BY PIP HINMAN
Since Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri declared martial law in Aceh on May 19, defence minister Robert Hill and foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer have been repeating ad nauseum that it is in Australia's "national interest" to support the "territorial integrity" of Indonesia. Australia shouldn't "interfere" in an "internal" matter for Indonesia, they argue.
This is exactly what we were told during the 25-year independence struggle by the East Timorese. The brutal suppression of the East Timorese independence movement by the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) was presented by Australian governments — both Labor and Coalition — as irreversible. And the "national interest" argument was peddled every time someone dared query the wisdom or humanity of Australia's support for Jakarta's brutal policy in East Timor.
Shadow foreign affairs spokesperson Kevin Rudd agrees with the Howard government's position on Aceh. Although he has called for the Indonesian government to go back to the negotiating table, and urged the UN to play a role in the Aceh crisis, he says Labor "does not dispute that Aceh is part of Indonesia".
A similar bipartisan bad policy — otherwise known as seeking a "special relationship" with Jakarta — was totally discredited when, in late 1999, the Howard government was forced to send Australian troops to defend the East Timorese independence movement against the TNI-organised militia rampage. Since then, the Howard government has been looking for opportunities to rebuild Australia's military and political relationship with Indonesia's elite.
The Bali bombing last year provided it. Since then the process of reestablishing ties with the TNI through new intelligence sharing agreements and security links has been marketed by the Australian government as part of the defence against terrorism.
During a visit to Jakarta in March, Hill said he was confident that the two countries' militaries could work "constructively and positively together". This is despite there not being any serious attempt by the Megawati government to indict senior TNI officers for the carnage in East Timor (either during the post-1975 occupation or after the August 1999 referendum), for the murders of two Americans and one Indonesian near the Freeport mine in West Papua in August 2002, and the killing of unarmed civilians as young as 12 in Aceh right now.
Senior TNI officers such as Major General Adam Damiri, who is accused of crimes against humanity in East Timor, are prosecuting the war in Aceh. Damiri recently failed to appear before the human rights court for the third time in succession.
While most of Australia's military ties with the TNI were halted following the 1999 post-referendum rampage in East Timor, "low-level" officer training remained in place. Hill is now on a mission to get TNI undergraduates to enrol in the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra and a new batch of Indonesian officer cadets is expected to start training there next year. A reciprocal arrangement also exists.
There are likely to be joint maritime surveillance exercises which could lead to joint navy exercises.
When queried about measures to ensure that ties be established only with a "reformed" TNI, Hill replied: "We haven't established a set of tests as such [on human rights]". Such restrictions currently exist in the US, although the Bush administration is working to get them overturned.
According to Hill, military ties are "a good investment for Australia in terms of future leaders of [Indonesia] understanding our society", he told the March 8 Australian Financial Review.
The argument that joint training helps to "civilise" the TNI is not only patronising and racist, it is also plain wrong. If anything, years of training of TNI and Kopassus special forces officers in the US, Britain and Australia have underscored the main message Western governments are keen to give the TNI: "Do what you have to do and we'll turn a blind eye to the atrocities."
The unstated objective for Western governments is continued access to Indonesia's markets and resources and, for the Australian government, assistance in preventing asylum seekers reaching Australia's shores.
On May 20, the day after martial law was declared in Aceh, Hill declared that his government was resuming ties with the counter-terrorism unit of Kopassus. He said it had nothing to do with the TNI's launching of a "counter-terrorism" offensive in Aceh.
"Establishing ties with Kopassus under the guise of 'fighting terrorism' is really about helping to rehabilitate this discredited outfit", Dita Sari, a leader of the FNPBI labour federation, told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly by phone from Jakarta. "It sends a clear message to the military that they can do what they like — and get away with it."
There is also mounting evidence that members of Kopassus have links with Islamic fundamentalist groups such as Laskar Jihad. Last year a senior foreign affairs official, Jennifer Rawson, confirmed this fact to a Senate hearing and it's backed up by a report, released last December, by the International Crisis Group which suggests that the TNI created the network now said to be South East Asia's most serious terrorist threat — Jemaah Islamiyah.
Across Australia there is growing opposition to the government's course. The Greens have called for an end to military ties with Jakarta, as have the Democrats and independent federal MP Peter Andren.
"The government has got it wrong if it thinks the Australian population will sit by and allow us to fund and train human rights abuses", said Greens senator Kerry Nettle. The Greens are campaigning to divert the $5.32 million projected for ties with the Indonesian military to humanitarian relief for victims in Aceh.
The Socialist Alliance has also called on the Australian government to pressure Indonesia to lift martial law, withdraw the troops and allow the people of Aceh their democratic right to self-determination.
Solidarity and human rights groups around the world are preparing a campaign directed particularly at the US, British and Australian governments to end military ties with Indonesia.
In Australia, Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP) is urging the Howard government to pressure Jakarta to lift martial law, resume negotiations with all political forces in Aceh, not just the armed independence fighters, and pull the TNI out.
For more information on the campaign here or to get involved get in touch with ASAP at or email <asap@asai-pacific-action.org>.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, June 4, 2003.
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