By Max Lane
Indonesian troops in East Timor executed six young East Timorese civilians on January 12. The victims were Jose Nunes (35), Abel Nunes (20), Victor (24), Augusto Pinto Nunes (20), Americo Araujo (20) and Osorio Soares (20). According to a statement by the National Council of Maubere Resistance (CNRM) issued on January 17, these six men were killed by troops of the KODIM military command, headed by First Lieutenant Jeremias Kase.
Around the same time, a neighbour of former political prisoner David Ximenes by the name of Enrique Belmiro was arrested and severely tortured by elements of the Indonesian armed forces (ABRI).
In Medan, North Sumatra, it was announced on January 24 that Mochtar Pakpahan, general secretary of the Indonesian Workers for Prosperity Union (SBSI), would have to serve an additional year of a prison sentence he received for organising strike protests in April 1994. His three-year sentence was extended to four years by the Appeals Court.
The April 1994 strikes were partly provoked by the killing of a worker demonstrator by armed forces personnel several days beforehand. During the strikes, more than 1000 troops were deployed to force protesting workers off the street. Scores of worker were injured, and several are still imprisoned.
Involvement by the military in political repression in Indonesia is not an "aberration", as foreign minister Gareth Evans described the 1991 Dili massacre. It has been institutionalised into the political system created when the military brought Suharto to power in 1965.
At that time the military, in cooperation with right-wing gangs, massacred between 500,000 and 1 million people, eliminating the political left. After the massacres, Suharto forced through a number of measures which institutionalised a political role for the military. The Operational Command for the Restoration for Security and Order (KOPKAMTIB) was established with military outposts in every city, town and village. KOPKAMTIB, now called BAKORSTANAS (Body for the Coordination of National Stability), operates as the political police and main arm of repression.
Along with the killings in East Timor and sentencing of dissidents in Sumatra, on January 16, it was revealed that Gareth Evans had approved a proposal by the Australian Defence Industries (ADI) to try to sell $100 million worth of Australian-manufactured combat rifles to Jakarta. ADI's efforts on this question no doubt reflect its concern about profits.
Evans' support for the proposal, however, reflects the long-running policy of the ALP government of supporting the Suharto dictatorship any way it can and of building the closest possible collaboration with the dictatorship.
Reactions
In Indonesia, the country's largest independent student organisations, Students in Solidarity with Democracy in Indonesia (SMID) condemned the ADI proposal. SMID cited military violence against the people of East Timor and the 1984 killing of Muslim demonstrators in Jakarta at Tanjung Priok; the killings of peasants protesting about Nipah dam, Madura, in 1993; the shooting of peasant farmers in Lampung, Sumatra; and the mass killings of so-called "criminal elements" in 1986.
"The Australian government is covering itself in the blood of the Indonesian people for dollars", said Munief Laredo, SMID chairperson, in a message sent to Green Left Weekly. He called on the Australian people to campaign against these and any other arms sales to the Suharto regime and to show their opposition to the regime's policy of terror against the Indonesian people and the people of East Timor.
The Centre for Indonesian Workers' Struggles (PPBI) issued a similar statement.
In Australia both the Australian Coalition for a Free East Timor (ACET) and Aksi — Indonesia Solidarity Action have condemned the proposed sales.
Quoting a recent report by UN special rapporteur Bacre Waly Ndiaye that "the conditions that allowed the Santa Cruz killings [in Dili, 1991] to occur are still present", ACET spokesperson Christine Faithful stated, "If the deal goes ahead, these rifles will be used not only to fuel Indonesia's war in East Timor, but also to suppress growing cries for freedom and democracy within Indonesia itself. That East Timor will achieve its right of self-determination is inevitable. The Australian government's cynical manoeuvres only serve to make this process more painful."
ACET was formed in January by solidarity committees in Perth, Sydney, Darwin, Adelaide, Hobart and Lismore.
In Sydney, Nick Fredman, in a statement issued by Aksi, a support organisation for the Indonesian democracy movement and East Timorese independence movement, also condemned the proposed deal and called for an end to all war cooperation with Jakarta until troops were withdrawn from East Timor and the use of the military for political repression ended in the rest of Indonesia.
"The ALP government is only concerned about Australian big business getting their cut of the Indonesian economic cake", said Fredman. "Keeping a regime in power that guarantees access to cheap labour and the Timor Gap oil is more important than people's lives and long-term people-to-people cooperation."
The organising collective of the National Women's Peace Camp '95 also condemned the proposal. The group is organising a gathering of women at Easter at the ADI munitions factory in Benalla. "ADI is part of the government's drive to increase its arms exports to over $2 billion annually. It has sold rifles to Papua New Guinea and Thailand, the use of which cannot be guaranteed to be purely for the external defence of these countries." The action at Benalla, says the group, will be an opportunity for women to voice opposition to Australian militarism and its role in regional and global conflicts.
WA Greens Senator Dee Margetts also seriously questioned whether the sale was in accordance with government guidelines for overseas arms sales. Official guidelines state that sales should not proceed if their is "reasonable risk" that the arms might be used to violate citizens' human rights. According to Margetts, that idea that there is no risk is "patently unable to be sustained given the substantial recent evidence to the contrary in East Timor".
War cooperation
There has been a definite increase in the level of cooperation between the Australian military and ABRI over the last few years, even while Indonesia is engaged in war operations in East Timor.
Since 1992 there have been at least eight Australian military exercises with Indonesia. These were AUSINDO 92, a tactical air transport exercise; PATROLEX 92, joint maritime patrol; Fleet Concentration Kakadu 1993, with an Indonesian observer team; Night Komodo, May-June 1993, a reciprocal SAS-Special Forces exercise; New Horizon maritime exercise; Elang Ausindo, joint FA18-F5 war plane exercise in Sumatra, 1993; Exercise Night Komodo/Kookaburra 1994, a SAS-Special Forces exercise; and a joint maritime patrol in August 1994.
In a visit to Indonesia in 1994, defence minister Robert Ray invited ABRI to participate in the big Kangaroo 95 war exercises being held in northern Australia.
There has also been a marked increase in the number of ABRI personnel undergoing training by Australians, both in Australia and in Indonesia. In 1991-92, 52 ABRI personnel were trained in Australia, 89 in 1992-93 and 120 in 1993-94. Australian war personnel trained none in Indonesia in 1991-92 but 56 in 1992-93 and 143 in 1993-94. The total of 263 in 1993-94 represents a 500% increase since 1991-92.
Among those trained in Australia have been elements of ABRI's commando KOPASSUS forces, which have been at the forefront of the brutal occupation in East Timor. KOPASSUS have also been the main units participating in death squad activity in the northernmost province of Sumatra, Aceh, where a secessionist struggle has developed. KOPASSUS also took part in the Night Komodo/Kookaburra exercises.
The trend towards increasing war cooperation with Jakarta is also evident from the 1994-1995 budget estimates. These indicate that official spending on bilateral military cooperation with Indonesia is scheduled to more than double in 1994-95 compared to the previous year. Spending is projected to rise from $2,217,000 to $4,665,000, an increase of $2,448,000.
The vast bulk of this — approximately $3 million — will be spent on the training of ABRI officers in Australia. The rest goes to exchange programs and secondments, consultancy to the Indonesian navy, defence industry, logistics and science project assistance and joint survey work in West Papua.
These expenditures do not, of course, cover the costs of any of the joint exercises carried out with ABRI.
The projections also do not cover the sale of weapons or other hardware. At the moment the proposed sale of the Stehr rifles looks unlikely to proceed, despite ADI and Evans' enthusiasm. Indonesian defence minister General Edi Sudrajat announced that Jakarta had no plans to buy Australian rifles in either large or small quantities because its own state-owned arms manufacturer, Pindad, was producing adequate numbers of its SS1 rifle. However, the minister did not rule out buying other arms from Australia which Indonesia was still incapable of producing.