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US close to lifting ban on Kopassus: Juwono
Former defense minister Juwono Sudarsono says Washington is close to lifting a ban on training the Indonesian Army’s Special Forces (Kopassus), with the ban’s main sponsor, Sen
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ormer defense minister Juwono Sudarsono says Washington is close tolifting a ban on training the Indonesian Army’s Special Forces(Kopassus), with the ban’s main sponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahy,“accepting” Jakarta’s progress in investigating officers accused ofrights abuses.
Under the Leahy Law, the entire Kopassus unit is banned from receiving US military education or training, following allegations of their involvement in a number of atrocities in restive provinces.
The law says the ban will only be lifted if the government takes adequate legal steps to process officers allegedly involved.
Juwono said Tuesday he had spoken with Leahy toward the end of his stint as defense minister last October, and the senator had “accepted” Jakarta’s claims that it was investigating of rights abuses implicating several high-ranking officers.
“In the next few months, the US State Department will conduct a review of the ban [indicating] that military-to-military relations will be restored ... to allow Kopassus officers to be trained in the United States,” Juwono told The Jakarta Post on a sidelines of conference on Indonesia-US partnership.
“It’s just a matter of time, [maybe] a couple of months.”
US President Barack Obama will visit Indonesia in late March to launch a comprehensive partnership with Jakarta on a wide range of cooperation in military and other areas.
Jakarta has said it would negotiate a lifting of the ban, including discussing US travel bans on suspected generals, but has not confirmed whether this would be part of the comprehensive partnership.
Juwono said the military had dismissed some officers and accepted the resignations of others proven guilty of human rights abuses.
He also sprang to the defense of other officers who had been cleared of all charges but still faced a public outcry from civil groups.
“Justice has been served, full military justice on our terms and within our law, not on the terms of these NGOs,” Juwono said.
“Accusations that Pak Sjafrie was involved in three cases of rights abuse in East Timor and the May 1998 Jakarta riots are false. He has been cleared of these allegations ... We conveyed this to the US Congress and they accepted it.”
Lt. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoedin is the Deputy Defense Minister.
Gerald F. Hyman, the senior adviser at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said some senators were reluctant about resuming full defense ties with Jakarta, but would eventually side with Leahy.
“Senator Leahy is a very powerful senator ... especially on foreign affairs,” Hyman said.
“If he feels strongly on certain issues, other people will take his signals ... they will follow his lead.
“Senator Leahy is a very reasonable person and he understands the importance of Indonesia and thinks that things must move forward.”
Usman Hamid, coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), said rights groups understood the need for a resumption of defense ties, but stressed more needed to be done to end the impunity afforded by Jakarta to certain generals.
“The US government has to ensure its future training for Kopassus officers includes only those with clean rights records,” he said.
