ASSOCIATED PRESS, Friday May 24, 2002 1:43 PM ET
U.S. Congress holds back on military aid request for Indonesia,
while supporting anti-terrorism money
By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Congress is moving toward sending money to Indonesia to
help train its police, but has yet to warm up to the White House's call for increased
relations with the country's military forces.
The House of Representatives on Friday agreed to provide dlrs 8 million to help train
Indonesia's police forces in anti-terrorism as part of an overall dlrs 29 billion
anti-terrorism bill.
The Senate Appropriations Committee earlier had agreed to send money to
Indonesia's police, saying the United States "recognizes that Indonesia is a potential
terrorist haven."
The Senate committee earmarked dlrs 4 million for general law enforcement training
and dlrs 12 million "to train and equip an Indonesia police unit to prevent or respond to
international terrorism."
The Senate committee money, which still would have to be approved by the full
Senate, does come with strings attached. Assistance is prohibited to mobile brigade
units, which the report accompanying the bill says "have a long history of human
rights abuses."
The House and the Senate committee also specifically refused to provide any money
that would have gone to the country's military forces.
The State Department had asked for dlrs 8 million to train and equip a military force to
control problems within Indonesia that police are unable to control.
But the Indonesian military has been accused of corruption and human rights abuses,
especially for its role in trying to suppress the independence drive in East Timor in
1999.
The United States cut ties with the Indonesian military following the East Timor
violence and has said that reforms — including accounting for the violence — are
necessary to resume normal relations.
However, the Bush administration — spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz, a former ambassador to Jakarta — has been pushing to re-establish
relations with the Indonesian military to fight terrorism.
The administration has been "interested in finding ways to work with the Congress to
re-establish the kind of military-to-military relations which we believe are appropriate,"
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said May 14. He did not elaborate on what
those might be.
"We are of the view that it's time for them to be adjusted substantially," he said.
The law halting aid — called the Leahy Amendment for Sen. Patrick Leahy, the
Vermont Democrat who sponsored it — requires that Indonesia cooperate with
investigations and prosecutions of members of the armed forces responsible for
human rights abuses.
"If we provide this aid it should be narrowly focused and closely monitored, and it
should reinforce our other foreign policy goals, including respect for human rights,"
said Leahy, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee's foreign operations
subcommittee.
Human rights groups say the conditions have not been met.
The money would have to be approved by both houses of Congress, and signed by
President George W. Bush, before it actually would be sent to Indonesia.
Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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