-Caveat Lector-
From: "John M. Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: "John M. Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: BG: Indonesian army recruits training in Vermont
This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 10/04/99.
Indonesian army recruits training in Vermont
Students at private military school linked to 'most feared, most abusive'
special force
By Terry J. Allen, Globe Correspondent, 10/04/99
NORWICH, Vt. - Quietly tucked away in the hills of Vermont, Norwich
University, the only private military college in the country, has
continued to educate and train future members of the Indonesian army, even
as President Clinton has effectively frozen all relations with that
country's military in the wake of the violence in East Timor.
According to Norwich records, 11 of the school's current crop of 13
Indonesian undergraduates list their billing address as the Jakarta
headquarters of Kopassus, the Army's elite special forces.
''Kopassus played an especially brutal role in East Timor,'' Sidney Jones
of Human Rights Watch said. ''They were unquestionably the most feared,
most hated, and most abusive of all Indonesian units in East Timor.''
The US government blocked Indonesians from programs at federally funded
military institutions such as West Point, citing human rights concerns. But
Norwich, a private institution, has continued with its cooperative program,
which brings in about $20,000 annually in tuition and fees for each student.
According to Norwich spokesman Richard Greene, the Indonesian students in
the two-year-old cooperative program were chosen and paid for by the
Indonesian Embassy in Washington with funds wired ''by order of the
military attache.''
The undergrads, ostensibly civilians, are obligated to serve 10 years in
the Indonesian army after graduation. Thirteen of them are enrolled in
Norwich's Army ROTC program, where they take the standard course that
includes weapons training, intelligence gathering, field training, and
tactics, as well as military ethics.
''The curriculum is dictated from US Army Cadet Command,'' said Captain
Mike Lefebvre, who teaches ROTC at Norwich.
ROTC instructors are active duty Army officers chosen by the Pentagon.
''The training of these foreign students [at Norwich] came about from an
agreement made between university and the US Army,'' Lefebvre said.
Ten graduate students, who returned to service in Indonesia in 1999 after
completing master's degrees in military science and diplomacy, have served
as active duty officers.
The worst violence in East Timor erupted after the island voted for
independence from Indonesia on Aug. 30. Pro-Jakarta militia backed by, and
often part of, the Indonesian army killed hundreds,
if not thousands, of civilians. Another 300,000 either fled the violence
or were forcibly repopulated to various islands in the Indonesian
archipelago.
At least four of the Norwich graduate students served in East Timor around
the time of the referendum.
According to an August report from Norwich President Thomas W. Schneider,
the four were ''in East Timor serving under the United Nations flag.'' The
Indonesians, however, could not have been a part of a UN mission, according
to the United Nations. ''There is no room for confusion,'' said Manuel de
Almeida e Silva, deputy spokesman for secretary-general of the UN.
Some Norwich faculty oppose the university program, including one member
who quit in protest in late 1997.
''When I resigned my teaching position at Norwich, I believed they were
profoundly misguided. I am very sorry my predictions were true,'' said
James Chapados, referring to the service of the four Norwich graduates in
East Timor.
Schneider said he has no plans to end the program and thinks that it
performs a valuable service. The curriculum, he said, includes a heavy dose
of military ethics.
''We are not claiming that [Norwich graduates] will behave humanely when
they go back, but what we do is talk about human rights, civil rights, and
give them a new way of thinking,'' he said. ''We would take Communist
students from Red China. What better way to teach them that their system is
screwed up?''
The Indonesian students now at Norwich did not want to speak with the
media, according to Greene.
The Norwich-Indonesia program was set up after a visit to Jakarta by
Norwich officials who met with Major General Zacky Anwar Makarim and
General A.M. Hendropriyono. The generals, who have been implicated in
serious human rights abuses by Human Rights Watch and have been members of
Kopassus, visited the Norwich campus in fall and winter 1997.
Zacky, as the general is more commonly known, had been head of BIA
Indonesia's national intelligence body until January and spent a large part
of his career in Kopassus, according to Jane's Intelligence Review, a
British military journal. One of the country's most experienced covert
operatives, he is generally believed to have helped set up and organize the
militias in each of East Timor's 13 districts.
Zacky was in charge of Indonesian army operations in East Timor. After
meeting with him in Dili in September, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of
Iowa, called for the general's resignation. ''He was very hostile toward
the referendum,'' said an aide to Harkin. ''His troops intimidated people
and tried to stop them from going to vote; he was working with the
militias.''
The other officer, Hendropriyono, is nicknamed ''The Butcher of Lampung,''
according to Human Rights Watch. In 1989, he commanded troops that opened
fire on a Muslim school in Lampung province and massacred an estimated 100
people.
Formerly an officer in Kopassus and chief of the Jakarta Military Command,
Hendropriyono was minister for transmigration and resettlement until Sept.
27.
In that capacity, he oversaw the establishment of camps and proposed
resettlement of some 200,000 East Timorese refugees to various Indonesian
islands.
Schneider said he did not know the generals' backgrounds or that the
students' billing address was Kopassus. But, he said, that information
would not have deterred him from accepting the young men.
Others might find the links more troubling.
Vermont's Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, who has been particularly
vociferous in condemning Indonesian repression, sponsored legislation
passed in 1998 that prohibits assistance or military training to units
implicated in human rights abuses. The ban includes some Kopassus units,
Leahy aide Tim Rieser said.
After the postreferendum violence, the United States also stopped all
military cooperation, training, assistance, and commercial arms sales and
pushed the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to suspend loans
to Indonesia.
With Norwich receiving federal funds in the form of financial aid and the
Indonesian students receiving military training from US Army officers
through ROTC, the program could be in conflict with US government policy.
''One could argue,'' Rieser said, ''that the US government is subsidizing
the training of future Indonesian soldiers.'' The Norwich program, ''if not
strictly illegal,'' he said, ''may be inconsistent
with President Clinton's order ending cooperation with the Indonesian
military.''
This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 10/04/99.
END
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John M. Miller Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Media & Outreach Coordinator, East Timor Action Network
48 Duffield St., Brooklyn, NY 11201 USA
Phone: (718)596-7668 Fax: (718)222-4097
Web site: http://www.etan.org
Send a blank e-mail message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to find out how to
learn
more about East Timor on the Internet
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