Indonesia: President Obama in the Company of Killers by Amy Goodman

[Better Believe It]

Obama in the Company of Killers
By Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
November 9, 2010

If a volcano kills civilians in Indonesia, it’s news. When the government does the killing, sadly, it’s just business as usual, especially if an American president tacitly endorses the killing, as President Barack Obama just did with his visit to Indonesia.

As the people around Mount Merapi dig out of the ash following a series of eruptions that have left more than 150 dead, a darker cloud now hangs over Indonesia in the form of renewed U.S. support for the country’s notorious Kopassus, the military’s special forces commando group. Journalist Allan Nairn released several secret Kopassus documents as the Obamas landed in Jakarta, showing the level of violent political repression administered by the Kopassus—now, for the first time in more than a decade, with United States support.

Last March, Nairn revealed details of a Kopassus assassination program in the Indonesian province of Aceh. These new Kopassus documents shed remarkable detail on the province of West Papua. As Nairn wrote in his piece accompanying the documents, West Papua is “where tens of thousands of civilians have been murdered and where Kopassus is most active. ... When the U.S. restored Kopassus aid last July the rationale was fighting terrorism, but the documents show that Kopassus in fact systematically targets civilians.” In the Kopassus’ own words, the civilians are “much more dangerous than any armed opposition.”

A series of cell-phone videos have come out of Papua showing torture being inflicted on men there at the hands of what appear to be members of the military. In one video that surfaced just two weeks ago, soldiers burn a man’s genitals with a burning stick, cover his head with a plastic bag to suffocate him, and threaten him with a rifle. Another video shows a Papuan man slowly dying from a gunshot wound as the soldier with the cell-phone camera taunts him, calling him a savage.

Read the full article at:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/obama_in_the_company_of_killers_20101109/


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EXCLUSIVE: As Obama Arrives in Jakarta, Secret Docs Show U.S.-backed Indonesian Special Forces Unit Targets Papuan Churches, Civilians
November 9, 2010

President Obama arrived in Indonesia today on the second stop of a ten-day trip to Asia. It’s Obama’s first state visit to Indonesia after having lived there for four years as a child. We go to Jakarta to speak with investigative journalist and activist Allan Nairn, who has just released secret documents from Kopassus—the feared Indonesian special forces—which has been responsible for human rights abuses since the 1950s. Earlier this year, the Obama administration lifted a 12-year funding ban for the training of Kopassus. While Obama talks about human rights, the documents indicate that Kopassus targets churches and civilians and includes a Kopassus enemies list topped by a local Baptist minister in West Papua. Nairn will continue to release documents on his website AllanNairn.com.

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama is in Indonesia today on the second stop of a ten-day trip to Asia. It’s Obama’s first state visit to Indonesia after having lived there four years as a child. Obama and the Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono are expected to discuss the year-old U.S.-Indonesia Comprehensive Partnership, which covers trade, investment, military cooperation and other bilateral issues.

While Obama touts the so-called U.S.-Indonesia Comprehensive Partnership, human rights activists are calling on Obama to tackle U.S. support for atrocity-linked Indonesian military forces. Earlier this year, the Obama administration lifted a 12-year-old ban on the training of the notorious Indonesian military unit known as Kopassus. The special forces unit has been involved in scores of human rights abuses in East Timor, in Aceh, in Papua and Java since its formation in the 1950s. According to Human Rights Watch, at least 11 of 18 Kopassus soldiers convicted for human rights abuses since 1998 are still serving in the Indonesian military.

Joining us from Indonesia from the capital Jakarta, where President Obama is, is veteran journalist and activist Allan Nairn. In 1991, we were both in East Timor and witnessed and survived the Santa Cruz massacre, in which Indonesian forces killed more than 270 Timorese. The soldiers fractured Allan’s skull. Allan has now uncovered U.S. support for Indonesian military assassinations and torture of civilians. Earlier this year, he was threatened with arrest after revealing the Indonesian military’s involvement in the assassination of political activists in Aceh. And just today he has published on his website, allannairn.com, details of leaked Indonesian documents he says reveal Kopassus’s engagement in, quote, "murder abduction" and the targeting of "churches in West Papua and civilian dissidents as the 'enemy.'" We are joined by Allan Nairn in Jakarta right now. The documents are posted on his website at allannairn.com.

Watch, listen to or read the full transcript of the Democracy Now interview with journalist Allan Nairn at:

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/9/as_obama_arrives_in_jakarta_secret


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NEWS RELEASE

Indonesia: Obama Should Make a Stand for Human Rights
Closer Ties Should Require Strengthening Accountability and Respect for Rights
November 7, 2010

US President Barack Obama's visit to Indonesia on November 9 through 11, 2010, is an important opportunity to make a stand for free expression, religious freedom, and a rights-respecting, accountable military in Indonesia, Human Rights Watch said today.

During the visit, Obama and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono are expected to discuss the US-Indonesia Comprehensive Partnership. The partnership addresses bilateral concerns including trade and investment, security and defense, education, health care, and energy, as well as transnational issues such as climate change and humanitarian relief. While Indonesia has made great strides on a number of human rights issues since it emerged from authoritarian rule nearly 12 years ago, serious challenges remain that could undermine Indonesia's stability and democracy in the absence of real institutional reform, Human Rights Watch said.

"Indonesia has made some good progress over the last decade, but that doesn't mean President Obama should ignore other serious human rights problems," said Sophie Richardson, acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Obama should encourage Indonesia to take concrete measures to protect free expression and religious freedom, and to require accountability by the armed forces."

Indonesia has failed to show adequate respect for critical human rights such as freedom of expression and religion, Human Rights Watch said. In other areas where Indonesia has expressed a commitment to change, such as military reform, efforts have stalled. And although Indonesia has made some progress in combating corruption, graft remains a serious problem that impedes progress in fulfilling its human rights obligations.

A February 25 letter from Human Rights Watch to Obama highlighted a number of areas in which he should seek concrete human rights commitments from Yudhoyono. Human Rights Watch urged Obama to call for the release of the dozens of political prisoners, primarily from politically tense areas such as Papua and the Mollucas, imprisoned for engaging in nonviolent demonstrations, raising flags, and displaying pro-independence symbols.

Obama should also call for the repeal of laws that criminalize "insulting" public officials and defamation, which Indonesian authorities have used to silence anti-corruption activists, human rights defenders, and citizens who publicly aired consumer complaints or allegations of misconduct.

He should also call on the Indonesian government to take stronger efforts to protect members of religious minorities from discrimination and violence and to repeal dozens of laws that unfairly restrict the rights of women, discriminate against non-Muslims, and give the government the authority to prosecute people for holding religious beliefs it considers "blasphemous." The religious affairs minister has repeatedly called for an outright ban of the Ahmadiyah, a minority who consider themselves Muslim but whom some other Muslims perceive to be heretics, and violence by Islamist militants against Ahmadi communities has increased.

"Media freedom has improved in Indonesia, but rights-respecting governments do not imprison people for peacefully airing critical views," Richardson said. "Obama should also raise the plight of religious minorities and denounce laws that discriminate against women."

Human Rights Watch urged Obama to call for Indonesia to restore free unhindered access for diplomats, foreign journalists, and human rights groups to the province of Papua, where the Indonesian military and police have frequently committed human rights abuses against civilians with impunity. In May 2009, the government closed the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Papua.

The release in October of a video showing the brutal torture of two Papuan men by Indonesian soldiers once again demonstrates the importance of ensuring effective prosecution of human rights violators, Human Rights Watch said. The government has promised to investigate, but Human Rights Watch emphasized that the trial should be open and transparent, charges should reflect the grievous level of torture inflicted, and those bearing command responsibility for these violations should also be prosecuted.

Human Rights Watch also reiterated its call for the government to revive a bill in the Indonesian parliament that would enable the government to prosecute members of the military who commit crimes against civilians before civilian courts, which offer better guarantees of an independent and effective remedy for the victims. Under the present system, such cases are usually handled by the military, with few cases ever making it to a tribunal. In the few cases that do, soldiers frequently face charges that do not reflect the scale of the abuse, and the trials lack transparency.

Human Rights Watch said that the US-Indonesia Comprehensive Partnership should address widespread corruption in the Indonesian bureaucracy and law enforcement system, which drains resources the government could be using to improve public services, including safeguarding the right to health. If, as US and Indonesian officials have suggested, the US intends to provide incentives for Indonesia to preserve its forests as a component of bilateral cooperation on climate change, Obama should press for those incentives to be linked to governance benchmarks, such as improving transparency and accountability in forestry data collection, Human Rights Watch said.

The decision of the Obama administration in July to lift a more than decade-long ban on US training and military assistance to Indonesia's abusive Special Forces (Komando Pasukan Khusus, or Kopassus) has seriously compromised US commitment to promoting respect for human rights in Indonesia, Human Rights Watch said. Kopassus members also remain essentially unaccountable for past violations. At least 11 of 18 Kopassus soldiers that have been convicted by military tribunals for involvement in human rights abuses since 1998 are still serving in the military.
"The Obama administration has yet to realize that rewarding a military that has repeatedly thumbed its nose at accountability for serious human rights abuses is no way to encourage reform," Richardson said. "This US government is essentially rewarding Kopassus for its intransigence and betraying Indonesians who have fought bravely for decades for accountability and justice."

Kopassus was restricted from receiving US military training for over a decade as a result of its involvement in serious human rights abuses in East Timor, Aceh, and other areas. The US should require the following steps by Indonesia before engaging in any training or assistance activity:
Kopassus should permanently discharge personnel convicted of abuse.
Kopassus should commit to undertaking credible and impartial investigations of all future allegations of human rights abuse.
Yudhoyono should establish, and Kopassus should pledge to cooperate with, an ad hoc tribunal to investigate the enforced disappearance of student activists in the late 1990s, as recommended by Indonesia's House of Representatives in October 2009.
Indonesia should also move forward on its commitments to become a party to the Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance to help prevent such abuses in the future.

On March 18, four prominent civil society organizations in Jakarta issued a statement calling on Obama to refrain from engaging further with Kopassus until the Indonesian military and government have acted on these three recommendations. Suciwati, the widow of slain human rights defender Munir Thalib, later said: "Indonesia has made much progress on the road to democracy and stability, but enhancing the reach of a powerful military force that lacks respect for the rule of law jeopardizes those hard-fought gains. Obama is rewarding Kopassus without requiring accountability. I fear that the Indonesian security services will again get away with murder."

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/11/05/indonesia-obama-should-make-stand-human-rights


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End aid to Indonesian special forces, campaigners tell Obama
By RFI
Radio France Internationale
November 10, 2010

As US President Barack Obama hailed Indonesia as a beacon of religious tolerance and democracy on his visit to Jakarta, an investigative reporter has revealed that the country’s special forces target civilians and churches in Papua province. Rights campaigners have called on Obama to reverse a recent decision to work with the notorious Kopassus force.

Leaked secret documents show that Kopassus, which was deployed against dissidents under military ruler Suharto, still engage in murder and abduction and target civilians in west Papua, journalist Allan Nairn claims.

Nairn points out that US companies have major interests in Indonesia, including the world’s largest gold and copper mine in Papua itself.

“Freeport McMoRan, a US mining company, has a vast mining operation there,” he says. “They run the area like a plantation. In fact for years they have been making payments to the Indonesian military where the Indonesian military essentially work as private security guards. They get the money from Freeport and they assault, they abduct, they kill the local people who protest against Freeport.”

Read the full article at:

http://www.english.rfi.fr/asia-pacific/20101110-end-aid-indonesian-special-forces-campaigners-tell-obama

[blindpig]

1. These crimes go all the way back to Carter...

that 'sainted' man.

All the penance in the world won't wash away that blood.

[Octafish]

3. Before him all the way to LBJ.

Johnson supported the coup that installed Suharto. So did his successors, Nixon, Ford (cough Kissinger), Carter...

The stories of Economic Hit Man John Perkins fill in the blanks created by Capitalism's Invisible Army to the present.

FTR: Unlike his predecessor, President Kennedy proposed policies in support of anti-colonial movements.

[Catherina]

2. This is really disheartening. Rec'd People need to know why some hate us n/t

[Octafish]

4. Suharto, the Model Killer, and His Friends in High Places

Background:

Suharto, the Model Killer, and His Friends in High Places

by John Pilger
www.dissidentvoice.org/, February 1st, 2008

EXCERPT...

To understand the significance of Suharto, who died on Sunday, is to look beneath the surface of the current world order: the so-called global economy and the ruthless cynicism of those who run it. Suharto was our model mass murderer - "our" is used here advisedly. "One of our very best and most valuable friends," Thatcher called him, speaking for the West. For three decades, the Australian, US and British governments worked tirelessly to minimise the crimes of Suharto's gestapo, known as Kopassus, who were trained by the Australian SAS and the British army and who gunned down people with British-supplied Heckler and Koch machine guns from British-supplied Tactica "riot control" vehicles. Prevented by Congress from supplying arms direct, US administrations from Gerald Ford to Bill Clinton, provided logistic support through the back door and commercial preferences.

In one year, the British Department of Trade provided almost a billion pounds worth of so-called soft loans, which allowed Suharto buy Hawk fighter bombers. The British taxpayer paid the bill for aircraft that dive-bombed East Timorese villages, and the arms industry reaped the profits. However, the Australians distinguished themselves as the most obsequious. In an infamous cable to Canberra, Richard Woolcott, Australia's ambassador to Jakarta, who had been forewarned about Suharto's invasion of East Timor, wrote: "What Indonesia now looks to from Australia . . . is some understanding of their attitude and possible action to assist public understanding in Australia. . . "

Covering up Suharto's crimes became a career for those like Woolcott, while "understanding" the mass murderer came in buckets. This left an indelible stain on the reformist government of Gough Whitlam following the cold-blooded killing of two Australian TV crews by Suharto's troops during the invasion of East Timor. "We know your people love you," Bob Hawke told the dictator. His successor, Paul Keating, famously regarded the tyrant as a father figure. When Indonesian troops slaughtered at least 200 people in the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, East Timor, and Australian mourners planted crosses outside the Indonesian embassy in Canberra, foreign minister Gareth Evans ordered them destroyed. To Evans, ever-effusive in his support for the regime, the massacre was merely an "aberration". This was the view of much of the Australian press, especially that controlled by Rupert Murdoch, whose local retainer, Paul Kelly, led a group of leading newspaper editors to Jakarta, fawn before the dictator.

Here lies a clue as to why Suharto, unlike Saddam Hussein, died not on the gallows but surrounded by the finest medical team his secret billions could buy. Ralph McGehee, a senior CIA operations officer in the 1960s, describes the terror of Suharto's takeover of Indonesia in 1965-6 as "the model operation" for the American-backed coup that got rid of Salvador Allende in Chile seven years later. "The CIA forged a document purporting to reveal a leftist plot to murder Chilean military leaders," he wrote, " what happened in Indonesia in 1965." The US embassy in Jakarta supplied Suharto with a "zap list" of Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) members and crossed off the names when they were killed or captured. Roland Challis, the BBC's south east Asia correspondent at the time, told me how the British government was secretly involved in this slaughter. "British warships escorted a ship full of Indonesian troops down the Malacca Straits so they could take part in the terrible holocaust," he said. "I and other correspondents were unaware of this at the time . . . There was a deal, you see."

The deal was that Indonesia under Suharto would offer up what Richard Nixon had called "the richest hoard of natural resources, the greatest prize in south-east Asia." In November 1967, the greatest prize was handed out at a remarkable three-day conference sponsored by the Time-Life Corporation in Geneva. Led by David Rockefeller, all the corporate giants were represented: the major oil companies and banks, General Motors, Imperial Chemical Industries, British American Tobacco, Siemens and US Steel and many others. Across the table sat Suharto's US-trained economists who agreed to the corporate takeover of their country, sector by sector. The Freeport company got a mountain of copper in West Papua. A US/European consortium got the nickel. The giant Alcoa company got the biggest slice of Indonesia's bauxite. America, Japanese and French companies got the tropical forests of Sumatra. When the plunder was complete, President Lyndon Johnson sent his congratulations on "a magnificent story of opportunity seen and promise awakened." Thirty years later, with the genocide in East Timor also complete, the World Bank described the Suharto dictatorship as a "model pupil."

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Pilger_John/Suharto_US_Killer.html

Thank goodness for John Pilger and Amy Goodman.