Prabowo, Part 3: The NSA, Militia Terror, Aceh, Servants, and "Slaves"

By Allan Nairn

At one point during our meetings in Jakarta in 2001, General Prabowo started talking about the US National Security Agency (NSA).

Prabowo had already described how he reported to the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at least weekly and had mentioned his extensive work with other parts of the Pentagon.

When I asked about crimes by the TNI/ ABRI (the armed forces of Indonesia) Prabowo said that evidence of them could be found in the archives of the NSA.

He said his US handlers had talked to him about the extensive electronic surveillance that NSA, with help from Australia, was carrying out against Indonesia.

Some of this was already public record, but Prabowo said he knew more.

I asked if he had passed this information to his superiors and subordinates in the TNI/ABRI.

Prabowo replied "I don't remember if I sent a memo warning about it [the intercepts] but everyone should assume that" -- ie. assume that they were taking place.

The context for this was interesting.

Prabowo was not referring to his own crimes, but to those of his rival, General Wiranto.

He said that Wiranto was responsible for the 1999 East Timor TNI militia arson and massacre, and that Wiranto's main man on the ground was General Zacky Anwar Makarim.

Prabowo noted with apparent bitterness "I was the Americans' fair-haired boy," but now that the US had ditched him "Wiranto is their fair-haired boy."

Prabowo said that during the terror Wiranto was "close to" the US CINCPAC (Commander in Chief, Pacific) Admiral Dennis Blair.

Prabowo added that from its intercepts and from its direct involvement, the US knew exactly what Wiranto had been up to.

As far as I can tell, all of this was accurate.

I had reported in 1999, as TNI and the militias were burning Dili, internal US documents showed that Wiranto had a green light from Blair.   ("US Complicity in Timor," The Nation [US], September 27, 1999; see also "Breaking News: US Intel Nominee Lied About '99 Massacre.  US, Church Documents Show Adm. Dennis Blair Knew of Church Killings Before Crucial Meeting.")

It was also the case, as I reported then, that many TNI atrocities were ordered through communications equipment that was interceptable.

Prabowo said "Only they [the NSA] would have the evidence of Wiranto's militia operations."

He said he had "heard that now DC is saying prosecution of Wiranto is no longer necessary."

This latter statement was misleading, since the US had never backed prosecution (The UN, though, did indict Wiranto for crimes against humanity).  

But Prabowo's point that the US was shielding Wiranto was indeed correct.

Prabowo knew the US procedures well.  The US had backed and shielded his crimes for decades.

-----

NSA surveillance has recently become an international issue.

The US should be pushed to divulge what it has on crimes by itself and those it sponsors.

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When Prabowo implicated General Zacky to me it wasn't entirely self-serving, since Prabowo acknowledged that he himself had often set up such militias.  

He said correctly that such forces were part of US counterinsurgency doctrine, and that he, Prabowo, had set militias up during his years in Timor.

He said "All counterinsurgency operations need militias, paramilitaries.  The US uses them."  

"They speak the local dialect, know the area.  They use tactics of claiming to be the other side."

He said that he presumed that as we spoke, in 2001, Kopassus was running such militias in Aceh, and was hiding its men in plainclothes and in BRIMOB uniform.

Prabowo knew in detail about Zacky's Timor operation because Zacky had been his -- Prabowo's -- man until he "abandoned" Prabowo for Wiranto.

The TNI-run militiamen committed rape, mass murder, torture and arson.  

But Prabowo's objection to them was not their crimes but their uncouth personalities.

He said Eurico Guterres, of Timor's Aitarak, was "a street punk, a gambler, barely literate." Though Eurico worked for Kopassus,  Prabowo said he found him "disgusting."  

Today, the press says Eurico is "ready to become a minister in a Prabowo cabinet." ("Eurico Guterres siap jadi menteri  kabinet Prabowo").

-----

At the time we spoke, there had been a bombing at the Jakarta stock exchange (JSX) nine months earlier.  

Prabowo said one of those involved was an ethnic Acehnese ex-Kopassus (Group 5).

He said  "Its a problem letting Acehnese in there," (the military) because the Acehnese were not trustworthy.

Prabowo said"Its like Black Panthers in the US.  Do you keep blacks out of the military?"

Today, the Aceh ex-GAM leadership has endorsed Prabowo for president.

I discussed this twice with Muzakir Manaf, the former GAM guerrilla commander.  

The first time was on April 10, 2012  right after ex-GAM won local Aceh elections.  The second was last February 9 when Muzakir was serving as the Aceh vice governor.  

On both occasions I asked Muzakir if it was true that, as I had reported in 2010, the former Kopassus commander,  General Sunarko, had helped assassinate pro-GAM activists during 2009.  

Muzakir's response on this was significant since, by 2012, Sunarko had become a Muzakir ally.  They were waging an election campaign together.  

On both occasions Muzakir said yes, it was true, Sunarko helped command the murders.

So why was GAM now supporting Sunarko, this man who had killed their comrades?  

Two reasons, Muzakir said, first, Sunarko could help with the Central Aceh Gayo vote, and second, Sunarko was in Prabowo's party and Prabowo was giving GAM lots of money.  

Last February Muzakir acknowledged to me that Prabowo's Kopassus had murdered Aceh civilians. 

But Muzakir said "He [Prabowo] had his orders, that was his national necessity.  That is all in the past now."  

When I asked Muzakir if his new friend Prabowo should be tried for crimes against humanity, he replied "That is not up to me.  That is up to others, maybe internationally."

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Prabowo was careful when he spoke to me to avoid implicating himself criminally.

It was not that he was denying things, he was just refusing to talk about them.

But there was one interesting case, when he appeared to come to the verge of discussing his role in the 1998 Jakarta riots that featured murder, rape and anti-Chinese violence.  

Prabowo had just finished blaming Wiranto for a long list of what he saw as political embarrassments, including the highly-publicized ABRI murders of civilian demonstrators at Trisakti and at Semanggi 1 and 2.

But when it came to the riots, Prabowo did not attempt to blame Wiranto.  

Instead, he said, with what could have been pride: "There were 128 fires at one time.  This was an operation: planned, instigated, controlled."

The only thing he would not say was who had done the controlling.

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Prabowo reminisced that during his time in occupied Timor, in the Kopassus camps, he had the use of "slaves."  

But then Prabowo caught himself.

Boasting about "slaves" was not advisable.

He corrected, in good American idiom: "Well, not really slaves -- gofers."

He complained that as we spoke, in 2001, he was short of money: "I am not rich."

Prabowo said "I have 15 servants.  Maybe you really only need 3."

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NOTE TO READERS: News and Comment is looking for assistance with translating blog postings into other languages, and also with fund raising and distributing the blog content more widely. Those interested please get in touch via the e-mail link below. NOTE TO READERS RE. TRANSLATION: Portions of News and Comment are now available in Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, French, German, Russian and Spanish translation (click preceding links or Profile link above) but translation help is still needed -- particularly with older postings, in these and all other languages. NOTE TO READERS RE. POTENTIAL EVIDENCE: News and Comment is looking for public and private documents and first-hand information that could develop into evidence regarding war crimes or crimes against humanity by officials. Please forward material via the email link below. Email Me

The US Presidential Election: a Referendum on Rightist Revolution

The November 8 election has become a referendum on right revolution.

The referendum on left revolution was held, and did surprisingly well, but the system stopped Sanders.

Now we must help the system stop Trump.

Its a complex moment, full of paradox.

The US/world system is criminal. It kills civilians, most overseas, directly with bombs, drones and bullets, and indirectly —but still more lethally — by withholding available wealth, food, resources.

That system deserves to be dismantled.

But Trump and co. will make it far worse. 

He and his teams represent revolution.

But its revolution in the wrong direction.

Some compare him to Mussolini, even Hitler.

One of his principal teams is indeed the modern neofascists (the alt right).

In lieu of going back in epochs to observe  and compare him to dead tyrants, one can instead travel overseas, to the US/world system outposts, where repressive violence — along with much production and pollution — has been largely outsourced.

Having spent decades fighting US-backed mass killers overseas I have had

countless occasions to combat and meet fascistic figures.

On the one hand, systematic comparison to Trump is near-impossible given differing contexts.

For decades, stateside Americans have largely lived in a bubble regarding political violence.

Labor and other forms of violent repression are still involved in creating US wealth and production but most of the violence no longer

occurs in US south and midwest factories.

It happens in distant countries, and most Americans neither hear nor suspect.

It helps give rise to foreign political systems that are more hands-on and dangerous than our own and on occasion (with US help) gives rise to leaders who kill often, directly.

In a sense it is perversely unfair (to them) to compare these blood-soaked men to the pipsqueak Trump, but I have to say that when I think of them, and then see Trump, I feel a certain subjective resonance.

Had Trump been born in Guatemala, the rich-kid rite of passage there involved, in the 80s, going out and killing any troublesome workers from daddy’s plantations and factories.

There was also the droit de seigneur, peasant/worker women — and dissidents —were theirs for the taking.  

Their partner, Colonel Chupina, the Police chief, cruised the city  in a van, snatching Guatemalan “10s” for rape and burial, and, he hoped, oblivion.

Across the border in El Salvador there was a catchy tune that rich boys sang that — with one edit; delete “communists,” insert “immigrants” —could have been played in the background when Donald Trump came down the escalator. 

"Tremble, tremble," the hymn began.  It was a warning to adversaries, people who were, the lyrics went, "criminals, with the souls of animals." 

"They have killed.  They have raped," it continued.  You heard it all the time on the radio.

"They have ruined our fatherland," but the country would become a "tomb" for them, "Saving in this way America [the continents], our immortal America."

That was the song of Roberto D'Aubuison's civilian death squad party, ARENA.  

They were the ones who killed Archbishop Romero.  They featured telegenic, crazed oligarchs. 

With CIA data, they broadcast death lists.  But in the death squad system, they were secondary.

The bulk of the assassinations were done by the state, with secret army/police death squads run by bureaucrats.

Their founder was an army general, Jose Alberto "Chele" Medrano, Washington's principal asset in El Salvador.

In comparison to D'Aubuisson, who, in person, vibrated with a sick charisma, Medrano was matter-of-fact, a technocrat, a death technician.

But as I sat with him for hours I realized he was also lunatic, a crackpot consumed by conspiracy theories and by his own and Washington's propaganda.  When not telling tales of his work with the Green Berets or his private visit to the Oval Office he would draw elaborate diagrams with which he purported to explain to me how most every last nun and campesino was controlled from Moscow by the KGB.

Years later, in a Jakarta office tower, General Prabowo, "the Americans' fair-haired-boy," by his own description, spent hours ranting to me about the proper way to do a massacre, musing on whether he "ha[d] the guts" to seize power and "be called a fascist dictator," and insulting Indonesia's then-president, the popularly-beloved Muslim cleric Gus Dur because he was civilian, legally blind, and not as "young [and] handsome" as W. Bush, Blair, or Putin: "The military even obeys a blind president!," the General said, "Look at him!  He's embarrassing!"

The whole thing was surprising.  We were meeting in private, as adversaries. I had long publicly called for his arrest -- and that of his US sponsors -- for war crimes (He was the country's most notorious killer, famous for torturing and executing abductees personally), and had helped to start a grassroots lobby that had contributed to his (and his father-in-law Suharto's) downfall, yet here he was venting at length about the other generals who years ago had mocked him (he said they called him "The American") and expressing his palpable hurt about being dumped by Washington as soon as he lost power.

In 2014, having never seized power, Prabowo declared as a candidate for president.

He launched his campaign in a stadium, on horseback, dressed up like Mussolini. One of his backers, a bad-boy rich-kid rock star, did an endorsement music video in Nazi SS garb.

Prabowo had told me he had "fifteen servants" and had kept "slaves" in occupied East Timor.  He was a rich man with a billionaire brother, so he decided to run as a man of the mass.  

He said that only he could uplift Indonesia.  He said his opponent, a not-rich civilian, was weak. 

And he positioned himself against the foreigners (In 1998, while still a powerful general, as the country rose in rebellion against the regime, Prabowo had been accused of organizing riots, mass rapes and arson against Jakarta's ethnic Chinese). Without mentioning his US "fair-haired boy" past, he said only he would stand up to the Americans.

His had his opponents labeled as ”foreign stooges" ("antek asing"). 

At first, few took Prabowo seriously.  

But as he rose precipitously in the polls, I decided to publish our old off-the-record discussions. A campaign-long confrontation ensued.

He demanded that the army capture me, and said he would have me charged for speech crimes (including “inciting hatred against the army”) but when I said yes, please arrest me, I look forward to facing you in court, he backed down and was ridiculed.  On the last campaign day he filed the charges.

At one point in our running televised battle, an agitated Prabowo (the press described him as speaking "in a high tone") gave a speech in which he assailed the rakyat (the masses/ the volk/ the people) for listening to me instead of him.  "What's with you?  One foreigner speaks and you get all worked up?  One white-skinned guy and we have to get agitated?" ("Kenapa sih kamu, kalau satu orang asing bicara, kok kamu ribut sih?  Satu orang kulit putih kita harus ribut."

"We are 240 million people.  Just stay calm.  Ask the rakyat, don't ask foreigners." ("Kita ini 240 juta orang, tenang saja.  Tanya rakyatmuh lah, jangan tanya orang asing.")

I responded by saying that if he loved the rakyat, why did he kill so many of them, and if the issue was foreigners why had he worked for decades for US intelligence?

Prabowo's Gus Dur insult made waves among the poor, especially religious Muslims.  In East and West Java street banners went up quoting what Prabowo had told me, and were quickly torn down by plain-clothes teams from the Kopassus special forces, the kidnap/murder-specialist US-trained red berets that Prabowo had once commanded (Many of the banners were then put back up, and the tear-down cycle repeated).

With days do go before the election I met with the Gus Dur family and they issued a statement calling on Prabowo to explain himself.

The family had made a point of staying neutral in the election.  Their statement was surprisingly forceful.  

But as the hours ticked by without a Prabowo response, I became increasingly nervous, fearing that I might have inadvertently handed him a breakthrough opportunity.

If Prabowo had gone to Gus Dur’s widow, prostrated himself and begged forgiveness, it could have electrified the electorate.  It would have been a TV sensation. 

But as it turned out, those fears were groundless. Apology was apparently not an option.  

Even with state power on the line, the General wasn't admitting error. 

Prabowo sent out a spokesman who told the cameras that the Gus Dur family wouldn't be getting an apology and that Prabowo didn't owe any explanation to anyone.

Soon after, Prabowo lost the election.  Behind the scenes, he put out coup feelers, but failed.  

It took weeks, but Prabowo eventually conceded that he had lost.

Last September, after his “Mexican rapists” launch, with his campaign in a bit of trouble, Trump arranged a press conference at Trump Towers.  His staff had found him some foreigners.   

Standing behind Trump as he spoke was Prabowo’s right-hand-man Fadli Zon.  Prabowo and Fadli Zon were forever denouncing opponents for not being true Muslims.  Some of their campaign rallies had featured army/police-backed thugs waving ISIS flags. 

After the Trump Tower press conference Fadli Zon posted a series of grinning Trump selfies, and brought forth real fury from Indonesians at home and abroad.

The Grand Imam of the Indonesian mosque in New York City issued a statement pointing out that Trump was famous in US politics primarily for being a racist, and that his particular targets included immigrants and the Muslim faith.

After Trump proclaimed the Muslim ban, Gen Prabowo’s man spoke out.  The press headline read: “Fadli Zon is sure that a US president Trump will not be anti Muslim.” 

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Although this vote is a referendum on right revolution, many don't see it that way.  Some vote for him for jobs, to fight corruption, to stay out of stupid wars, and this scam becomes easy for him because his opponent, Clinton, is a corporate Democrat.

Trump could not have gotten away with this nonsense if his opponent were Bernie Sanders because Sanders could outflank him on all of these issues and offer real, constructive solutions

The debate on money in politics  is perhaps the most painful to watch.   Both Sanders and Trump -- alone among the candidates, say the system is rotten.  But Clinton, as she feels she must, denies that money influences her, and, by way of defense, says, hey, Obama takes more Wall Street money than I do!

Trump's reply is devastating.  It's one reason he often beats her in polls on "honesty."  He says, hey I'm a crook!  I've been buying politicians all my life!  But now I'll be a crook for you, the American people.  Screw this system!

On trade deals he crushes her even though his solutions make no sense and she must squirm to defend a pillar of her and her husband's life's work.

In fact, a close reading of Trump, and those around him strongly suggests that should he win, he'll end up in roughly the same spot on TPP as Clinton. 

Unlike Sanders, Trump doesn't attack the trade deal corporate tribunals that allow the rich to go around the world repealing national laws and regulations that cramp their style.   He instead accepts the corporate frame that views trade deal clashes as nation v nation, as opposed to the fact that they're mainly big transnational firms v most everyone else.  

With the help of Paul Ryan and the Chamber of Commerce , Trump's and Clinton's real stances will converge: face-saving minor modifications that he (or she) can tout as basic change.

On the issues in which Trump seems left of Clinton, on close examination it's illusion and mist.  The factors that make him radical are all radicalism of the right.  

When one votes for US president one is voting not just for a person but for teams.  Evan McMullin, the ex Congressional staffer, points out that when Trump sat down with Paul Ryan, he pledged to follow the program and cut Social Security (a bipartisan DC favorite long pushed, under Obama by Gene Sperling, now at Clinton's right hand as one of her economic chiefs.  Clinton, nonetheless, was compelled by Sanders forces to make a clear statement in debate that she will not cut Medicare of Social Security.  We'll see how long that lasts.) 

 Trump's 28-point policy plan, which had Newt Gingrich in ecstasy, puts the oil companies in charge of the environment and promises to slash safety/labor/health regulation more precipitously than positions that Ryan and the Kochs have tacitly accepted in legislation.

The presidential election of any Republican now would be a quasi revolution because the party has become so radical as the servant of the thug fringe of the rich.  

But Trump adds in additional teams, like the open racists and trigger-happy police that his own unique persona bids to drag across the political finish line.

But Trump is more than a vehicle for the vilest elements of the right.   

He has his own unique capacity to unleash the beast on countless fronts.  

On killing policy, its the murder adventurers like Cheney, Rusmfeld, Boykin and Flynn who support him, as opposed to the murder bureaucrats, who line up firmly for Clinton.  He talks about nuclear weapons like a modern Gen. Curtis LeMay (its forgotten that Trump once-amateur studied nukes, and, while still a playboy, gave interviews on nuke policy.)

And perhaps more ominous is this one's man's singular drive and capacity to unleash the beast in White America.  

Its one of the elements that resonates most when I think of Trump alongside the killers I've known.

Recent Trump-like movements around the world have a certain variety in their targets, (In the Philippines and Europe they claim to be for working people; in Egypt and Thailand they despise the masses).  

What they have in common includes a middle class base, led by sometimes-fringe rich elites, and a feeling -- a semi or not-semi violent atmosphere of rage and hate that transcends continents.

In Thailand, the royalist elite helped the army topple two elected presidents with relentless mass middle-class sit-ins that paralyzed airports, downtown streets, state offices.  

At one point they rode under the banner of The People's Alliance for Democracy, and their main demand was oppsition to democratic elections on the grounds that poor farmers were too corrupt and stupid to be trusted with the vote.   

Now and then, when working on their second elected president, Yingluck Shinawatra, upper crust figures would mount the rally stages and demand that Mrs. Yingluck be impeached, arrested, jailed, and then - for good measure - gang raped.

When the Phlilppine Donald Trump -- as he's known, though he doesn't like Trump because Trump called the Phillippines "terrorist" -- Rodrigo Duterte got elected president on an open death squad platform, he immediately loosed cops and vigilantes and they murdered 3000 "drug dealers," at least two of them mayors; one of whom was just executed in his prison cell.  

When Senator Lila de Lima herocially stood up and exposed Duterte in death squad hearings, he got her fired from her Senate Chairmanship, threatened with death by smearing her as a drug dealer, had her home address and phone number published, and was subjected to open taunts from Duterte officials about a purported "sex tape."  

It could have been ripped from the headlines of the Trump campaign, except that under current Phillipine conditions, the brave Senator's life is clearly in danger.

Thats a difference, at least for now.

NOTE TO READERS: News and Comment is looking for assistance with translating blog postings into other languages, and also with fund raising and distributing the blog content more widely. Those interested please get in touch via the e-mail link below. NOTE TO READERS RE. TRANSLATION: Portions of News and Comment are now available in Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, French, German, Russian and Spanish translation (click preceding links or Profile link above) but translation help is still needed -- particularly with older postings, in these and all other languages. NOTE TO READERS RE. POTENTIAL EVIDENCE: News and Comment is looking for public and private documents and first-hand information that could develop into evidence regarding war crimes or crimes against humanity by officials. Please forward material via the email link below. Email Me

Jenderal Prabowo Mundur

Dua hari yang lalu, saya mengeluarkan tulisan tentang kerja-kerja Jenderal Prabowo untuk Pentagon dan intelijen Amerika. Sore ini saya menerbitkan terjemahan Indonesianya.

Sekarang, tepat pada malam ini, media memberi indikasi bahwa Prabowo dan tim kampanyenya telah mundur dari ancaman halus mereka yang menyerukan angkatan bersenjata Indonesia agar segera menangkap saya. 

Nampaknya Prabowo pun mundur dari tantangan saya untuk melaporkan saya ke pihak yang berwenang atas tuduhan pencemaran nama baik.

Prabowo alih-alih menyatakan kepada seluruh rakyat Indonesia untuk berhenti menyimak laporan-laporan yang saya tulis tentang dirinya. 

Hari ini, seorang Prabowo yang rupa-rupanya telah kehilangan kepercayaan diri, berbicara dalam nada tinggi dan marah-marah di muka publik: "Kenapa sih kamu, kalau satu orang asing bicara, kok kamu ribut sih? Satu orang kulit putih kita harus ribut."

"Kita ini 240 juta orang, tenang saja. Tanya rakyatmu lah, jangan tanya orang asing." ("Ditantang Allan Nairn, Prabowo pun menjawab."; "Ditantang Allan Nairn, Ini Tanggapan Prabowo").

Jika pernyataan-pernyataan yang saya kutip akurat, maka pertanyaan-pertanyaan berikut ini sudah sepantasnya tertuju pada Prabowo:

Jika masalahnya adalah rakyat vs. asing, mengapa Prabowo pernah  bekerja untuk pihak asing? (persisnya, melayani kepentingan Badan Intelijen Pertahanan AS [DIA] dan Pentagon).

Dan jika benar Prabowo mempedulikan nasib rakyat, mengapa dia dan rekan-rekannya di TNI membantai begitu banyak rakyat?

Allan Nairn


Link ke versi Bahasa Inggris

Link ke "Breaking News: Operasi Rahasia Kopassus dan BIN Untuk Mempengaruhi Hasil Pemilu"
Link ke "Breaking News: Indonesian Special Forces, Intelligence, in Covert Operation to Influence Election"

Link ke "'Do I have the guts,' Prabowo asked, 'am I ready to be called a fascist dictator?'"
Link ke "'Apa saya cukup punya nyali,' tanya Prabowo, 'apa saya siap jika disebut 'diktator fasis'?"
Link ke "A Response and Several Challenges to General Prabowo"
Link ke "Tanggapan dan Beberapa Tantangan Saya untuk Jenderal Prabowo"
Link ke "Regarding the Late Gus Dur"
Link ke "Terkait Almarhum Gus Dur"
Link ke "Prabowo, Part 2: "'I was the Americans' fair-haired boy.'  The Nationalist General and the United States"
Link ke "Prabowo, Bagian 2: 'Saya anak kesayangan Amerika.'  Sang Jenderal Nasionalis dan Amerika Serikat."
Link ke "General Prabowo Retreats"


NOTE TO READERS: News and Comment is looking for assistance with translating blog postings into other languages, and also with fund raising and distributing the blog content more widely. Those interested please get in touch via the e-mail link below. NOTE TO READERS RE. TRANSLATION: Portions of News and Comment are now available in Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, French, German, Russian and Spanish translation (click preceding links or Profile link above) but translation help is still needed -- particularly with older postings, in these and all other languages. NOTE TO READERS RE. POTENTIAL EVIDENCE: News and Comment is looking for public and private documents and first-hand information that could develop into evidence regarding war crimes or crimes against humanity by officials. Please forward material via the email link below. Email Me

A Response and Several Challenges to General Prabowo

General Prabowo's campaign said today that the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) are ready to capture me, and claimed that I am part of a US government/business conspiracy against Prabowo.  (See reference links below).

Campaign spokesman Budi Purnomo is reported as saying that "Allan Nairn is a journalist who is known to not have a good relationship with the TNI [Indonesian Armed Forces].  He said that Allan has even been listed as having entered Indonesia illegally seven times.  'TNI has even said that they are going to capture Allan if they learn he has returned to Indonesia,' he stated."  ["Allan Nairn merupakan seorang jurnalis Amerika yang dikenal memiliki hubungan yang tidak baik dengan TNI. Menurutnya, Allan bahkan tercatat tujuh kali pernah masuk ke Indonesia secara ilegal.  'TNI bahkan pernah menyatakan akan menangkap Allan jika ia ketahuan kembali ke Indonesia,' jelasnya." (Merdeka.com, June 26, 2014)].   

I am currently in Indonesia so if the TNI would like to capture me, they can.  

(For background on Suharto/TNI banning me from Indonesia as "a threat to national security" see the previous postings about my discussions with General Prabowo).

If General Prabowo wants me to be captured because of what I've written about him, then I request that he say so himself.

As to the amusing charge that I am working with the US, anyone familiar with my work knows that I am an adversary of the US state and of US corporate interests.

One of my main criticisms of the US for the past 40 years has been of their practice of exploiting and killing poor people around the world, including in Indonesia.

I have publicly called for every living US president to be tried and jailed for sponsoring forces that kill civilians.

One of the many US-backed forces that kills civilians is the TNI, and General Prabowo was the US's closest protege in the TNI (Prabowo described himself to me as "the Americans' fair-haired boy").

In my view, the two most important facts about Prabowo are, first, that he killed civilians, and second, that he killed them while being sponsored by the United States.

I have some challenges for the general:

General Prabowo, will you join me in calling for the US Presidents to be put on trial?

And regarding US exploitation of Indonesia and the issue of mining contracts, General Prabowo, will you join me in calling for the expulsion of Freeport McMoRan from Indonesia?

As to my writing about Prabowo, it is accurate.  If the General wants to deny this, I invite him to face me in the Indonesian courts by filing criminal libel charges against me.

Allan Nairn


Link to view translation of this post in Bahasa Indonesia
Link to view "Breaking News: Indonesian Special Forces, Intelligence, in Covert Operation to Influence Election"

Links re. Prabowo campaign statements:
"Jurnalis Asing Allan Nairn Jadi TO TNI"
"Kubu Prabowo sebut Allan Nairn 7 kali masuk RI secara ilegal"
"Konspirasi Jurnalis Asing Tak Akan Gembosi Prabowo"
"Timses cium ada campur tangan AS jegal Prabowo"
"PKS: Amerika harus terima kalau Prabowo jadi presiden"
"Bantah Wawancara Prabowo dengan Allan Nairn, Tantowi: Dia Musuh Negara"

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News: "Do I have the guts," Prabowo asked, "am I ready to be called a fascist dictator?"

By Allan Nairn

On July 9 the world's fourth most populous country, Indonesia, will hold an election that could result in General Prabowo Subianto becoming president.

General Prabowo, the brother of a billionaire, was the son-in-law of the dictator Suharto, and as a US trainee and protege was implicated in torture, kidnap and mass murder.

In June and July, 2001 I had two long meetings with Prabowo.

We met at his corporate office in Mega Kuningan, Jakarta.

I offered Prabowo anonymity. 

I was looking into recent murders apparently involving the Indonesian army, and was hoping that if he could speak off-the-record General Prabowo might divulge details.

I came away disappointed.  Prabowo shed little light those killings.

But we ended up speaking for nearly four hours.   

My impression then was that his comments were extraneous.

Prabowo talked about fascism, democracy, army massacre policy, and his long, close relationship with the Pentagon and US intelligence.  

But at that time he was out of power and in political isolation. Other generals were the threat. 

But now Prabowo is on the verge of assuming state power.  And looking back at my notes I realize that some of what he said has now become relevant.

I have contacted General Prabowo asking permission to discuss his comments publicly, but not having heard back from him have decided to go ahead anyway.

I think the harm of breaking my anonymity promise to the General is outweighed by what would be the greater harm of Indonesians going to the polls having been denied access to facts they might find pertinent.

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Prabowo and I had a revealing discussion about the Santa Cruz Massacre.  

This was an Indonesian armed forces slaughter of at least 271 civilians.

It was done on November 12, 1991 in Dili, occupied East Timor, outside a cemetery where a crowd of men, women and children had gathered.

I happened to have been present at that massacre and managed to survive it.

Prabowo told me that the army order to do those killings had been "imbecilic."  (He said he thought the order came from Gen. Benny Murdani, but said he wasn't certain).

Prabowo's complaint was not with the fact that the army had murdered civilians, but rather that they had done so in front of me and other witnesses who were then able to report the massacre and mobilize the outside world.

"Santa Cruz killed us politically!," Prabowo exclaimed.  "It was the defeat!"

"You don't massacre civilians in front of the world press," General Prabowo said. "Maybe commanders do it in villages where no one will ever know, but not in the provincial capital!"

The remark was telling as an acknowledgement that the army routinely massacres, and in establishing that Prabowo finds this acceptable if the killings are done in places where "no one will ever know."

In September, 1983, there was just such a series of massacres around the little-seen village of Kraras on the mountain of Bibileo, East Timor.

The official UN-chartered Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor, the CAVR, later reported regarding the Kraras slaughter: 

"421.  The Commission received evidence that Prabowo was stationed in the eastern sector of Timor-Leste at this time. Several sources have told the Commission that he was involved in the operation to bring the civilian population down from Mount Bibileo, shortly after which several hundred were killed by ABRI [the Indonesian Armed Forces]. The Commission also received evidence of Kopassus being involved in these killings. (See Chapter 7.2: Unlawful Killings and Enforced Disappearances)."

As Suharto pulled Prabowo up through the ranks, his commands were implicated in other mass murders, including one in West Papua where Prabowo's men masqueraded as the International Red Cross (ICRC), and the now well-known covert operation in Jakarta where they disappeared pro-democracy activists.

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The fact that Prabowo and I had agreed to sit down was in itself a bit unusual. 

I had called for Prabowo to be tried and jailed along with his US sponsors, and had helped lead a successful grassroots campaign to sever US aid to the Indonesian armed forces.  I had been banned from Indonesia as "a threat to national security," and General Prabowo's men had tortured friends of mine.

But, for my part, I had made the cold calculation that if it helped solve the recent murders sitting down with Prabowo would be worth it.   

For Prabowo's part, I do not know, but I did get the impression that he enjoyed the chance to talk shop and compare notes with an adversary.

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At that time, two years after Suharto's fall,  Indonesia had a civilian president.

He was the blind cleric, Abdurrachman Wahid, popularly known as Gus Dur.  

The Indonesian armed forces had undermined Gus Dur's presidential authority.  They had done so in part by facilitating ethnic/ religious terror attacks in the Malukus.  Three weeks after my second meeting with Prabowo, Gus Dur was impeached and ousted.

Today, Gus Dur is often remembered fondly.  The current Prabowo campaign uses footage of him.

But that day, to me, Prabowo ranted about Gus Dur and democracy.

"Indonesia is not ready for democracy," Prabowo said.  "We still have cannibals, there are violent mobs."   

Indonesia needs, Prabowo said, "a benign authoritarian regime."  He said the many ethnicities and religions precluded democracy.

Prabowo said, regarding Gus Dur:

"The military even obeys a blind president!  Imagine!  Look at him, he's embarrassing!"

"Look at Tony Blair, Bush, Putin.  Young, ganteng [handsome] -- and we have a blind man!"

Prabowo called for a different model.

He mentioned Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf.   

Musharraf had arrested his country's civilian prime minister and imposed dictatorship.  Prabowo said he admired him greatly.

Prabowo ruminated on whether he could measure up, whether he could be an Indonesian Musharraf.

"Do I have the guts," Prabowo asked, "am I ready to be called a fascist dictator?"

"Musharraf had the guts, " Prabowo said.  

As to himself, he left that question unanswered.

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End of Part 1.  

Coming Up,  Part 2:  Prabowo: "I was the Americans' fair-haired boy."  The Nationalist General and US Intelligence.

Link to view translation of this post in Bahasa Indonesia

Link to "Breaking News: Indonesian Special Forces, Intelligence, in Covert Operation to Influence Election"

Link ke "SIKAP KELUARGA KH ABDURRAHMAN WAHID MENGENAI KONTROVERSI WAWANCARA BP. PRABOWO SUBIANTO YANG DIANGGAP HINA GUS DUR"

                                                                 



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Prabowo, Part 2: "I was the Americans' fair-haired boy." The Nationalist General and the United States

By Allan Nairn

When we met in Jakarta on June 21 and July 2, 2001 General Prabowo spoke at length about his work with and for the United States.

Prabowo told me "I was the American's fair-haired boy."

He said he had been "very good friends" with US intelligence,  reporting to them "maybe weekly or more," had served as a go-between to convey US messages to Suharto, and had even gone so far as to help bring US troops into Indonesia for exercises the  Pentagon used to prepare its' "contingency plan for entry to Indonesia," i.e. "the invasion contingency."

But at the time we spoke Prabowo had recently been denied a US visa.

His sense of grievance about this was palpable.

It was easy to understand why.

Prabowo had served Washington through years of torture and massacre.  The US had backed him warmly, with sponsorship, weapons, and public praise.

Prabowo was not just Indonesia's single most intensively US-trained officer, but, so far as I can tell, he was Washington's closest Indonesian armed forces protege ever.  Much of Prabowo's power came from the fact that he was Washington's man as well as Suharto's.

But the instant he lost an inter-army power struggle in 1998,  the US had jilted Prabowo in favor of his most hated rival (Wiranto),  and now they were piously criticizing him for crimes he had committed with US support,  and, to top it off,  had added the indignity of the visa denial.

When Prabowo -- by way of complaint -- went on to me about his years of loyal service to Washington, it was clear to me he was not boasting.  He was simply stating the facts.

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Prabowo told me he had "always identified with the US.  It was something I got from my family."

Though he had previously been a minister in the government of  Sukarno,  Indonesia's founding president, Prabowo's father had been involved in the CIA-backed operation to oust Sukarno.

Prabowo told me he grew up imbued with US Anti-Communism,  and had supported the US when it went into countries like Cambodia and Afghanistan.

In a July 17,  2013 Washington DC speech to US government and corporate leaders, Prabowo's brother,  Hashim Djojohadikusumo, the billionaire investor, said:

"Prabowo is very pro-American.  He went to American high school,  American grade school.  I mean, you know, he's been going to American school all his life.  He went to Special Forces,  he was in Fort Benning,  Fort Bragg.  You know,  I'm pro-American.  Until recently I was an investor in California, in a big way, in the oil business."

Hashim promised that if Prabowo becomes president of Indonesia: "Yes,  the US will be a privileged partner with a GERINDRA administration."

( GERINDRA is Prabowo's political party, which Hashim helps to finance.  [See video link, starting at around the 56:32 time stamp]).

Two months before our first meeting I saw Prabowo speak and work the crowd at a gathering in Jakarta of the US-Indonesia investor/ military elites (the Van Zorge conference, 2001).

Prabowo professed his devotion to the doctrines of two US Civil War generals, William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant (later US president), both of whom had embraced the tactic of occasionally killing many civilians.

Prabowo remarked "I know more US history than Indonesian history."

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When we spoke, I was struck by Prabowo's emotion when he talked about America.

Prabowo said to me with rising anger that his fellow Indonesian officers used to mock him,  calling him "The American officer" because he was so close to the United States.

He said that they made fun of him -- and implied he was unmanly -- because his English was so good and he spent so much time with the foreigners.

Prabowo told me he was "Very good friends with DIA (the US Defense Intelligence Agency) back to George Benson."

Benson spent decades going in and out of Indonesia for US intelligence.

Benson worked with elements of ABRI in the CIA-backed covert operation to oust Sukarno, providing US intelligence for the 1958 attack on Padang, West Sumatra (See "In memoriam: George Benson: a true friend of Indonesia" ).

Benson later effectively ran US-ABRI covert operations against Sukarno leading up to Sukarno's toppling amid the mid-1960s US-backed massacres  that killed hundreds of thousands of Indonesian civilians (See "Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'Etat in Indonesia," the landmark historical study that discusses Benson and the US role.)

For his work in Indonesia Colonel Benson was inducted into the Defense Intelligence Agency "Hall of Fame."

After leaving the DIA,  Benson represented Suharto's Pertamina oil company in Washington,  and became a leading promoter of US corporate entry into Indonesia.

In 1994 Benson , the Prabowo circle, and US business,  diplomatic, and intelligence figures helped launch the United States - Indonesia Society (USINDO).   USINDO worked to fight the rising grassroots movement to cut off US aid to Suharto's ABRI (a movement I was deeply involved with
),  and to defend US corporate interests in Indonesia like the huge miner Freeport McMoRan.

Prabowo's father, Sumitro, and brother Hashim sat on USINDO boards.  USINDO has established a fellowship to honor Sumitro.  Corporate sponsors of USINDO have included the Lippo Group, Freeport McMoRan, Texaco, Mobil, Raytheon, GE, Hughes Aircraft and Merril Lynch.  Prabowo was reportedly, through his wife, Suharto's daughter Titiek, involved in business with Merril Lynch.

USINDO was the group to which Hashim gave his 2013 Washington speech that promised that a Prabowo presidency would treat the United States as "a privileged partner" (see above).

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Prabowo told me he was "on the phone frequently with US intel,  McFetridge and the others, maybe weekly or more."

He was referring to Colonel Charles D. (Don) McFetridge of the DIA.   McFetridge was one of Col. George Benson's successors in Indonesia,  and the 1994-'98 US Defense Attache in Jakarta.

McFetridge also dealt directly with Prabowo's Kopassus Group 4 commander,  Colonel Chairawan,  according to interviews I had with Chairawan and US officials.   (See my piece in The Nation [US], issue dated June 15, 1998, "Our Men in Jakarta").

The DIA was working with Prabowo and Chairawan throughout the time they were implicated in the abuction, torture, and murder of the Jakarta activists (1997-'98).

Thirteen of those abductees are still missing, presumed dead.

One of Prabowo's campaign leaders -- General Kivlan Zein -- says he knows where the bodies are buried.

Col. McFetridge, who had attended SESKOAD, the Indonesian army staff and command school, went on to help run security for the multinational oil and gas giant BP, particularly on their BP-Tangguh gas extraction project in West Papua.

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Prabowo told me he didn't deal with the CIA but rather the DIA.

He said the CIA liaison was with BAKIN, which reported directly to the armed forces commander.

Prabowo asserted that within the Indonesian armed forces, deference to DIA people was normal. "If the US Attache calls the ABRI military chief of staff and wants a meeting he gets a meeting."

Prabowo said that such was the US confidence in him that they used him to convey messages to his father-in-law, Suharto.

He said that at one point late in the 1998 uprising that brought down Suharto, his US handlers confided to him that the US government had concluded that Suharto had suddenly lost his usefulness.

Prabowo told me he went to Suharto and conveyed the message: the US is "no longer with you."

But Prabowo told me that Suharto replied: "'No, the US is still with me, someone just came from DC and told me.'"

Prabowo said Suharto "got angry and threw me out."

It is possible that Prabowo and Suharto were,  in a sense,  both correct.

As Suharto lost his ability to repress effectively, the US moved to dump him, as they have done with many others.

But they did so only grudgingly, and with division in the US ranks.

It is plausible that Prabowo and Suharto could have gotten different messages from different Americans.

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Prabowo's account to me of his US intelligence dealings is consistent with what others told me.

I reported during the 1998 crisis:  "As one [US] embassy official described if for me at the height of the disappearances: 'Prabowo is our fair-haired boy; he's the one who can do no wrong'" (The Nation [US], issue dated June 15, 1998; the article was released to the press in May).

On May 26, 1999 in an interview at his Jakarta home, one of the architects of the Indonesian intelligence system, the US-trained Admiral Sudomo,  Suharto's old security chief, remarked to me that "Prabowo also has close intelligence ties with the US."  (For background on this interview see posting of Dec. 7, 2007, "Imposed Hunger in Gaza, The Army in Indonesia.  Questions of Logic and Activism.").

But Prabowo's US work extended far beyond intelligence.  As he described it to me he collaborated closely in US military actions, including bringing US troops onto Indonesian soil.

Prabowo's statements to me are fully consistent with internal Pentagon and State Department documents, which, among other things, back up his claim to have facilitated US invasion planning.

These documents also indicate something Prabowo did not mention to me: that the US Special Forces Prabowo brought in conducted at least two covert operations in Indonesia that the Pentagon described to the US Congress as "Classified … compartmented activit[ies]."

The documents also make clear that from the US government point of view, the Pentagon was using Prabowo to undermine Indonesia's nationalists.

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Throughout his US collaboration, which spanned Prabowo's army career, Prabowo was often handled directly by Pentagon officials from the highest levels of US power.

They included Secretaries of Defense, Pacific Commanders in Chief and US Special Operations Commanders.

I reported in 1998: "Although Prabowo's personal relish for atrocity is legendary (a Timorese man told me of having his leg and teeth broken by Prabowo), high-level U.S. officials paraded him this year as the political crisis gathered steam.  In January, Defense Secretary William Cohen praised the "very impressive … discipline" of KOPASSUS." (The Nation [US], issue dated June 15, 1998; the article was released to the press in May).

I reported then: "[Cohen] pointedly refused to call for ABRI restraint in dealing with street demonstrations.  Asked about the overall message conveyed by the visits, one official said, 'It's simple. The U.S. is close to and loves the army.' … Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth has dined frequently with [Prabowo] recently.  When Secretary Cohen visited, he raised eyebrows in Jakarta by going to KOPASSUS headquarters [and] [s]pending three hours by Prabowo's side..." (The Nation [US], issue dated March 30, 1998).

A book by Dana Priest of the Washington Post -- who interviewed US officers who worked with Prabowo --  said that Prabowo "became known among the diplomatic corps in Jakarta as 'Washington's man in Indonesia.''"

Priest reported that while still young Prabowo "quickly became the darling of the American military, from which he collected both experience and honors."

Priest recounts an anecdote about how Prabowo feted a visiting US commander  ( Commander in Chief of the US Pacific Command [CINCPAC], Admiral Joseph Prueher) by putting on a special Kopassus demonstration to honor him:

"Prabowo ended another show for … Prueher with his [Prabowo's] troops standing shoulder to shoulder singing the Indonesian version of the [US] 82d Airborne Division's song.  The adrenaline on the reviewing stand was palpable, said one observer.  Prueher was pleased and excited." (Dana Priest, The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military," Norton, 2004.)

The story is an interesting example, since Prabowo said to me that there were other Pentagon leaders with whom he was closer than he was with Prueher.

One he cited was the CINCPAC from March, 1991 to July '94, Admiral Charles R. Larson, who later became a director of the Northrop Grumman Corporation.  Prabowo even recounted some internal White House - Pentagon gossip about Admiral Larson, saying that he had been "in line to be CNO [US Chief of Naval Operations, the highest US Navy position], but instead became the Annapolis commandant [at the US Navy cadet academy]."

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When the US-Prabowo relationship was still in flower, Prabowo was, as a former US Ambassador to Indonesia -- Robert Gelbard -- would later put it, conducting himself as :"perhaps the greatest violator of human rights in contemporary times among the Indonesian military.  His deeds in the late 1990s before democracy took hold were shocking, even by TNI standards,"  (Radio Australia interview, July 16, 2008).

But while Prabowo was actually doing those deeds, his conduct was just fine with Washington.

According to what US officials were saying to Prabowo and the US Congress at the time, General Prabowo was doing precisely what Washington wanted him to do.

The US Ambassador to Indonesia before Gelbard -- ie., the one who was there as Prabowo was still in power and still Washington's man, Stapleton Roy -- wrote a December  1996 cable (Jakarta 08651 , R 061039Z Dec96) citing Prabowo as a model trainee.

(Another trainee singled out for praise was General Hendropriono, who had been implicated in the 1989 Lampung massacre of Muslim activists and whose intelligence unit later assassinated the human rights hero Munir. Hendropriono is now campaigning for Prabowo's presidential opponent, Jokowi.).

Incredibly enough, the US cable even inverted the facts to praise Prabowo for the West Papua operation in which Prabowo's men posed as the Red Cross and went on to commit a massacre (See the detailed account of what actually happened from Edmund McWilliams, who investigated the killings as the US Embassy's chief political officer).

Roy's cable praised Prabowo for "maintaining discipline and restraint," "earning … commendation" for the Red Cross episode and "initiat[ing] additional human rights training for his command."

It argued that by training Prabowo and Indonesian officers like him, the US reaped major dividends in -- among other things -- containing army nationalism.

The cable said: "Indonesian IMET graduates return home with an understanding of what we Americans stand for and what we stand against."

IMET is one of the Pentagon programs under which Prabowo was trained.   It was the first one the US grassroots movement succeeded, through Congress, in cutting off after the 1991 Dili massacre in occupied East Timor (See the first installment of this Prabowo series).

The US cable continued:

"Home grown and locally educated ARBI officers are less receptive to our values, less convinced of our arguments, and less responsive to our policies… IMET graduates serve in key positions in ABRI.  During times when our relationship has been under stress, it was the core of U.S. - trained IMET alumni who refused to heed the calls to 'shut out the Americans.'  We have been able to retain some access and influence through IMET alumni… Over the next several years a major transition of power will occur in Indonesia.  The military will be an important factor in how that transition occurs, whether through a background role as the ensurer of stability, or as a more active player.  Within Indonesia, especially in the armed forces, an internal debate pits two factions against each other.  One faction is progressive, educated, and enlightened… The other is introverted, ethnocentric, anti-Western.  It believes that foreign education and training is a polluting influence.  We have an opportunity to influence that debate and the future in support of our long term interests," -- i.e. by backing Generals like Prabowo, and facilitating his "shocking" deeds.

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Prabowo's remarks to me -- and his record -- become especially interesting in light of  the claims that are being made in his current campaign for president.

This time, Prabowo is running as, in effect, the new Sukarno,  the nationalist who loudly insists that he will not bow to America.

Prabowo is "the only one brave enough to oppose America," according to Amien Rais,  one of Prabowo's top campaigners.

(In March, 1998, Amien Rais and I both testified as witnesses before the US Congress, in a hearing of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.  At that time Rais was blaming Prabowo for the still-ongoing disappearance of the Jakarta activists.  In 2009 the Australian press quoted Rais as describing Prabowo as a "criminal." [The Australian Financial Review; Wednesday, February 25, 2009; Outsider Prompts 'General' Unease; by Angus Grigg]).

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Prabowo told me he was especially close to the US Special Forces, the commando teams that do invasions and insertions around the world.

His assertion is backed up by voluminous public information.  The Dana Priest book notes, for example, that "The brass from the US Special Operations Command was especially enamored  of Prabowo's troops.  General Wayne Downing, its commander from 1993- 96, parachuted with Kopassus."  In 1996, she writes, Prabowo was "the star of the [US] Pacific Command's Special Operations Conference in Hawaii."

Prabowo told me he was instrumental in bringing US Special Forces into Indonesia, in large part through JCET, the Pentagon's Joint Combined Exchange Training program.

After the US Congress cut off the IMET training for ABRI in 1992, the Pentagon went behind Congress's back and used a JCET funding scheme to do military drills in Indonesia that Congress didn't approve or know about.

The Indonesia JCET was abruptly cancelled on May 8, 1998 after Congress reacted with outrage when I and the East Timor Action Network (ETAN, a grassroots group I helped to found) disclosed what was going on by releasing Pentagon JCET documents obtained with the help of the late US Representative Lane Evans. (See NY Times, "US Training of Indonesia Troops Goes On Despite Ban ,""Pentagon Documents Show Indonesian Military Training Continues Despite Congressional Ban," "Indonesia's Killers,"  (The Nation [US], issue dated March 30, 1998), "Statement by Allan Nairn on the suspension of US military training aid to Indonesia."

After my Jakarta press conference releasing the documents -- and focusing on JCET drills with Prabowo's Kopassus, I was arrested and interrogated by the Suharto security forces.

I remember that after the interrogator slapped my intel file on the table, he reacted with great equanimity as I denounced the Suharto-ABRI-Prabowo-US mass killings but suddenly became annoyed when I offhandedly mentioned Suharto corruption.

The JCET had gone far beyond IMET, which had brought officers like Prabowo into the US for training like that which Prabowo received at Fort Bragg, North Carolina  (US Army Special Forces Training Course, 1980; Fort Bragg is home to the 82d Airborne, the US unit Prabowo celebrated by having Kopassus perform the 82d's fight song in Indonesian [see above] ) and Fort Benning, Georgia  (US Advanced Infantry Officers Course , 1985).

For JCET, large numbers of fully armed US troops actually went into Indonesia and, among other things, drilled with ABRI on a range of skills including Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT), Advanced Sniper Technique, air assault, ground assault, sea assault, surveillance,  Nuclear Chemical Biological (NBC), Combat Sapper, "ambush skills," Explosives and Demolition, and Psychological Operations (PSYOPS).

There were at least 41 such exercises.   The documents specify activities with Kopassus Groups 1 through 5.  The principal unit conducting them was the US 1st Special Forces Group but there were also others, including the US Marines.

This obviously constituted crucial US support for Suharto, Prabowo and ABRI.

This was pointedly so since the US troops were on the ground in Indonesia during many ABRI atrocities, including the activist disappearances and the shootings of civilians in the uprising against Suharto.   The armed Americans were drilling with and helping precisely the ABRI units that were implicated in these crimes, including Kopassus, KOSTRAD, Kodam Jaya and others.

But Prabowo made a telling point to me:  these maneuvers he had set up with the Americans had another side.

In addition to helping the US shore up its favored dictators and generals of the moment, they also helped the US get what it wants in Indonesia.

Prabowo told me that JCET in large part existed for the US -- and in particular its Special Forces -- "to do recon, practice for the invasion contingency."

Prabowo said: "They do recon, they see the [Indonesian] terrain."

He referred to the US "special forces contingency plan for entry to Indonesia, Jakarta, Bandung etc."

Prabowo told me he had "briefly discussed it [the invasion planning] with them."

Prabowo said: "US invasion plans for Indonesia are not unusual.  They're a super-power with intelligence everywhere."

He described the US as "a higher power."

Prabowo was correct in noting that the Pentagon prepares to invade most everywhere.

Prabowo informed me of a then-new book, "Special Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S. Army Special Forces, by the White House/Pentagon confidant Tom Clancy that included as Prabowo put it "an Indonesian [invasion] scenario with atomic bombs."

I did not bother to look it up at the time, but when I did so recently, I saw that Prabowo was referring to a dramatized scenario (Clancy was a novelist but this book was mostly nonfiction; US military officers loved to talk to, and read, Tom Clancy) in which US Special Forces invade Indonesia after a terrorist atomic blast in the Malukus .

At the time Prabowo and I spoke, mid 2001, the prospect of an actual invasion seemed quite remote.

The last known time the US had directly invaded Indonesia, in 1958 (an operation that included bombing of Indonesia by CIA pilots; as a child in US grade school I happened to have slightly known the son of one of them),  the country was run by Sukarno who was something of an adversary of Washington.

Sukarno had confronted foreign corporations and embraced rebellious ideas: workers' rights, social welfare, Indonesian and Third World nationalism and Non-Alignment.   These were ways of thinking that Washington regarded as unacceptable, "Communist."  And in addition Sukarno had allowed the Communist party and peasant leagues to organize.

In 1993,  Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Bobby Kennedy, described to me how "Bobby hated that man, Sukarno."

Bobby Kennedy was the right-hand-man of his brother, President John F. Kennedy (1961-'63),  and had gone to the trouble of flying to Jakarta to confront Sukarno personally.

But after Sukarno it was a different story.

Prabowo's mentor and father-in-law, General Suharto, was, from the start, Washington's man.

The US backed and cheered Suharto and ABRI when, after more than a decade of US prodding, they finally overthrew Sukarno and consolidated absolute power with one of the largest massacres of the 20th Century.

More than 400,000, perhaps a million, Indonesian civilians were slaughtered.  The big US press saluted the operation.  They called it "a gleam of light in Asia" (The New York Times).  The CIA chipped in with a list of five thousand "Communists" to be executed.

Suharto did as Washington wanted and brought in the US corporations -- in part under the guidance of one of his leading economics ministers, Prabowo's father.  These were the same corporations that, with the Prabowo clan and the US intel veterans,  went on to form the USINDO lobby to safeguard their Indonesia interests and the Pentagon's sponsorship of TNI/ABRI.-

Suharto is "our kind of guy," the Clinton White House told the New York Times.

So Washington wasn't invading their own guy, and even after Suharto fell, ABRI/TNI and corporate influence had been such that Jakarta  had stayed in Washington's corner.

The state of US invasion contingency thinking in the moment when Prabowo and I were speaking was typified by a discussion I had with a US Defense Department planner  on January 14, 1999.   Following a Marine Corps military-civilian seminar on Indonesia, this official remarked that US planning focused on a speculative down-the-road "Law of the Sea" scenario, in which the US might decide to take some action if Indonesia changed course politically and decided to resist Washington's practices regarding freely sailing its ships through archipelagos.

During our discussion neither Prabowo nor I talked of invasion as a real possibility.

But two months after our second meeting the September 11 attacks on the US happened.

And in the wake of that there were actually presented,  at the White House and at Camp David, proposals for a US Special Forces attack on Indonesia.

The idea was for a dramatic strike to send a message to the Muslim world.   It would involve simultaneous moves against Indonesia and other countries.

This was advocated at the highest level.  President George W. Bush was at the table.  Pushing the plan were White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and , apparently, Dick Cheney, the US Vice President, and Donald Rumsfeld the Secretary of Defense.

The matter is documented by Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, who interviewed meeting participants and evidently had access to secret White House records.

Woodward writes: "White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said consideration should be given to simultaneous actions in other parts of the world such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Yemen or Somalia. 'If you had 15 SEAL teams hitting 10 different targets on the same day, all at once, around the world that would send a message that we're reaching out globally."

Later, on October 9, 2001 at a 1 am meeting of the National Security Council, Vice President Cheney "returned to the hard questions they were skirting … At the top of the list for expanding anti-terror attacks were the Philippines, Yemen and Indonesia."  In the Philippines, Woodward reports, there were looking at Abu Sayyaf in the Muslim south as a possible target, and "In Indonesia, Muslim extremists were everywhere." (Bob Woodward, "Bush at War," 2002, Simon & Schuster).

This -- in my view -- criminal, lunatic plan was, in the end, abandoned.   But had it not been, the Indonesia invasion planning that Prabowo had helped facilitate through JCET would have come in handy to his sponsors in Washington.

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The JCET documents we initially released in March, 1998, were later supplemented by others, some in internal working-paper form.

They back up Prabowo's claims to me that first,  he was the key man in bringing the US forces into Indonesia, and second, that in doing so he was doing the Pentagon a major service.   And interestingly, though these documents were initially of a low or zero level of classification, they still make a fairly specific allusion to this laying the groundwork for a possible future brief invasion.

The documents also shed revealing sidelights on how the Pentagon thinks about Indonesians, and on the US's extremely agile definition of "human rights violations."

Finally they allude to two US covert operations in Indonesia that grew out of the Pentagon-Prabowo JCET collaboration.

The documents say that Prabowo, who is referred to as the Kopassus commander , "open[ed] the door" to get the US forces into Indonesia:

The Pentagon writes that they had been "discussing JCET activities [with] Indonesian planners at the highest level, including the KOPASSUS Commander," i.e.. General Prabowo.

Another Pentagon document states: "At the outset of the JCET program most activities were conducted with KOPASSUS for a number of reasons.  Most importantly KOPASSUS [ie. Prabowo] was anxious to train with U.S. SOF [Special Operations Forces] and their standing as a prestigious unit allowed them to open the door for U.S. Forces to train in Indonesia.  They were also well resourced, had access to training areas, had specialized skill of training interest to U.S. SOF and through their willingness made in country training with U.S. Fores acceptable to other ABRI units."

Elsewhere, the Pentagon states regarding Kopassus/ Prabowo: "Our strategy was to integrate other training partners [other ABRI units beyond Kopassus] in our training events whenever possible, prudently leveraging the access provided by Kopassus," i.e.. Prabowo.

Also, "After the 'ice was broken with KOPASSUS' a concerted effort was made to expand the number of Indonesia units participating in JCET activities such as KOSTRAD, PUSDIKZI, KODIKLAT, SESKOAD, PUSSENIF, Naval and Air SOF units..."

At one point the office of the CINCPAC, the top US Pacific commander Prabowo routinely dealt with, writes: "Within Abri, Kopassus had the influence required to begin training with the US (when other units either could or would not) and the resources to contribute to this training.  Kopassus opened the door…"

The Pentagon went on to write about then putting a foot in that door:

"The JCET program in Indonesia had the primary objective of providing training opportunities for U.S. SOF [Special Operations Forces]…It assisted us in gaining access to Indonesian Armed Forces units and leaders.  It was oriented in a progressive manner with increasing options for U.S. SOF to train in METL tasks …[and do ] training in areas that are new or not available at home station.  It held the promise of increasing interoperability and use of excellent training facilities for conventional as well as SOF by 'getting a foot in the door' at BATU  RAJA and SIABU RANGE [ABRI facilities]."

Prabowo's JCET foot in the door allowed the US Special Forces and other US units to, as Prabowo put it to me, "do recon, see the terrain," "practice for the invasion contingency," in exercises held in --- according to the documents -- at least the following locations, beyond Batu Raja and Siabu Range: Jakarta, Bogor, Bandung,  Surakarta, Serang, Ciampea and Camara.

In one memo to the deceived Congress, the Pentagon wrote: "Please recall that the primary purpose of training under Section 2011 [which was used for this JCET gambit] is to improve US SOF readiness. Any benefits to the host nation [Indonesia] are incidental to those we gain."

The documents refer to the JCETs allowing the Special Forces to get ready for action in Indonesia and environments like it due to the training they received from ABRI during the JCET RECONDO action in things like "jungle survival, tracking and counter tracking techniques."

As to what might prompt the US to use the Prabowo foot in the door to actually strike in Indonesia, one Pentagon document for Congress says , several years before the 2001 White House invasion hysteria: "JCET inspires a high degree of confidence in the ability of our SOF.  This confidence and admiration would likely lead to inclusion of our SOF in an active role in any operation to protect US lives or property should they be threatened by terrorist or separatist movements in Indonesia."

It still seems highly unlikely that the US would invade its defacto ally, Indonesia, but if they did they would be building on the work done for them by Prabowo. 

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At one point, writing to Congress, the Pentagon says of its Indonesia JCET that it would "not conduct training with individuals involved in human rights violations."  The Pentagon, of course, set up its JCET with, and trained with, Prabowo, which means that by the US definition the "shocking" deeds that Prabowo did (Gelbard) were not quite bad enough to constitute "human rights violations."

This definition of "human rights violations" is especially impressive in light of another passage in the documents.  Prabowo's former handler, the CINCPAC, writes regarding "the abductions of the political activists ... We are certain of the involvement of LTG Prabowo, MG Muchdi and COL Chairawan [This was written after Prabowo fell from power].  LTG Prabowo has retired and MG Muchdi and COL Chairawan have been relieved of all their duties and responsibilities.  They were all in command of units that participated in JCET activities."

Muchdi later went on, under Hendropriono, to be implicated in the assassination of Munir.

The Pentagon does not state what a US protege would have to do to be seen by the US as committing a "human rights violation," but it does seem to suggest that whatever a US client like Prabowo might do, evidence against him will never be seen as quite sufficient:

"Credible evidence of gross violations of human rights was only disclosed following the May 1998 events in Indonesia.  In this area the DATT [the DIA, that was handling Prabowo and Chairawan] notes that, without exception, prior to the events, every accusation regarding possible human rights violations made to the DAO [again, the DIA] were [sic] followed up.  In every case information was incomplete.  Prior to May 1998, name, unit designations, timing and/or location of alleged violations were not available from source(s) making verification impossible.  At no time during the course of JCET activities were we aware of training any unit or personnel who had committed violations of human rights.  We did in fact, through the excellent performance of our SOF [Special Operations Forces] provide examples of how a professional Armed Force conducts military operations in a lawful manner."

By this, the Pentagon would seem to mean it is excellent and lawful to arm, train and do intelligence work with the killers so long as the US personnel do not pull the triggers on the victims themselves.

At one point the Pentagon writes: "JCET provides an excellent example of how professional soldiers conduct themselves.  Indonesians have attempted to emulate this ..."  Elsewhere: "U.S. JCET participants provide an example of a highly trained professional force that has a high regard for the rule of law; this encourages our hosts to emulate their performance."

This implication of US moral superiority pops up again and again.   It is perhaps one reason why the visa-denied Prabowo seemed so hurt.

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Finally, the documents note that the US ran, under cover of JCET,  two covert activities inside Indonesia, one in US Fiscal Year 1995, the other in US Fiscal Year 1996.

In FY '95 "there was one classified deployment by US SOF to Indonesia.  In this activity, the three US SOF personnel did not train, or train with, the Indonesian military.  This deployment was not completed under the authority of Title 10, Section 2011.  Classified details of this compartmented activity will be provided, upon request, through the appropriate channels."

In FY '96: "there was one classified deployment by US SOF to Indonesia.  In this activity, eight US personnel did train, and train with, Indonesian military forces.  This deployment was not conducted under the authority of Title 10, Section 2011.  Classified details of this compartmented activity will be provided upon request, through the appropriate channels."

Though they won't get an answer, the Indonesian public might want to make such a request.

Both ops were made possible by the work of the nationalist general, Prabowo.

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End of Part 2

Link to Bahasa Indonesia translation of Part 2

Coming Up in Part 3: General Prabowo, the NSA, militia terror,  and more.

Link to view "Breaking News: Indonesian Special Forces, Intelligence, in Covert Operation to Influence Election"



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