The Christian Science Monitor, June 13, 2002 edition
[Photo: UNEASY ALLIANCE: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont says the US
shouldn't ignore past human rights abuses by Indonesia's military, which has been
tapped to fight the war on terrorism.]
JOE MARQUETTE/AP
Indonesia poses test for US on human rights
Bush wants to give military aid to Jakarta. Critics see terror war eclipsing democracy.
By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON – The outrage was global in the late 1990s when Indonesia's military
and goon-like militias associated with the army ran roughshod through
independence-seeking East Timor. The human rights abuses were so wanton that the
United States cut all cooperation with the Indonesian armed forces.
Now just three years later, the Bush administration wants to reestablish assistance to
Indonesia's military – arguing the world's fourth-largest country and largest
majority-Muslim nation is too important to the fight against international terrorism to
hold at arm's length.
The idea is sounding alarms among human rights activists and some members of
Congress, who fear Indonesia is one more example of how concern for human rights
is suddenly taking a distant back seat to national security interests.
"The environment has got much tougher for human rights principles," says Michael
Ignatieff, a human rights expert at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University. Citing a list of countries to which the US has extended aid or sent military
advisers to help fight a terrorist threat – including Afghanistan, the Philippines,
Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan – Mr. Ignatieff adds: "Does the focus on
national security really justify ... supplying arms to anyone who waves a flag in our
face?"
To these critics, the new era of played-down human rights concerns is alarmingly
reminiscent of the cold war. Just as the cold war caused the US to place a premium
on friendly regimes over governments that respected democratic rights, the
international battle with terror is shrouding human rights concerns.
"During the cold war, anyone who said they were anticommunist got our support, and
we often ignored their repressive, corrupt practices, or their involvement in other illegal
activity," says Tim Rieser, an aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont, one of the
US Senate's top human rights watchdogs.
A similar trend is advancing now, he says. Amnesty International places a spotlight
on the waning of human rights concerns in its 2002 international report, saying the
"gains of many years" have been "set back" by curbs on civil liberties and a
resurgence in the power of militaries.
Supporters of military assistance in cases like Indonesia's say that in addition to
helping hit terrorism in its cradles, aid also gives the US leverage – including in
demanding improvements in respect for human rights – where it wouldn't otherwise
have it.
American leverage with both Pakistan and India in their conflict over Kashmir is as
strong as it is because of the military and other ties the US has with both countries,
supporters note.
Sounding a similar argument on Indonesia, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
is aware of the kinds of problems in Indonesia that raise human rights groups'
antennae. "The military's problems are significant," he says, noting they have been
guilty of "abusing their own people." But Mr. Wolfowitz, a former ambassador to
Indonesia, says the risks are too great to leave the sprawling archipelago country
without close US involvement helping it along the right path.
"Indonesia's experiment with democracy ... could be a very important model for the
rest of the Islamic world," Wolfowitz told a Washington audience last week. "But if it
degenerates into conflict ... it could have a severely negative impact on the world."
The US cut off military cooperation in 1999 over abuses during East Timor's fight for
independence. Groups monitoring human rights in Indonesia say that not only do
military officers involved in past abuses enjoy impunity, but new abuses are also
mounting in several provinces.
Wolfowitz, however, says that the government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri is
"eager to work with the United States to reform" the military. Working from that
premise, the administration earlier this year asked Congress to approve $16 million in
antiterrorism assistance to Indonesia: half to create a rapid-reaction force for the
remote provinces, half to train the National Police in counterterrorism. The
administration also wants to allow military officials eligibility for counterterrorism
fellowships.
Congress approved the funding for the national police, but is so far balking at renewing
ties to the military. At the same time, two influential senators, Lincoln Chafee (R) of
Rhode Island and Russell Feingold (D) of Wisconsin, are calling for both "robust"
assistance to the newly independent East Timor and maintaining all restrictions on
relations with the Indonesian armed forces.
The Asia director of Human Rights Watch in Washington, Mike Jendrzejczyk, says
his work on Indonesia suggests that while the military under President Megawati is
"more confident and assertive than ever," there has been little meaningful reform or
pressure from the US. One problem, he says, is a "split" in the Bush administration
over how much cooperation is warranted, with the State Department less willing than
the Pentagon and some White House advisers to overlook human rights abuses.
Others say the issue of assistance to Indonesia will sharpen further as the general
debate over human rights and security intensifies. In the case of Uzbekistan, for
example, the US continues to be criticized for stepping up military cooperation to a
regime that the State Department, in a report released in March, says violently
represses political dissidents.
Others question some aspects of the US role in Afghanistan. Harvard Professor
Ignatieff pinpoints the dilemma for the US as being how far to cooperate with and
encourage some of Afghanistan's local warlords.
"The approach that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' is growing, though it's
proven to be a poor guide to foreign policy in the past," he says. "It's a recurrent
temptation that always gets us in trouble."
Copyright © 2002 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
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