Donald Rumsfeld was in Indonesia this week to celebrate the normalization of US military ties with the Indonesian army, which has openly defied international law and the UN in refusing to own up to gross crimes against humanity committed in East Timor and continuing today in West Papua. The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network, based in DC, has been steadfast in monitoring US-Indonesia ties for over a decade and issued a statement on Rumsfeld’s visit this week. Some excerpts:
- “Further normalizing the military relationship with Indonesia will only undermine its democratic reform and efforts to achieve accountability for past human rights violations in East Timor, West Papua and elsewhere. ” (John M. Miller, National Coordinator of ETAN).
- “Recent statements by Secretary Rumsfeld imply that he does not believe that human rights – like the right to life – are universal. We challenge him to justify his comments to the Indonesian and East Timorese who suffered murder, torture, rape, and other crimes against humanity at the hands of the Indonesian military.†(Karen Orenstein, ETAN National Coordinator).
- ETAN spotted this take from The South China Morning Post, posted Monday: “When asked about human rights reforms within Indonesia’s internally feared military, Mr. Rumsfeld said he did not believe the ban [on U.S. military assistance] should have ever been imposed. ‘I am not one of those people who believe that every country should be like the United States,’ he said.â€
So the Cold War tradition of embracing one of Asia’s most notorious armies continues, this time under cover of the War on Terror.
Nevertheless, the Indonesians told Rumsfeld to butt out of local affairs. More on that from Fred Kaplan in Slate.
