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| Indonesian Defense Minister Matori Abdul Jalil wrapped up a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld on renewing
Indonesian-U.S. military relations. |
WASHINGTON,
May 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spent a week urging
the U.S. Congress to approve renewed military relations with
Indonesia, saying Jakarta was dealing with past human rights
violations "in an orderly, democratic way."
The latest appeals to Congress came from Rumsfeld on Monday after
meeting with Indonesian Defense Minister Matori Abdul Jalil, who said
he was in Washington to restore curtailed military ties following
Indonesian military atrocities in East Timor in 1999.
"The President, the Secretary of State [Colin Powell] and I have
all been interested in finding ways to work with Congress to
reestablish the kind of military to military relationship that we
believe are appropriate," Rumsfeld said.
"We
are hopeful that we will be able to find support in the Congress to
move in the correct direction," he told reporters.
The State Department has requested $16 million for Indonesia in a 2002
supplemental appropriations request before Congress.
Eight million dollars would go for a rapid reaction peacekeeping force
to deal with trouble in Indonesia's far-flung provinces. Another eight
million would go to train the national police in counter-terrorism.
The Pentagon also has requested an additional $17.9 million dollars
for a regional defense counter-terrorism fellowship program, which
could include Indonesian military officers if Congress gives the go
ahead.
The Pentagon has had no military training or foreign military sales
programs with Indonesia since 1999 when Congress passed the Leahy
Amendment barring funding those activities until Indonesia accounted
for its military's role in the violence surrounding East Timor's vote
for independence.
Since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States,
Rumsfeld and others in Pentagon lamented the absence of military ties
with the world's most populous Muslim nation and what they consider to
be “a potential haven for operatives of suspected terror mastermind
Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network”.
Ten Indonesian army officers are currently on trial by Indonesia's
first human rights courts for rights abuses, but so far no military
officer has been punished over East Timor.
Jalil, speaking through an interpreter, said that his government could
not intervene in the legal process "but continues to encourage
the court to have a fair trial."
He said both the government and the military were committed to reforms
to create professional military under civilian control.
He also reaffirmed Jakarta's commitment to cooperate in the U.S. war
on terrorism, but said his government did not want U.S. military
trainers to come to Indonesia as they have to the Philippines, Georgia
and Yemen.
"That
is not our foreign policy, and we remain confident in the ability of
our national police and the military to deal with these affairs,"
he said.
Rumsfeld said he was hopeful that the steps taken by Indonesia on
human rights and other issues of concern would help persuade Congress
to ease the restrictions.
"We are of the view that it is time for them to be adjusted
substantially," he said.
"The argument that we'll make to the [Capitol] Hill is that
Indonesia is an important country, it is a large country, it is a
moderate Muslim state, that they are addressing the human rights
issues in an orderly democratic way," he said.
Indonesia's
military late last week welcomed Rumsfeld's call for the revival of
military ties between Washington and Jakarta.
"We
warmly welcome his statement. We see it as extremely positive,"
Indonesian armed forces spokesman Syafrie Syamsuddin told Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
The U.S. and Indonesia held their first formal security talks in
Jakarta last month, hailed by many in Jakarta as signally a thawing of
the embargo on training and equipment funding.
But U.S. officials insisted that a normalization of ties remained a
long way off, chiefly because no military members have been punished
over East Timor.
"We're not by any means all the way back....The outstanding issue
is accountability," said one official on condition of anonymity.
He
pointed to the current trial of 10 army officers by Indonesia's first
human rights court as a key test of whether there would be any
accountability for the bloodshed.
U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate Appropriations Committee
hearing in Washington last week that it was time for the U.S. to start
supporting Indonesia's military again.
"I
think this is a time for us to begin supporting their military again
and make sure that that military is exposed to U.S. values, western
values, that we have an opportunity to work them, to train with them,
to invest in them to make them a positive force within that
country," Powell said according to a transcript received in
Jakarta.
He said renewed support should be offered without overlooking past
problems and while "pressing the Indonesian government to take
action against past human rights abuses."
"We should be prepared to invest in those institutions that may
not have met the standard that we're anxious for them to meet fully,
but are moving in the right direction and have that as their
goal," Powell added.
Powell was answering questions from Democrats Senator Patrick Leahy,
the author of the Leahy Amendment, in a hearing on the Supplemental
Appropriations Bill for the 2003 financial year.
