EXCLUSIVE…Indonesian Forces Tapped by Obama for Renewed US Aid Implicated in New Assassinations

In a Democracy Now! exclusive, investigative journalist and activist Allan Nairn reveals US-backed Indonesian armed forces carried out a series of assassinations of civilian activists in late 2009. The news comes as the White House moves towards increasing aid to the Indonesian military and lifting a twelve-year ban on the training of the notorious Indonesian military unit known as Kopassus. A US-trained Kopassus general who coordinated the assassinations confirmed to Nairn an Indonesian army role in the killings. [includes rush transcript]


JUAN GONZALEZ: We end today’s show looking at US-Indonesian relations. The White House is moving towards increasing aid to the Indonesian armed forces and lifting a twelve-year ban on the training of the notorious Indonesian military unit known as Kopassus. The special forces unit has been linked to scores of human rights abuses in East Timor, Aceh, Papua and Java since its formation in the 1950s.

On Monday, Jeffrey Bader of the National Security Council acknowledged Kopassus had committed human rights violations in the past, but he said the Obama administration, quote, “hopes to be able, at some point, to move past and resolve those concerns.”

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama was scheduled to travel to Indonesia next week but the White House has announced the trip will be postponed ’til June because of the healthcare negotiations on Capitol Hill. The trip to Indonesia would have marked Barack Obama’s first time returning to Indonesia since he was elected president. He lived in Indonesia for several years as a child.

Well, yesterday I reached investigative journalist and activist Allan Nairn about his new investigation into assassinations by US-trained Indonesian army and Kopassus officers. I reached him in Southeast Asia.

ALLAN NAIRN: President Obama wants to restore military aid to the Indonesian armed forces, including Kopassus, the Red Berets. I’ve just come out with a piece that shows that the Indonesian army and Kopassus have been involved in a series of recent assassinations of civilian political activists. The piece names the names of the officers involved, including a Kopassus general named Sunarko. These assassinations were carried out in the region of Aceh in late 2009.

They targeted activists for the Aceh—the Partai Aceh, which is pro-independence. In one case, the case of a man named Tumijan, he was abducted, tortured to death. His body was dumped in a sewage ditch near an army post. In another, a man was sitting in his car outside his house. An assassin walked up, put two bullets in his head through the window.

According to a senior Indonesian official with detailed information on these murders, they’re part of a program of political murder being carried out by TNI, the Indonesian armed forces, and Kopassus and by military intelligence. And so, these killings are still going on today. And Obama is about to give them new aid on the pretense that the Indonesian army has reformed and has stopped killing civilians, which is false.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you know this, Allan?

ALLAN NAIRN: From people inside the Indonesian government, who gave the names of some of the killers and the officers they work for. And just a few hours ago, I spoke on the phone with General Aditya, who is the head of the police in Aceh, and he confirmed that his forces had in fact detained some of the assassins who were working for the army. They’d been holding them for months, but they never announced this, because they were afraid to do it. The police are afraid of the army. But when I asked him about it directly, he admitted it publicly for the first time. The Indonesian police have confirmed this. They know about it, but they’re afraid to act. The Indonesian army and Kopassus are running a program of killing civilians, and it’s active right now. And Obama wants to give them new US weapons, training and money.

AMY GOODMAN: Why does President Obama want to give them this money? I think we’re hearing a lot about the war on terror.

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, first the White House makes the argument that the atrocities are a thing of the past. The Indonesian military has killed hundreds of thousands, perhaps close to a million, civilians. But the White House argues, well, that’s in the past. But as I’ve just described, that’s a lie, that’s not true. Secondly, the White House claims that they want to use the Indonesian army to fight Islamist terror groups in Indonesia. They want to use them and a special anti-terrorist unit called Densus 88.

Densus 88 is a police SWAT-style task force that was originally created by US intelligence under the initiative of Cofer Black, formerly of the CIA, now with Blackwater. Two nights ago, I met with the Densus people, who described how were they—were trained in Jakarta and elsewhere by a CIA personnel in tactics including surveillance, how to pursue and snatch people, and interrogation.

AMY GOODMAN: Allan Nairn, talk about the significance of President Obama postponing his trip to Indonesia until June.

ALLAN NAIRN: I think it is still possible that the deal they were making with the Indonesian army may still go forward, because for the past few days, other top US officials, including Kurt Campbell, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, have been in Indonesia. US generals have been in Indonesia. In fact, Kopassus general—Kopassus generals even went to Washington and were welcomed by the Obama people with open arms. They were working out the details of this new pact. And it is possible that even though Obama himself won’t visit, they will still try to push this deal through. So that means specifically that they may go ahead with their already announced plans to circumvent the US congressional Leahy amendment, which bans training for units involved in atrocities, and boost their training for Kopassus.

I think, however, politically, practically speaking, that it may be possible to at least defeat politically that aspect of the deal. There are various reasons to think that’s possible. The East Timor Action Network is running a campaign to stop it. Just in the past few hours, human rights groups and survivors to [inaudible] terror in Aceh have come out, and Indonesian national human rights groups have come out, with a statement asking Obama to not increase the training for Kopassus. So I think that deal perhaps could be stopped, and people should contact Congress and the White House, demand that the US cut off all military aid to Indonesia. And they can to go to the East Timor Action website and get details about the Kopassus aspect of the problem.

AMY GOODMAN: But this issue of terrorism, of Islamist terror, can you expand on that more?

ALLAN NAIRN: In Indonesia, there are currently Islamist terror groups that have killed several hundred people. They bombed luxury hotels in Jakarta. They bombed a night club. They bombed two night clubs in Bali. They’ve killed several hundred in recent years.

The Indonesian military and police, on the other hand, have killed many hundreds of thousands. And for years, the Indonesian military and police have been sponsoring Islamist terror groups. They’ve been using them for their own purposes. They sent them into Poso and the Malukus. Indonesian generals back them. They went on Indonesian military transports. They use them to attack Christian villagers, while other elements of the army and police back the Christian villagers. The idea was to create chaos to try to destabilize the government of then Indonesian president Gus Dur. And it succeeded.

On another occasion, the Indonesian army sent a group called Laskar Jihad, an Islamist terror group, into Aceh to try to wean people away from supporting the pro-independence movement in Aceh. They were immediately driven out by the Acehnese. The Indonesian police have backed a group called the FPI, the Islamic Defenders Front, which goes around Jakarta in Islamic dress busting up bars which don’t give sufficient payoffs—payoffs to the police. Then the presidential intelligence agency, which reports now directly to General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the president of Indonesia, they have in the past made payments to Laskar Jihad and sent them into Papua.

Papua is a region in the eastern part of Indonesia, which is under de facto occupation by the Indonesian armed forces and Kopassus. They’re conducting terror operations there, sometimes using these Islamist forces, sometimes using Kopassus men directly. There have been abductions, assassinations. And in one case, the Densus 88 antiterrorist force went into Papua and arrested a man because he had been sending SMS text messages that were critical of President Susilo. So here you have the CIA-trained supposed anti-terror unit arresting a peaceful civilian because he uses his cell phone to send out messages criticizing the President. This particular unit, Densus, is expected to be one of the groups that is focused on in Obama’s visit, and he’s expected to highlight their work with the US and perhaps even announce new aid for them.

So what they’ve been doing, what the TNI and POLRI, the Indonesian armed forces and police, have been doing, with these various Islamist terror groups is they’ve been setting them up, funding them, using them for their convenience. But also, when it is sometimes convenient, they’ve been killing them. And that’s what they’re doing right now.

In the run-up to Obama’s visit over the past two weeks, they’ve done a series of raids on these various Islamist groups. They’ve killed a number of them. They’ve arrested many others. They’ve arrested people from mosques, who they claim are linked to them. And as one police general privately put it the other day, they’re putting on a show for Obama. They want to get new helicopters, new transport planes, new interrogation equipment and training, more computers to spy on more cell phones, more surveillance equipment. They want more of everything from the United States. And by killing people from the Islamist movement that they’ve been sponsoring for years, they cynically hope that that will sell America. It’s actually similar, in some respects, to the situation in Pakistan with ISI, the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

It says something about the state of US politics now that this push to renew aid or increase aid to the Indonesian military is coming under a liberal Democratic President Obama. It’s coming while Obama has as his Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights a man named Michael Posner, who used to be one of the leading human rights advocates in the US. He ran a group in New York called the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, later renamed Human Rights First. They did very good work, for example, on pushing for justice in the case of Munir, the top Indonesian human rights lawyer who was assassinated by BIN, the presidential intelligence agency, by General Muchdi and General Hendro Priyono, who was a CIA asset. But now Posner is in the State Department. He’s running the Human Rights Bureau. And he and Obama and others are, by all reports, getting ready to circumvent congressional restrictions and push through, restore aid to—restore training aid to Kopassus, the most notorious of the killer forces and the one of the forces that, as I’m reporting today, have been involved in this recent wave of assassinations against political activists in Aceh.

AMY GOODMAN: What would the effect, Allan Nairn, of full restoration of military aid to Indonesia have?

ALLAN NAIRN: It would mean more killing, more killing of civilians, because it would make the Indonesian armed forces and police more confident. It would send the message to the Indonesian public that they have more reason to be afraid of the army and police, because now they will be able to see that those forces have the full might of America behind them. So it’ll mean more death and more terror on the popular level.

On the other hand, it’s also the case that the situation is now different than it was in the 1990s. In the 1990s, after the Dili massacre in occupied East Timor, the massacre that we survived, a grassroots movement grew up in the United States, including the East Timor Action Network, and we were all able to pressure the US Congress to cut off a lot of the military aid to Indonesia. That was under the dictatorship of General Suharto. And that cutoff had a huge effect within Indonesia. It actually contributed to the downfall of Suharto. That’s what Suharto’s former security chief, Admiral Sudomo, told me. The cutoff was very damaging to them. It helped to bring down Suharto.

Then, over the years after that, the aid has—much of the aid has gradually been restored. But Indonesia is not now in a moment where the army’s power is in the balance. Popular movements are very weak. Much of the middle class, including many middle-class NGO people, have been essentially bought off by the regime. They have very comfortable lives. Foreign expatriates have very comfortable lives. They’re making the claim that Indonesia is the new model of democracy, even though the poor, who are the vast majority in the country, are being terrorized by the police on a daily basis and, in key areas like Papua, terrorized by the army.

So, at this moment, it’s not as if, if the US withheld the military aid, that could bring down the army as earlier withholding helped to bring down Suharto, but it will have a marginal effect of definitely increasing the killing and torture that Indonesians suffer. So if Obama does that, he should be held to account.

It’s especially outrageous on his part, because Obama is a US president who actually understands Indonesia. He was a young boy when he lived there, but in his books he makes it clear that he knew about the massacres that were going on in the 1960s, the massacres that brought the current regime to power. The army ousted Sukarno, the founding president. The US backed the terror in which more than 400,000 rural peasants, many of them members of the Communist party, were executed. The CIA gave a list of 5,000 dissidents, who they called Communists. Also they were also shot and strangled and slashed to death. And Obama knew about all this. He lived there afterwards. He wrote about it in his book. And he’s a smart guy. I’m sure he knows the story of the invasion of East Timor, which was authorized by President Ford and Henry Kissinger; about the very recent terror in Aceh; about the ongoing de facto occupation of Papua. And yet, on the really transparently ridiculous excuse that the TNI is the agency to fight a small Islamist terror group which is in Indonesia, he’s about to supposedly restore, increase US weapons and training to this army.


AMY GOODMAN: After I taped this interview with investigative journalist Allan Nairn, he called and said he’d spoken to the Kopassus general who’s coordinated the recent assassinations. Allan said the general acknowledged an Indonesian army role in the killings. And the general also told him he himself was US-trained and was enthusiastic about Obama’s plans to make the US relationship with Kopassus and Indonesia’s army, quote, “still more intimate.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/19/exclusiveindonesian_forces_tapped_by_obama_for

Obama’s Bad Prescription for Indonesia

by Amy Goodman

President Barack Obama dedicated the signing of health care legislation to a number of people, including his mother, S. Ann Dunham Soetoro, who, he said, "argued with insurance companies even as she battled cancer in her final days." The health care legislative process and its frenetic endgame prompted the president to postpone a trip to the country where his mother raised him for several years of his childhood: Indonesia. While his health care bill is considered by many a huge step forward, Obama is simultaneously, and with far less scrutiny, potentially taking a huge step backward with Indonesia.

News is breaking in Indonesia about the role of the Indonesian military in the murder of political activists in the province of Aceh last year, in the lead-up to elections.

This is happening while the White House is engaged in fierce behind-the-scenes negotiations with Congress on whether to restore aid to the Indonesian military, including one of its most notorious elements, the special-forces command known as Kopassus. Military aid to Indonesia was suspended in 1999 after its military, the TNI, unleashed a campaign of terror on the people of East Timor. In 2005, the Bush administration partially restored military aid, but conspicuously denied aid and training to the Kopassus, thanks largely to the efforts of grass-roots activists and the intervention of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

My colleague Allan Nairn, reporting from Indonesia, broke the story this past week on "Democracy Now!," the news hour I host, and on his blog, allannairn.com. He reported that the TNI "assassinated a series of civilian activists during 2009 ... as part of a secret government program, authorized from Jakarta, coordinated in part by an active-duty, U.S.-trained Kopassus special-forces general who has just acknowledged on the record that his TNI men had a role in the killings." Aceh is a resource-rich province at the western tip of Indonesia. After the devastation Aceh suffered in the tsunami of 2004, the government reached a political settlement with the Free Aceh Movement. The elections in 2009 were a result of that. Nairn details two of the eight assassinations of members of the pro-independence Partai Aceh, citing numerous sources, most of whom, fearing for their safety, remain unnamed.

Allan and I are no strangers to the Indonesian military. In 1991, we survived a massacre in East Timor. East Timor was invaded by Indonesia in 1975, with the full support of President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. In the next quarter-century, the Indonesian military killed more than 200,000 Timorese, a third of the population. Allan and I went there to report on the situation and ended up covering a march to a cemetery in Timor's capital city, Dili. As the mass of unarmed civilians was hemmed in by the cemetery walls, Indonesian soldiers marched in formation, their U.S.-supplied M-16s at the ready, and without warning, without provocation, opened fire on the crowd. Allan and I were beaten to the ground. Swinging their M-16s like baseball bats, the soldiers fractured Allan's skull. We survived, but more than 270 Timorese were killed that day. We managed to escape, and to report on the massacre. While I was denied entry in 1999, Allan sneaked in to Timor and reported on the TNI atrocities there, as they burned much of East Timor to the ground. They arrested Allan, but he continued reporting from prison, giving new meaning to "cell phone."

Since Allan broke the news this past week, the Indonesian press has been buzzing with the allegations. Air Vice Marshal Sagom Tamboen, a spokesman for the TNI, told the Jakarta Globe that the military is considering legal action against Nairn. Nairn told me, "I welcome this threat from TNI, a force which has murdered many hundreds of thousands, and challenge them to arrest me so that we can face off in open court."

Human Rights Watch recently wrote a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, outlining serious concerns about possible re-engagement with Kopassus. ETAN, the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network, has launched a petition campaign at etan.org to block the funding.

Much of the political class in the United States is now chattering and twittering about the health care bill's passage into law, and the potential political consequences. They should spend time focusing on Obama's plans for Indonesia, and the possibility that he may restore funding and training for one of the world's most notorious, human-rights-abusing military forces, the Indonesian Kopassus.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/24-0

EXCLUSIVE…Journalist Allan Nairn Facing Possible Arrest in Indonesia for Exposing US-Backed Forces Assassinated Civilians

In Indonesia, investigative journalist Allan Nairn is facing possible arrest for exposing that US-backed Indonesian armed forces assassinated a series of civilian activists last year. Since Allan Nairn broke the news of the assassination program on Democracy Now! on Friday, the Indonesian press has been buzzing with the allegations. A military spokesman told the Jakarta Globe that the military is considering legal action against Nairn. Earlier today, Nairn issued a public challenge to the Indonesian military to arrest him so that he could face off with the military in open court. [includes rush transcript]


AMY GOODMAN: President Obama dedicated the signing of healthcare legislation yesterday to a number of people, including his mother, S. Ann Dunham Soetoro.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Today, I’m signing this reform bill into law on behalf of my mother, who argued with insurance companies even as she battled cancer in her final days.


AMY GOODMAN: The healthcare legislative process and its frenetic endgame prompted the President to postpone a trip to the country where his mother raised him for several years of his childhood: Indonesia.

While his healthcare bill is considered by many a huge step forward, Obama is simultaneously, and with far less scrutiny, taking what many human rights activists consider to be a huge step backward with Indonesia. News is breaking about the role of the Indonesian military in the murder of political activists in the province of Aceh last year in the lead-up to local elections there. Investigative journalist Allan Nairn is facing possible arrest for the exposé that shows the US-backed Indonesian armed forces assassinated a series of civilian activists last year.

The story is breaking at a time when the White House is engaged in fierce behind-the-scenes negotiations with Congress on whether to restore aid to the Indonesian military, including one of its most notorious elements, the special forces command known as Kopassus. President Obama had been scheduled to visit Indonesia this week, but the trip was postponed until June due to the healthcare debate.

Since Allan Nairn broke the news of the assassination program here on Democracy Now! last Friday, the Indonesian press has been buzzing with the allegations. A military spokesman told the Jakarta Globe that the military is considering legal action against Allan Nairn. Earlier today, Allan issued a public threat—a public challenge to the Indonesian military to arrest him so that he could face off with the military in open court.

Allan Nairn is no stranger to the Indonesian military. In 1991, Allan and I survived a massacre in East Timor, when more than 270 Timorese were killed by US-backed Indonesian soldiers. In 1999, Allan sneaked back into East Timor and reported on the Indonesian military atrocities there as the Indonesian soldiers burned much of East Timor to the ground. They arrested Allan, but he continued reporting from prison.

Well, last night we reached Allan in Indonesia to discuss the latest developments.

ALLAN NAIRN: In the article, I described how the Indonesian armed forces, which are armed and trained by the United States, have been running a program of assassinating political activists, and I described in detail their assassinations in Aceh in 2009 in the run-up to the local elections there, where at least eight activists for the pro-independence PA, Partai Aceh, were assassinated. And I quote senior Indonesian officials saying that these assassinations were coordinated on the regional level by a general named Sunarko, a Kopassus general. I reached Sunarko on the phone, and he acknowledged to me that his men were involved in these assassinations. But he said, “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that this was a project of the military as an institution.”

He also, this general who ran the assassination program, told me that he was an enthusiastic supporter of President Obama’s plan to restore full aid to the Indonesian armed forces, and he then went on to describe in detail his own training by the United States. He says they’ve been training him since the 1980s. He regards them as close partners, and he loves Obama’s plan because he says it will make the partnership still more intimate, in his words. General Sunarko, the Kopassus general who in Timor in 1999 helped run the militias that burned 80 percent of the buildings in Timor, that conducted church massacres, etc., and who now has been running this assassinations program in Aceh, he said that he was trained by the US military, the US Pacific Command, mobile training teams in jungle warfare, logistics and many other subjects, and he said that he was most recently trained by the US in 2006. So he’s a very enthusiastic backer of Obama’s plan to restore aid for the US military, and specifically for Kopassus, the special forces, the most notorious unit of that military.

Now, in response to this—a few hours ago, this story broke in the Indonesian press. It ran on TV. The government press agency put out a series of stories about it. Kompas, the main newspaper, had five or six stories about it. And the Indonesian army is now threatening to arrest me. They apparently are threatening to charge me with criminal defamation, which, under various Indonesian laws, can carry a sentence of four to six years.

And I welcome this threat. I just put out a statement on my website saying I welcome this threat. They should arrest me, so that we can face—have a face-off in open court. And we’ll describe in open court, before the Indonesian public, how the Indonesian armed forces are assassinating civilians. I’ll detail the massacres, the disappearances, etc. And I will attempt to call TNI generals as witnesses and question them under oath and will also attempt to call US officials as witnesses—US officials from the White House, the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department—and ask them, under oath, to tell the Indonesian public in a trial why they have been giving arms and training, year after year after year, to an Indonesian armed forces as they’ve been killing civilians.

As the US has seen the results of their arming and training of people like General Sunarko of thousands of other top officers, the US has continued to pour in weapons and training to facilitate these murders. So I want to get a chance to put the CIA station chiefs, the US military attachés to Indonesia, the generals from the Pentagon, the national security advisers—maybe the presidents, if that’s legally possible—put them on the stand here in Indonesia in court and ask them, under oath, “Why did you do this? Why have you done this to the civilians of Indonesia?” and ask the same questions to Indonesian generals. So I’m challenging the Indonesian military, if they’re serious, if they really believe their own denials, I’m challenging them to arrest me.

AMY GOODMAN: But, Allan, you’re talking about President Obama saying he’s going to restore aid to Kopassus and the Indonesian military. These killings took place in 2009. Were they getting the aid then?

ALLAN NAIRN: The Indonesian military has always been getting aid from the US. After the Dili massacre in ’91, which we survived, the activist movement which grew up, including the East Timor Action Network, we succeeded in cutting off much of the aid, and especially after the 1999 massacre in Timor, after the Timorese voted for independence, almost all it was cut off. But there’s always been some. And over recent years, it has been slowly restored.

And right now, the Indonesian defense ministry claims that 2,800 Indonesian military people are right now getting training in the United States. The US is now selling some weapons and equipment to the armed forces. The CIA and US—various covert US units have extensive programs going on with the Indonesian military and police. So, yes, they’re getting US backing right now.

And Obama wants to strengthen that backing. If Obama succeeds in going ahead with his plan, if he’s not stopped by Congress and the US public, this will effectively be the ultimate green light to the Indonesian armed forces and their dreaded special forces, Kopassus, a green light to go ahead and do what they want to the Indonesian public. And many of the survivors of their terror are very worried about this.


AMY GOODMAN: We’ll return to my interview with investigative journalist Allan Nairn in Indonesia in a minute. He faces possible arrest. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We return to my interview with investigative journalist Allan Nairn in Indonesia, facing possible arrest for exposing that US-backed Indonesian armed forces assassinated a series of civilian activists last year. The Indonesian military has publicly denied Allan’s report.

A spokesman for the armed forces, Air Vice Marshal Sagom Tamboen, told the Jakarta Globe that the military is considering filing a legal complaint against Nairn. Sagom said, quote, “If he is a good journalist and if he does have evidence, then he should come forward with the information that he has…But the problem is that [Nairn] hasn’t been able to give us any clear evidence or tell us who his sources are. So how can we believe him?” unquote.

Well, I asked Allan Nairn to respond to Sagom’s comments.

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, first, he should read the article. The article lays out evidence. For example, the Indonesian police made a deal with the military and some other Indonesian officials, who stumbled across this assassination program and who weren’t supposed to know about it, and they actually detained a number of the low-level military and military-sponsored hit men who carried out one of the assassinations, the assassination of a man named Tumijan, who was a palm oil from Nagan Raya in Aceh. In that case, an officer named Captain Wahyu, a soldier named Oktavianus, and at least seven militia members, who work for the TNI, are under detention. I name them in my piece. The commander of the Aceh police confirmed to me, on the record—Police General Aditya confirmed to me, on the record, that these men had in fact been detained for these murders. General Sunarko, the Kopassus general who ran the assassination program, also confirmed to me that his subordinates had been detained for the Tumijan murder. That’s as specific as you can get.

Yet, in their response, the Indonesian military doesn’t even mention these detentions, and neither does the Indonesian press, as far as I’ve been able to see so far. There seems to be some fear about reporting—about getting that specific about reporting the full facts about these military assassinations.

AMY GOODMAN: Allan Nairn, I want to play for you President Obama being interviewed—I believe this was last Thursday, in the height of the healthcare debate. He had just—was just going to be announcing that he would be delaying his trip to Indonesia. But he did do an interview with Indonesian television. This is what he had to say.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Obviously, there has been some controversy, in terms of military assistance in the past, but since the advent of democracy in Indonesia, what you’ve seen is the TNI make significant progress, separating itself out from the police, focusing more on broad external security issues, as opposed to internal security issues. And so, we’ve already begun more interactions, and our hope is, is that we can continue to improve on that front.

REPORTER: Is that a signal that your administration is satisfied with the military reforms and the resolution of the past human rights abuses in Indonesia?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, I think that the—we have acknowledge that those past human rights abuses existed. And so, we can’t go forward without looking backwards and understanding that that was an enormous problem, not just for America, but it was a problem for the Indonesian people. We have seen significant progress, and so what we want to do is to continue to improve our consultation and move this forward into a more positive direction, because we want Indonesia to be a close partner for many years to come, and we want a prosperous and secure Indonesia.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond, Allan Nairn, to what President Obama has said?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, Obama is saying these—he’s saying these crimes were in the distant past. These assassinations that I’m just reporting happened while Obama was president. They happened while Obama was president, while he was presiding over the training of, according to the Indonesian defense ministry, thousands of Indonesian military people. While he was shipping weapons and equipment to the Indonesian military, they were assassinating a political activist in Aceh, as Obama was sitting in the White House. So this is not a thing of the past.

Secondly, when he refers to external security issues that the Indonesian armed forces are focusing on, I would challenge the President to name one. There is absolutely no external security threat to Indonesia. Singapore is not about to invade. Australia is not about to invade. What the Indonesian armed forces are focusing on is what they’ve always focused on: the internal repression of the population. And now it’s most intensive in the eastern part of the country, in Papua, which is under de facto occupation. But also, they were doing these—they’ve been doing these political assassinations in Aceh. So what Obama says is just false.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Allan, President Obama says he will be going to Indonesia in June. What is happening between now and then? How set in stone is the resumption of aid to the Indonesian military?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, that’s a good question. The pact, the aid deal, has not yet been announced. It was due to be announced when Obama was due to be here, in fact probably would have been announced yesterday. And now it’s a bit up in the air. So if the US public and Congress would weigh in now and demand that Obama stop all aid to Kopassus, stop all aid to the Indonesian armed forces, there is some chance that this package could be defeated or cut back. So this is an opportunity. The delay of Obama’s trip is an opportunity to save some lives, prevent some further murders in Indonesia, by again cutting off US aid to this military.


AMY GOODMAN: Investigative journalist Allan Nairn speaking from Indonesia, again facing arrest.

To talk more about this story, we’re joined by Damien Kingsbury. He’s a professor at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, the author of several books on Indonesia, including Power Politics and the Indonesian Military. In 2006, he was on the negotiating team to the Aceh peace agreement.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Kingsbury. If you could briefly talk about the significance of Allan Nairn’s exposé and what is happening now in Indonesia and the US relationship with it, what renewed aid would mean.

DAMIEN KINGSBURY: Well, there is already a significant level of military aid to Indonesia. It has been carrying out for a number of years what Allan specifically referred to. And the real problem now is the renewal of aid to Kopassus, the special forces, which, as Allan has correctly pointed out, is guilty of numerous human rights abuses up until, we know for a fact, the end of last year. We also know that human rights abuses are continuing to occur, almost as we speak, in West Papua. So this is an organization that has not reformed and continues to perpetrate the sorts of crimes that the Leahy Amendment, American legislation, bans the United States government from assisting with.

AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of the threats by the Indonesian military right now around what Allan has exposed?

DAMIEN KINGSBURY: Well, look, if I was Allan and if I was in Indonesia, I think I’d be pretty concerned, because, of course, he’s being very brave, and if he goes to court, he may well have his moment in the sun, but the courts are notoriously corrupt, and the military does hold great sway over the judicial process. So he would not get a fair hearing. He would not get to call the witnesses he wants. He would be found guilty. He would go to jail. I mean, apart from [inaudible], I think they would concoct a visa violation, a crime against him, and that, in itself, would mean that he could go to jail for several years.

AMY GOODMAN: But is it possible they would have to then deal with the public being the audience to the exposé that Allan has just done, both at Democracy Now! and at ”http://www.allannairn.com">allannairn.com?

DAMIEN KINGSBURY: I guess what we’re assuming here is they have the same sort of open system that we have in more developed Western countries, such as the United States and Australia. The reality is that Kopassus officers have been charged with various crimes in the past, and they have even occasionally—not often, but occasionally—taken to court. And what Kopassus does is they stack the gallery. They stop people from entering. They intimidate the judges. And the very few sentences that are handed down are very light, given the crimes that they are up on, which are usually murder and the like. And very often these people are actually exonerated and allowed to go free. So it’s not an open judicial process. It’s not the sort of judicial process that we would expect to see in a developed Western country. And there being anything like a fair trial, I think, would be a very big ask at this stage.

AMY GOODMAN: Damien Kingsbury, I want to thank you for being with us, professor at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.

DAMIEN KINGSBURY: My pleasure.

AMY GOODMAN: Among his books, Power Politics and the Indonesian Military.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/24/exclusivejournalist_allan_nairn_facing_possible_arrest

sounds familiar... Thanks for the reports...

U.S. Ends Ban on Ties With Indonesian Special Forces

by Phil Stewart

JAKARTA - Washington said Thursday it was dropping a ban on ties with Indonesia's special forces, imposed over human rights abuses in the 1990s, a move that may eventually allow combat training of the once-notorious unit.

[The United States announced Thursday, July 22, 2010, it will resume cooperation with Indonesia's special forces after ties were severed more than a decade ago over human rights abuses allegedly committed by the commando unit. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File) ]The United States announced Thursday, July 22, 2010, it will resume cooperation with Indonesia's special forces after ties were severed more than a decade ago over human rights abuses allegedly committed by the commando unit. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File)
The decision, announced during a visit by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Jakarta, was taken after Indonesia took steps requested by Washington including removal of convicted human rights violators from the organization's ranks.

Activists in Indonesia swiftly condemned the move and questioned President Barack Obama's commitment to human rights.

Gates, after meeting Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said the resumption of security cooperation activities would be "gradual" and "limited."

"These initial steps will take place within the limits of U.S. law and do not signal any lessening of the importance we place on human rights and accountability," Gates said.

Human rights groups have voiced concern, however, that the roughly 5,000-strong special forces unit, known as Kopassus, still harbors rights offenders who committed abuses in East Timor and elsewhere but never convicted.

"We regret this development very much. Until now, the perpetrators of past human rights abuses in East Timor, Aceh and Papua are still free. There is still impunity in the Indonesian military, especially in Kopassus," Poengky Indarti, of Jakarta-based human rights group Imparsial, told Reuters.

"We are confused about the position of Barack Obama. Is he pro-human rights or not?" she said.

Gates defended the Obama administration's commitment to human rights and said working with countries that make an effort to reform was better than "simply standing back and shouting."

U.S. defense officials also played down concerns about Kopassus itself.

"There has been a dramatic change in that unit over the last decade ... the percentage of suspicious bad actors in the unit is tiny," said Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell.

"We are talking about probably a dozen, or a couple dozen people, that some regard as suspicious still in the unit. Obviously we are working to reduce that number to zero."

For the moment, the decision only re-establishes contacts between the U.S. military and Kopassus, which were cut off entirely in 1999. Next steps could involve Kopassus participation in events on "non-lethal" subjects, like rule of law and human rights.

Actual combat training of Indonesia's special forces, suspended since 1998, would come much later and only after vetting of individuals who would receive U.S. assistance.

"Our ability to expand upon these initial steps will depend on continued implementation of reforms within Kopassus and (the Indonesian military) as a whole," Gates said.

ISLAMIST EXTREMISM

The decision is meant to bolster the U.S. effort to build military ties with the world's most populous Muslim nation, seen in Washington as an ally in the fight against Islamist extremism.

Indonesia was hit by deadly bomb attacks on two luxury hotels in the capital Jakarta last year, blamed on a splinter group that had split from the Jemaah Islamiah militant group. Jemaah Islamiah was responsible for the 2002 bombings of the Indonesian resort island of Bali that killed 202 people. Police have the lead role in combating terrorism in Indonesia.

Human rights groups and some members of Congress have strongly resisted calls to restore funding to Kopassus without concrete steps taken to ensure that members suspected of committing abuses would not benefit from U.S. assistance.

A senior U.S. defense official said Indonesia had assured Washington that anyone who in the future was suspected of a human rights violation would be suspended from Kopassus.

"If the investigation proves that they were responsible and they were convicted, they will be removed," he said.

But those assurances did not apply to suspects of past abuses who were not convicted in Indonesia, the official said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch, in a letter to Gates and to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this year, singled out its concerns about the Kopassus counter-terror component known as Unit 81, "the entity whose members the Department of Defense presumably seeks to train."

"Members of what is now called Unit 81 have been credibly accused of serious human rights abuses or other improper conduct," it wrote.

It cited its suspected role controlling abusive pro-Indonesia militias in East Timor between 1986 and 1999 and the disappearance of student activists in 1997-1998 in Jakarta.

Kopassus has also been accused of rights abuses in secessionist hot spots such as resource-rich Papua, located on the western half of New Guinea island, which is one of Indonesia's most politically sensitive regions.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/22-3

November 09, 2010
EXCLUSIVE: As Obama Arrives in Jakarta, Secret Docs Show U.S.-backed Indonesian Special Forces Unit Targets Papuan Churches, Civilians

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 www.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.

At a joint news conference with Yudhoyono today, Obama talked about growing U.S.-Indonesia ties and his return to the country for the first time since his childhood.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Obviously, much has been made of the fact that this marks my return to where I lived as a young boy. I will tell you, though, that I barely recognized it as I was driving down the streets. The only building that was there when I first moved to Jakarta was Sarinah. Now it’s one of the shorter buildings on the road.

But today, as president, I’m here to focus not on the past, but on the future: the Comprehensive Partnership that we’re building between the United States and Indonesia. As one of the world’s largest democracies, as the largest economy in Southeast Asia, and as a member of the G20, as a regional leader, as a vast archipelago on the front lines of climate change, and as a society of extraordinary diversity, Indonesia is where many of the challenges and the opportunities of the 21st century come together. So, promoting prosperity, expanding partnerships between our people, and deepening political and security cooperations, these are the pillars of our new partnership, which owes so much to the leadership of my good friend President Yudhoyono. I believe that our two nations have only begun to forge the cooperation that’s possible. And I say that not simply as someone who knows firsthand what Indonesia can offer the world, I say it as president, a president who knows what Indonesia and the United States can offer the world together, if we work together in a spirit of mutual interest and mutual respect. So, terima kasih and as-salaam alaikum.

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama, speaking alongside Indonesian president Yudhoyono today.

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.

Today we’ll spend the hour looking at the human rights situation in Indonesia and the U.S. role in abuses continuing to the current day.

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 [and] abduction" and the targeting of "churches in West Papua and [defining] 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.

Allan, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you start off by responding to President Obama’s visit to Indonesia, the first visit since his childhood?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, it’s nice to be able to go back to where you grew up, but you shouldn’t bring weapons as a gift. You shouldn’t bring training for the people who are torturing your old neighbors. Obama said in his press conference that he wants to reach out to the Muslim world. He said there’s been misunderstanding and mistrust. Well, one way to start reaching out would be to the Muslims, and also the Christians and the Hindus, Buddhists in Indonesia, cut out all U.S. support for the Indonesian army that has killed hundreds of thousands of Indonesian civilians, as well as civilians in formerly occupied East Timor, and for the rest of the Muslim world, stop attacking Afghanistan, Iraq, stop the drone raids on Pakistan, Yemen, Kenya, elsewhere. That would be the beginning of a meaningful outreach: stopping your criminal acts.

But Obama is not willing to do that, because he inherited a U.S. apparatus that worldwide, in dozens of countries, backs forces that kill civilians, and he elected to let it keep on running as it was, to keep it set on "kill." The people who advised Bush or backed Bush now praise Obama. They say that he has continued the Bush approach. And he has. In fact, he has made it even worse by intensifying the attacks on Afghanistan and opening up a new front of open war in Pakistan. So, the sentiment about Obama’s return home would be more meaningful if he didn’t bring violence.

AMY GOODMAN: Allan, we’re going to break. We’re going to come back to you, and we’re going to try to call you back to get a better line. Allan Nairn is an award-winning investigative journalist and activist. He’s speaking to us from Jakarta, where President Obama has just arrived. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: The music, Bella Galhos singing. She is a Timorese woman. I was with her in East Timor the day East Timor became an independent nation, independent after 25 years of occupation by Indonesia. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.

Our guest on the phone from Indonesia is Allan Nairn, award-winning investigative journalist and activist. We’re also joined by John Miller here in the studio. He’s the national coordinator of the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network.

Before we go back to Allan, John, I just wanted you to explain how it was that the United States government, under the Obama administration, restored military aid, restored aid to Kopassus, the Red Berets of the Indonesian military.

JOHN MILLER: Well, all military training to Indonesia was cut off in May 1998 due to another exposé of Allan’s and some documents Congress got. And gradually, since East Timor voted for independence, when all military assistance was suspended, it’s been restored. And the only thing that remained restricted was aid to Kopassus because of its human rights record. There’s a law, the Leahy Law, that says the U.S. should not train units that have unresolved or ongoing human rights violations, which certainly includes Kopassus.

And the Bush administration, actually, a few years ago tried to restore aid to Kopassus, promised it to the president, Yudhoyono, and his own State Department legal team said no. And last summer, Secretary of State Gates—Secretary of Defense Gates went to Indonesia on a surprise visit, quick visit, and announced that the U.S. would engage with Kopassus. They didn’t say it would be full training, but they said that enough reform had happened—some of the officers, that had been convicted within Kopassus of killing a Papuan leader, who had been jailed briefly and then restored to the unit, were removed from the unit, though not from the military, significantly enough—and that that was enough progress to restore this last bit, and that they would focus on counterterrorism training. The thing is that Indonesian counterterrorism efforts have been focused on the police. And many in Indonesia, particularly in the human rights community, would rather not see the military, particularly Kopassus, involved in those efforts. There have been enough police human rights abuses involved in the anti-terrorism effort there.

AMY GOODMAN: Allan Nairn, you have just today, right before we went to broadcast, released Kopassus documents on your website, allannairn.com. Explain what these documents show.

ALLAN NAIRN: These are confidential Kopassus documents. They’re part of an archive of documents that I got a hold of, and they describe operations in Papua, in West Papua, the area in the eastern part of the archipelago where the military and the police have killed tens of thousands of civilians. It’s effectively sealed off to foreign observers. And these documents describe the fact that the Kopassus is deliberately targeting civilians, deliberately targeting churches, and formally defines its main enemy as civilian dissidents. They have an enemies list of 15 Papuans from the area where the Kopassus unit that wrote these documents operates. The top person on the list is the head of the Baptist Synod there. The others include traditional leaders, student activists, intellectuals, the head of the Muslim Youth organization—basically, all of the people who are the leading civic activists. And they are on this secret list as being enemies of Kopassus, something which is very ominous for Papuans or anyone in Indonesia. One of the people on the list—

AMY GOODMAN: Allan, I’m just going to interrupt for a second. It is a little hard to hear you; it’s not a great line. So I want to clarify some points. First of all, tell us about West Papua. Where is it within the Indonesian archipelago? What is its history?

ALLAN NAIRN: It’s on the eastern end. It’s under de facto occupation. It became part of Indonesia through a dirty deal among the UN, the Dutch and the U.S. It was basically absorbed against the will of the Papuans. It is not recognized by the UN as occupied territory, but all of the Papuan population basically thinks of it that way. And these secret Kopassus documents that I’ve released part of today make it clear in their own analysis that they see that the Papuan people do not want the Kopassus and Indonesian army there. They want them out. But when they say that, the Indonesian army defines them as the enemy.

AMY GOODMAN: Go on with the Kopassus enemies list that you have gotten a hold of and these documents that you have released at allannairn.com. This is very significant, given President Obama has just arrived in Indonesia, will be there for some perhaps 24 hours, though they’re saying, because of the volcano and the volcanic ash that could hurt the plane, they may be leaving hours earlier than they planned.

ALLAN NAIRN: Yeah, it is very significant, because Obama’s claim was that Kopassus is reforming, cleaning up its act, just as the Indonesian military, the TNI, is also supposedly reforming. But that’s just factually inaccurate. The same people who committed the well-publicized atrocities in East Timor and Aceh are still there. They’ve been promoted. For example, the person who now runs the Indonesian Defense Ministry—the number two, but he really runs it—is an old Kopassus general, Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, who was indicted for war crimes in East Timor—according to witnesses, was personally involved in executions. And now, President Susilo, the current president, who’s also touted as a reformer, gave him control of the Defense Ministry. So there’s this constant claim that they’re changing, they’re reforming. This happens basically every year in almost every country where the U.S. is backing a repressive regime. But in the case of Kopassus, these documents refute it. On the West Papua enemies list, for example, one of the people they have there is the mediator of the Papuan Presidium Council. And one of his predecessors, Theys Eluay, had his throat slit by Kopassus back in 2001. So, when they define you as an enemy, you’re in a dangerous situation.

And in the documents, they describe what they call the "enemy [order of battle]." They describe the enemy tactics. They say there are two basic enemy tactics. One is calling a press conference to criticize the army and the government. And the second is criticizing the army and the government in a private meeting. So, in the Kopassus domain, in West Papua, if you criticize in private or public, you get defined as an enemy, and you’re subject to, as they put it, abduction and murder, which they say is routine among the security forces. These are Kopassus’s own words.

I spoke to some of the people who were listed as Kopassus enemies, some of the ministers, the political activists, one of whom I reached in prison last night. And they described receiving a constant stream of SMS text message, telephone death threats, to be followed day and night, having infiltrators sent into their houses, surviving assassination attempts. And as one of the pastors put it, this is—you know, this is normal life for a religious person in Papua.

And it’s even worse for the farmers, the people in the countryside. In the highlands, the Puncak Jaya area this past summer, the military did sweeps, where they burned villages, they killed civilians. And one of the ministers who was on the Kopassus enemies list gave a good explanation for why they do this. He said they usually do this twice a year, right before the provincial legislature decides on contributions to the military budget. And so, the military goes up into the hills, burn some houses, burn some churches, shoot some people, say that there are enemies out there, and they say they need more money. And they’ve extracted from the government budget. It’s basically what militaries around the world do, including the U.S. military. They conjure up or exaggerate threats in order to get more money and power.

AMY GOODMAN: Allan, I wanted to talk about the case of Munir, Munir Thalib, the Indonesian human rights activist, the most important human rights activist in Indonesia, or I should say the most well-known one, because when we were in Bonn, Germany recently for a gathering of the Right Livelihood Award winners, he was one of the laureates. I met his wife, Suciwati. And we want to play her description of what happened to her husband. But I’d like you to set it up, who Munir was, what his significance is, and how that relates to what we’re talking about today—the Indonesian military, Kopassus and human rights abuses.

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, Munir was a great man. He was a friend of mine. He was brilliant. Many Indonesians rightly saw him as a possible great future leader of the country. He was the toughest, most outspoken, most fearless human rights advocate. And the military killed him for it.

There was a very telling incident right after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. Munir, at that time, he had various human rights groups, and he was getting some money for them from USAID. So he had a relationship with the U.S. embassy. But he went out and led demonstrations against the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The U.S. embassy called him in and chewed him out and told him that he was consorting with and aiding terrorists. And while this was going on, the Indonesian military, under General Wiranto, sent thugs to attack him in his office and accused him of being a puppet of the United States, which is hypocritical since they were receiving weapons from the United States. But for demagogic reasons, they said he was the U.S. puppet. So they sent the mobs after him, while the U.S. was accusing him with playing with the terrorists. But Munir always spoke his mind and opposed the killing of civilians.

And what happened to him was he, at one point, became burnt out, essentially. It seemed to me that he needed rest. And he decided to go to the Netherlands to study, to work on a law advanced studies program. He boarded a flight, and he died on the plane. He vomited to death from arsenic poisoning. He was slipped arsenic—and this has been established in court—by an agent of BIN, the Indonesian presidential intelligence agency. That agent was in direct communication right before and right after the poisoning with the general, General Muchdi, who was the number-two man of BIN, the presidential intelligence agency. Now, the BIN was and is today an associate of the American CIA. They have a relationship that is seemingly beneficial, which has been described to me as being extremely close. And in fact, the man who was boss of BIN at the time that the BIN killed Munir, the General Hendropriyono, was so close to the U.S. that he was granted personal meetings with Tenet, then the CIA chief, and Mueller, then the FBI chief, and he was often brought over to Langley for consultation. And his right-hand man, General Muchdi, went out and had Munir poisoned on the plane.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break early and then come back and hear a clip of Munir himself and then go to his wife Suciwati, who continues to call for justice in the murder of her husband and to call for the end of human rights abuses in Indonesia. We’re speaking with Allan Nairn, journalist and activist, who has just released at www.allannairn.com documents from Kopassus itself, including a target list, an enemies list that includes everyone from a Baptist minister in West Papua to the head of the Muslim Youth organization there. This is Democracy Now!, www.democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. We’ll be back in a minute.

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

Indonesia's 'slow motion genocide'

By ignoring Indonesian army killings in West Papua, the western press is tacitly colluding in mass murder

Jay Griffiths


I have a hit list in my hand. Fifteen people are threatened with assassination because they speak out for freedom and democracy, against a massacre. One of them, in a list of civilians including church ministers, youth leaders, legislators and an anthropologist, is a friend of mine.

The hit list is compiled by Kopassus, the Indonesian army's notorious special forces unit, responsible for vicious human rights abuses in Timor-Leste and West Papua. Kopassus targets these 15 for their "prohibited speech" that has "reached the outside world", bearing witness to "the issue of severe human rights violations in Papua". These are the words of Kopassus itself, in a leaked report given to investigative reporter Allan Nairn, last month. Kopassus has not denied its veracity.

Although the US Leahy Law forbids funding to military units that violate human rights, Kopassus is now being supported by president Obama, under the guise of fighting terrorism. The Kopassus document gives the lie to that, showing their systematic targeting of civilians. Number five on their list is the current president of the Papuan Presidium Council, whose predecessor, Theys Eluay, had his throat slit in 2001. While I was in West Papua, I met the then-president, who told me he had also been the victim of a failed assassination.

My friend, a church minister, told me of widespread abuse, rape and killings. Another told me about seeing soldiers torture and murder around 100 villagers. In October, video footage showed West Papuan villagers being tortured by the military. Yelps, gulps and sobs of fear and pain momentarily broke a media silence until the websites hosting the footage were subject to cyber attacks. But the chances are you won't know anything about this, because the media does not bear witness to it. In a form of lethal meekness so well exposed by John Pilger, journalists say Indonesia refuses entry to the media. This is entirely correct and entirely spurious. It is not difficult to go there: buy a ticket, say you're a tourist, and get your notebook out.

A functional media is as important to democratic freedom as voting. West Papua has been robbed of both. Indonesia invaded in 1962. In 1969, under the "act of free choice", 1,026 West Papuans were ordered at gunpoint to vote for integration with Indonesia. This contravened international law, and was a travesty of democracy. "The process of consultation did not allow a genuinely free choice to be made," said a British Foreign and Commonwealth Office briefing that year. The American embassy in Jakarta in June 1969 knew what was in store for the Papuans: the act of free choice, according to the embassy, "is unfolding like a Greek tragedy, the conclusion pre-ordained".

The reasons for this collusion become clear if you rewind to 1967, when president Suharto's men struck a deal to hand over West Papua's wealth of natural resources to international companies, including a mountain of copper and gold – now the world's most valuable mine, Freeport McMoRan.

In return, Indonesia received billions of corporate dollars plus, crucially, international connivance in covering up human rights abuses. Racism played a part: those who would suffer, said the British embassy, were merely "a relatively small number of very primitive people", occupying what a White House adviser dismissed as "a few thousand miles of cannibal land".

A massive transmigration programme of Javanese aims to make Papuans a minority in their own lands. At least 100,000 Papuans, according to Amnesty International, have been murdered, with weaponry provided by British and American companies in lucrative arms deals. Obama knows this: just ahead of his November visit to Indonesia, 50 members of the US Congress wrote to him concerning West Papua's "slow-motion genocide", and Congress held a (barely reported) hearing on Papuan human rights abuses. Human rights organisations repeatedly bring massacres and abuses to the attention of the media, who repeatedly ignore them. In these lethal omissions, the press tacitly colludes in mass murder.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/30/indonesia-killings-west-papua-western-press

How do we get the msm to present the truth? I often think we should protest the press...have contingents at every media office night and day...the truth must out...

Change of ownership...expropriate!

For the time being we must make due with our own devices, the internets is our friend, when it's not our enemy.

Smash it.

The people running it are on the other side. We can never get them to do anything for us.

stop the presses.

start our own.

too many don't use the internet for more than a social device...and that's a tough hurdle, for the interim...

I changed the heading on edit as it gave the wrong idea as to the tone of the video...

"...and the real grassroots...will have the remote" love that line, listen closely...

lots in here beyond Bernie Sanders initial rant...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym2G8Kd_Yp8&feature=player_embedded

"In a word, don't blame the media, be the media..."

but I suspect that generally distributed hand bills would mostly get wadded up until other means of communications are throughly discredited or made unavailable.

I've though about the social sites as a platform but it seems such a morass(not the good kind) that I can't see how you'd get enough traction.

history has shown nothing raises class consciousness like a hacky newspaper.

and a population habituated to it. As much of a fan of print as I am, given the steep decline in newspaper readership, especially relative to the 'information' gotten from electronic media, I'm not too sure that papers would attract the numbers wanted, yet. When people start falling away from the msm out of sheer disgust and/or censorship becomes overwhelmingly obvious, then any media that we produce will be like meat for the hungry dog.