US plan to train Indonesia's

special forces
Washington
President Obama wants to signal a continued strengthening in USIndonesia ties when he travels to the worlds largest Muslim country later
this month.
But an administration proposal to further deepen post-9/11 military ties by
resuming US training of Indonesias special forces is running afoul of
human rights advocates.
Mr. Obama is keen to showcase Indonesia as a stable, democratic
partner, a regional counterweight to China that is working shoulder-toshoulder with the US to fight Islamic extremism. Extremists have struck
Indonesia with bombings since the 9/11 attacks. (Monitor analysis: Jakarta
attack may show evolution of Islamist terror group.)
Weighing security interests and human rights
But human rights activists say the US interest in rights and a foreign
partners accountability to its own people should not be sacrificed for
security interests.
The US military has been barred by law since 1997 from training
Indonesias Komando Pasukan Khusus, better known as Kopassus.
The elite unit served as the strong arm of the Suharto regime that fell in
1998, but has been investigated since then for beatings, disappearances,
and, assassinations. Officers linked to past abuses have not only
remained in the unit but have been promoted, human rights investigations
have found.
The Obama plan for skirting the congressional prohibition on ties to
military units whose abusive members have not been brought to justice is
to limit US training to younger Kopassus soldiers who entered the unit
after the most high-profile abuse cases.

While some Asia experts hail the proposal as a positive reflection of

Obamas commitment to closer ties with Indonesia, human-rights experts
say the move sends the wrong signal.
I dont know how young these soldiers [who would be eligible for training]
are supposed to be, because the last documented cases of abuse are
from last year, says John Miller, national coordinator of the East Timor
and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) in New York.
Investigating past abuses
Mr. Miller says the intent of the so-called Leahy law of 1997 (authored by
Sen. Patrick Leahy) was not primarily to prevent future abuses or the
training of rights abusers, but to encourage the investigation and
resolution of past abuses something he says has not been
systematically done.
Now if we simply circumvent this law, it will be like saying, You havent
held past abusers accountable, so were going to go ahead and reward
you, he says.
But others say that the US has benefited from closer ties to Indonesia,
including its military, in recent years, and that the Obama administration is
right to seek a way to work with Kopassus. (Indonesia: How will it adapt
counterterrorism strategy? Monitor report here.)
It is in Americas interest to enable as full a range of options as necessary
for Indonesia to be able to respond effectively to terrorism at home, writes
Walter Lohman, director of the Heritage Foundations Asian Studies
Center, in a recent commentary about Obamas upcoming trip. Ties with
Kopassus can be reestablished in a way to provide tailor-made training
opportunities for Indonesians with fully vetted human rights records, he
adds.
Several Kopassus officers have been in Washington recently to try to work
out a training deal that Obama could announce during his visit, which
begins March 20.
ETANs Miller says he expects the administration is pressing for
commitments from Indonesia on human rights measures that Obama
could announce along with any resumed training. But he says hes not
optimistic about how binding any commitments might be.

They have resisted that kind of overt commitment in the past, he says, I
dont see whats changed to make them more open to such restraints
now.

This article was selected due to related into the international category as
this news was related between the two heads of state, because it is from
this article can be classified as a phenomenon of this article International
Relations.
Sometimes regarded as a phenomenon that occurs naturally situation
occurs because there is a chance and have a good outcome. This is
contrary to the opinion of Henry Kissinger who said that the Balance of
Power was created. With another sense, means the Balance of Power
because the state strategy.
There are two main patterns in the Balance of Power, the Opposition
Jump Pattern and Pattern Competition. Direct Opposition pattern shows
two actors / more "face to face", while the pattern of competition indicates
that the two actors will compete against each other influential actors affect
the more interior.