Indonesian Military and U.S. Business

"No Body Knows behind The Fact of Rebellion in Indonesia, We Only know that rebellion is  worst. So who is the most benefit from that rebellion? You'll never predict it before. Open Ur mind 'n eyes."


Indonesian Military and U.S. Business: A Winning Combination?

Reports from the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council, and a growing consensus within the Bush administration all view the military as central to Indonesia’s stability, especially in the strife ridden provinces of Irian Jaya and Aceh. But the characterization of the military as a stabilizing force ignores the military’s strong incentives for prolonging and exacerbating conflict in Aceh and Irian Jaya. 


In an exhaustive report, Trifungsi: The Role of the Indonesian Military in Business, Lesley McCulloch, a researcher for the Bonn International Center for Conversion, describes the synergistic relationship between multinational corporations wary of unrest and soldiers in need of extra money. As much as 80% of the military’s budget comes from illegal activities like drug smuggling, prostitution and illegal casinos and security arrangements with corporations like ExxonMobil and Freeport McMoRan.[73] 


Former Defense Minister Juwono conceded in an interview with McCulloch that "elements within the military had incited the unrest experienced by Freeport in order to highlight the benefits of their presence," leading the company to forfeit $35 million to the military, in addition to an annual payment of $11 million.[74] In Aceh, soldiers sell their weapons to the guerillas for as little as $6, ensuring their enemies remain a potent force.[75] Many soldiers and officials go so far as to refer to the Aceh fight as a "project," highlighting the role the war plays in filling their pockets, winning them promotions and keeping the institution as a whole powerful and relevant.[76] 


While this is a winning combination for the Indonesian military and multinational corporations like ExxonMobil and Freeport, not to mention a vital market for U.S. weapons manufacturers, the people who live and work in the areas "protected" by the Indonesian military gain nothing but more suffering. Until this dynamic can be fully outlined and understood, arguments for arming the Indonesian military in order to ensure stability and end conflict must not be taken at face value.


Related Under this articles: A Stabilizing force by military in Indonesia
 Source:Indonesia at the Crossroads
A Special Report
by Frida Berrigan
September 2001
Indonesia is "on the road to becoming a real democracy." 
Paul Wolfowitz, former Ambassador to Indonesia and current Deputy Secretary of Defense

Link on:
Indonesia's War over Aceh: Last Stand on Mecca's Porch (Politics in Asia)
Indonesia-US Military Alliance Is Being Revived; Jakarta Mulls Leaving OPEC.: An article from: APS Diplomat News Service
Disarming politics: if Aceh's military is to leave politics to the people, Indonesia's must as well.(INDONESIA): An article from: New Internationalist


United States Policy Towards Indonesia in the Truman and Eisenhower Years
The Forces Postal Service in Borneo During the Confrontation with Indonesia 1962-1966
Economic Crisis and Vulnerability: The Story from Southeast Asia
Aceh, Indonesia: Securing the Insecure State (The Ethnography of Political Violence)



Book's review:

Indonesia's Use of Military Force

Out of Business and on Budget

Indonesia's War over Aceh

Security Operations in Aceh

 

READ MORE - Indonesian Military and U.S. Business

A Stabilizing Force By Military in Indonesia

Indonesian Military: A Stabilizing Force for Whom?

The most salient arguments for the resumption of military aid are made on behalf of Aceh and Irian Jaya. In these beleaguered provinces separatist movements, recently reinvigorated by East Timor’s hard-won success, have been struggling for decades.

Perhaps that is the reason why Indonesia has many struggle which want own autonomy for their region, control their region by theirself without any force from central government because they think that Central Government not fair for allocate the annual budget to the local region. Bad diplomatic policy in the International court make Indonesia territory become disappear one by one, Indonesia Diplomat can't make a good deal to keeping the Indonesia territory. This situation also worsened by military operations that hedge human rights in the disputes regional. Conflict between local people and military made the situation more complicated.


The Fact in Aceh:

This oil-rich western province is located at the head of the Malacca strait that links the Pacific and Indian oceans-- one of the most strategic waterways in the world. While most Americans would be hard pressed to find Aceh on a map, its oil wealth is key to Jakarta’s power and extremely valuable for U.S. corporations. The New York Times acknowledged Aceh’s centrality when it noted that the province of 4.1 million people, "is far more important to Indonesia’s future and that of South East Asia than East Timor ever was." Aceh’s oil and other commodities contribute 20% of Indonesia’s annual budget, but only 1% is reinvested into the province.

In the late 1980s, in response to the burgeoning movement for independence, Jakarta declared the province a "Military Operations Area" (known by its Indonesian acronym DOM). During the DOM era, thousands of Acehnese civilians were killed, raped, tortured, and abducted. The DOM was lifted in August 1998, but the violence continues. During two days in November 2000, more than a hundred unarmed Acehnese civilians attending a rally were shot dead by security forces. Last year at least one thousand people, mostly civilians and separatists guerrillas, were killed—three times the number killed in 1999. The death toll for this year has already exceeded 1,100.

For the most part, the war in Aceh has taken place beneath the radar screen of Western media and politics. But two brutal incidents in late 2000 brought the plight the Acehnese and the role of U.S. weapons to the front pages of American newspapers. Jafar Siddiq Hamzah, a prominent Acehnese lawyer with permanent residence in the U.S., was working for human rights and a peaceful resolution to the conflict when he was disappeared, tortured and murdered. His body was found in September 2000 along with four other unidentified bodies in an area that the military frequently uses to dispose of bodies. A few months later, "military death squads" killed three Acehnese working for a Danish aid group. A survivor of the attack was able to give his testimony to Human Rights Watch before going into hiding. He reported that the leader "carried a machine gun, I think it was an M-16, and had an FN pistol on his waist. Another one had a machine gun with a grenade launcher attached. The commander…had a pistol and an automatic rifle, most of the others also carried rifles."

From the U.S. perspective, Aceh is important as a location for U.S.-owned oil companies, but their presence has not encouraged respect for human rights. ExxonMobil, the largest publicly held corporation in the United States, has a huge oil and gas operation in Aceh. The company was sued in June by International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of eleven Acehnese who lived and worked near ExxonMobil’s operations. The villagers contend that they and their families have been the victims of murder, torture, kidnapping and rape at the hands of Indonesian military units guarding ExxonMobil’s gas fields. The suit, filed in Washington, DC, charges that the company provided the Indonesian military with logistical and material support, including:

• Buildings used by the Kopassus (Indonesian Special Forces) units to "interrogate, torture and murder Acehnese civilians."
• Heavy equipment like excavators used by the military to dig mass graves.
• Access to ExxonMobil constructed roads to transport victims to mass grave sites.

This collaboration demonstrates the two party’s mutual goal of maintaining Indonesian control of the province. The IFRF suit claims that the ExxonMobil fears that the "creation of an independent state for the people of Aceh as the result of a democratic uprising" would nullify their "business arrangement with the Indonesian government." Until March 2000, when ExxonMobil suspended operations after a spate of attacks on their pipeline, Jakarta received an estimated $100 million in revenue from the company every month. In an effort to ensure their revenue stream and reassure ExxonMobil, Jakarta sent three additional battalions of troops and an armored calvary unit to beef up security in the region. ExxonMobil resumed limited production a few months later.

Related under this Articles: Indonesia Military and U.S business

Source: Indonesia at the Crossroads
A Special Report
by Frida Berrigan
September 2001
Indonesia is "on the road to becoming a real democracy."
Paul Wolfowitz, former Ambassador to Indonesia and current Deputy Secretary of Defense


Link on:
Masters of terror: Indonesia's military & violence in East Timor in 1999 (Canberra papers on strategy & defence) 
Indonesia's War over Aceh: Last Stand on Mecca's Porch (Politics in Asia) 
Emergency and Confrontation: Australian Military Operations in Malaya and Borneo 1950-1966 (Official History of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1948-1975) 


Book's review:

Indonesia's Military and Violence in East Timor

Security, and Development in Timor Leste

Timor Leste: Politics, History, and Culture

Timor Leste: Politics, History, and Culture

READ MORE - A Stabilizing Force By Military in Indonesia

Who Will Pick Up the Tab?

Financing and Offsets: Who will pick up the tab?

Indonesia received its last major installment of military aid from the United States in 1991, when the U.S. supplied the Suharto regime with $25 million under the Pentagon's Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. Since that time, however, Indonesia has become eligible for several new channels of arms export subsidies, one of which it has taken advantage of already and the other of which coule come into play as part of the pending F-16 sale. The first channel involves guaranteed loans offered by the U.S. government's Export-Import Bank which are granted for so-called "dual use" items: equipment with both military and civilian applications. Indonesia was one of the first countries to benefit from this new program, which was implemented after intensive lobbying by the Aerospace Industries Association. In late 1995 Indonesia received a $22 million loan guarantee from ExIm Bank to refurbish seven of that nation's U.S.-origin C-130 and L-100 transport aircraft. The second channel of assistance is the Pentagon's newly created $15 billion arms export loan guarantee fund: [13] Indonesia is one of 37 nations in Europe and Asia that is currently eligible to receive support from the fund. Indonesian officials have indicated an interest in receiving some kind of credit or subsidized financing for the F-16 sale. If so, Indonesia would receive very cushy financing: any missed payments on the roughly $200 million involved in the F-16 sale and the shortfall would be fully covered by U.S. taxpayers. [14]

Related under articles: U.S Arms transfers to Indonesia 1975-1997
Table of Contents
Introduction
Soeharto and U.S Arms
F-16 Pending Project
Who will pick up the tab?

READ MORE - Who Will Pick Up the Tab?

F-16 Project from U.S Arms to Soeharto

The Pending F-16 Sale

A pending sale of F-16s to Indonesia was postponed in mid-1996 due to a new wave of repression by the Suharto regime against the Indonesian pro-democracy movement. Allegations of improper influence involving Indonesian contributions to the Democratic Party have resulted in further delays in the timing of the sale, but the Clinton administration appears to be committed to moving forward on the deal some time later this year. The F-16s being offered are leftover from a deal with Pakistan that was interrupted due to sanctions on that nation for its nuclear weapons program. Funds from the Indonesia sale will be used to partially reimburse Pakistan for the cost of the 28 planes it purchased but never received. Lockheed Martin may only stand to make a few million dollars doing "upgrades" on the planes, but their real interest is in opening the door for additional F-16 sales to Indonesia and other parts of Asia. Indonesia has already expressed a strong interest in purchasing the latest-model F-16 fighter planes in the next go around.

Current plans call for the Clinton Administration to formally notify Congress about the Indonesian F-16 sale some time later this year, probably at some decent interval after the Senate hearings on the financing of the 1996 presidential elections have been concluded. The sale will face strong opposition. Prominent Senators such as Patrick Leahy (D-VT) have already written to the President to express their opposition to the deal, and key House members ranging from Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and House International Relations Committee Chairman Ben Gilman (R-NY) have also weighed in against it. In a November 10, 1996 letter to the Washington Post, Rep.

Gilman revealed that he had informed Clinton Administration representatives in the summer of 1996 that if they went forward with the proposed F-16 sale in the face of the Suharto regime's crackdown on opposition political leaders that he would "introduce a resolution of disapproval and convene an early meeting of our full committee for the purpose of reporting my resolution to the full house." Gilman further noted that in the light of the revelations regarding the Lippo Group and Indonesian money in the 1996 elections, "I have requested the Secretary of State to withhold action on this proposal until the many questions now raised by the Lippo Group investigation can be resolved."

Major non-governmental organizations that have already taken a stand against the sale include the National Council of Churches, Human Rights Watch, the Federation of American Scientists, Peace Action (the largest grassroots peace organization in the United States), and the East Timor Action Network. Possible Congressional actions could range from resolutions of disapproval blocking the deal outright to amendments conditioning the sale of any further weaponry to Indonesia on the improvement of human rights and democratic process in Indonesia and East Timor.

The Clinton Administration's various rationales for going ahead with the sale are contradictory at best. In the context of defending himself against charges of influence peddling in the matter of Indonesian contributions to his campaign, President Clinton has made a point of arguing that he has been harder on Indonesia than the Bush Administration was, citing a ban that the State Department has imposed on the sale of small arms from the U.S. to Indonesia as evidence of his tough stand. Selling F-16 fighters, but not handguns or rifles, sends the Suharto regime a mixed message at best regarding the consequences of its ongoing record of repression and human rights abuses.

At an October 11 briefing, White House spokesperson Mike McCurry tried to carve out an exception for the F-16 sale, asserting that "our goal in arms transfers in that region is to promote stability . . . not to engage in anything resembling the repression of individual rights . . . You don't use F-16s to kill civilians in crackdowns on dissidents." During Congressional testimony in September, Assistant Defense Secretary Kurt Campbell sounded the "stability, not repression" theme as well when he argued for the Indonesian F-16 sale on the grounds that "a regionally respected armed forces with credible defensive capabilities that trains and operates in a non-threatening manner is an important contributor to regional stability."

All of these arguments overlook the fact that the Indonesian military has been the instrument for Jakarta's illegal occupation of East Timor, during which time over 200,000 people have been killed. Selling advanced weaponry to the Suharto regime at the very moment that it is engaged in a crackdown on dissent within Indonesia and an acceleration of repression in East Timor sends exactly the wrong message: that whatever abuses it may engage in, and whatever slaps on the wrist it may receive from the Clinton Administration as a result, when push comes to shove the U.S. will support the Suharto regime and its military apparatus regardless of its brutal, lawless behavior. Furthermore, while F-16s may not be used directly to put down street demonstration or torture human rights activists, the Indonesian military's ability to sustain its illegal hold over East Timor ultimately rests on all of the weaponry it has at its disposal (including tanks and advanced combat aircraft like the F-16), not just the items used in day-to-day repression.

Related under articles: U.S Arms transfers to Indonesia 1975-1997
Table of Contents
Introduction
Soeharto and U.S Arms
F-16 Pending Project
Who will pick up the tab?

Link On:

The 2000 Import and Export Market for Non-military Arms and Ammunition in Asia (World Trade Report) 

Asia Para-Military Groups (World Strategic and Business Information Library) 

 The United States and Asia: Toward a New U.S. Strategy and Force Posture (Project Air Force Report)

Suharto and His Generals: Indonesian Military Politics 1975-1983 (Cornell Modern Indonesia Project) 

Legitimizing Military Rule: Indonesian Armed Forces Ideology, 1958-2000.(Soeharto's Armed Forces: Problems of Civil Military Relations in Indonesia)(Book ... An article from: Contemporary Southeast Asia 

The Military as an Economic Actor: Soldiers in Business (International Political Economy) 

Book's review: 

Import and Export Market in Asia

 

Failure to End Military Business Activity

The Rise and Fall of Chinese Military Business

READ MORE - F-16 Project from U.S Arms to Soeharto