Christian citizens who had voted for independence. Now that the damage is done they are moving in with peacekeeping forces knowing full well it is a moot point, as the indengenous Christians are now refugees and thoroughly disorganized. Mission accomplished.

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), September 19, 1999.

Cody there is only one thing to say to you,

INTERCONNECTEDNESS!

Listen dude when I first came to this forum I used to yell OT OT just like you. People like Nik and Invar, e.Coli, Blue Himilayian,@,A,Andy and sooooo many others have *opened* my eyes. I think it was ROUK or somebody the other day who summed it up as you are now entering a new stage in your y2k *enlightenment*.

Just accept it! You are on the verge of a journey of realization that will take you to places of your inner self where you will feel so scared and vulnerable and helpless and when you climb out you'll realize that death isn't so scarey. You realize you can only prepare for what you can prepare for and you'll find a new level of bravery and courage that will help you to meet this foe and fight-to the death if necessary. If you will open your eyes you will be able to see the Interconnectedness of the whole thing.

Y2k ain't just a computer problem!

-- Open your eyes (INTER@CONNECTED.NESS), September 19, 1999.

Mumsie: I pay taxes but not voluntarily. I pay them to avoid going to jail. A person is not morally responsible for anything in which he has no choice. Since I have no choice regarding the payment of taxes, I can't be held responsible for what the government does with that tax money.

There is, or should be, no such thing as collective guilt. Each of us is responsible for his own actions and nothing else. You and I bear no blame whatsoever for the U.S government's involvement in East Timorian politics, nor for the brutal murder of 84 innocent Christians, many of them women and children, at the hand of the FBI and the BATF in Waco, nor for the totally illegal bombing attack on Kosovo.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), September 19, 1999.

Nik: I suspect you and I are actually in almost complete agreement. I am aware that the U.S. gov't, the gov't of a nation with a very large Christian majority, founded by Christians for the most part, chose to murder the Christian Serbs in Kosovo rather than the Albanian Muslims and I found this appalling. Although I am opposed to American involvement of any kind overseas, it strikes me as bizarre to attack Christians and support Moslems, most of whom hate us anyway.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), September 19, 1999.

This East Timor stuff is of major interest to at least one person here, whose country has just sent a lot of troops over with the possiblity that they could come into combat with those Indonesians.

Ever heard of the Dili Massacre? Those Indonesians are *not* nice guys. The Australian reporters who were executed during the invasion after witnessing Indonesian atrocities?

Leo

-- Leo (lchampion@ozemail.com.au), September 19, 1999.

Leo,

I do recall that the Indonesians DO have a lot of bad blood towards Australians. And from some various forum discussions over the last year and a half there were some serious concerns raised from down under that in a serious Y2K breakdown, Australia could face an Indonesian invasion.

An "Indonesian New Millenium Liebenschraum" move if you will. What with Indonesia being the third most populous nation on the planet and Australia having all that uninhabited area. There were some reports which said that the Indonesians were openly calling for invasion, forced removal of the "non-asian race" Australian population and then a program of resettlement of the continent by Indonesian emigrees.

But that was before the bottom fell out from under the Indonesian economy. Now it sounds like the Indonesians are looking for somebody to blame for the collapse of their economic house of cards and the East Timor issue going against what was outlined in Suharto's script of events.

And the Aussies, any Aussie at hand in fact, be they reporter or Australian military, will do for a scapegoat. In fact, I'm surprised that there have been no reports of Indonesia claiming that Australia caused their economic woes as part of a nefarious scheme to thwart Indonesian expansionist plans.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), September 20, 1999.

Ah, but you are assuming several things: one is that this administration (itself) is Christian in either thought, purpose (agenda of loving and caring for people) or actions. Forget it - they are violently and passionately haters of true Christianity (love your neighbor-follow the rules-act in a holy and loving way towards others) and most emphatically haters of the "the visible conservative christian communities and conventional culture here in the US. If anything, they and their supporters are socialists in both name, action, and thought - many are as anti-religion to any religious as Communists. Atheists, at least, have a belief, and are not opposed to other's beliefs and to the general culture.

Second - you confuse the general culture with the Clintons' amoral agenda of increasing politcal power and continuing their combined legacies. They have so dominated the media and the opposing party that there is no effective opposition to their hypocrazies in the nations of Hatii, the MidEast and Bosnia - and no logic either other than a need for distraction in all cases from the impeachment and pressure from the Democrats in Congress. If they cared about any other people's rights - they would have responded to Timor and to the millions of murders in Africa. Instead they ignored these because they (the Clintons) needed no foreign war at the time and the Democratic Black Committee didn't need publicity.

Also, you ignore the lesson that - yes - troops will fire on their own people, if those citizens ar elabelled terrorists and the remainder of the population can be held up as "being threatened" - psycological warfare is needed on your won troops as well as on your own citizens - and psycological warfare takes a while to heat up.

So look at China and North Korean as they warm up their populations for war against Taiwan and South Korea, and look at Clinton as he warms up his citizens (and his private federal police forces) to fight against "terrorism" and "panic" and the ever-present "hate-filled right-wing armed militia" in the US.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 20, 1999.

Cody- you said: "Mumsie: I pay taxes but not voluntarily. I pay them to avoid going to jail. A person is not morally responsible for anything in which he has no choice. Since I have no choice regarding the payment of taxes, I can't be held responsible for what the government does with that tax money."

Nice try, but there is one flaw in your argument/statement: you DO have a choice. Not paying extortion. Try it.

Fact: I don't pay Federal Income tax. Stopped two years ago. Legally. Look into it. (Hint: Title 26, Code of Federal Regulations, section 1-14551)

-- Brent James Bushardt (brentj@webt.com), September 20, 1999.