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<font size=3><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/<br><br>
</a></font><font size=2 color="#990000">November 10, 2010<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>As Obama Lands
in Indonesia<br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
US-Backed Death Squad Files Surface
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By ALLAN NAIRN
<br><br>
</font><font size=3><i>Jakarta<br><br>
</i>Secret documents have leaked from inside Kopassus, Indonesia's red
berets, which say that Indonesia's US-backed security forces engage in
"murder [and] abduction" and show that Kopassus targets
churches in West Papua and defines civilian dissidents as the
"enemy."<br><br>
The documents include a Kopassus enemies list headed by Papua's top
Baptist minister and describe a covert network of surveillance,
infiltration and disruption of Papuan institutions<br><br>
The disclosure comes as US President Barack Obama is touching down in
Indonesia. His administration recently announced the restoration of
US aid to Kopassus.<br><br>
Kopassus is the most notorious unit of Indonesia's armed forces,
TNI, which along with POLRI, the national police, have killed
civilians by the hundreds of thousands.<br><br>
The leaked cache of secret Kopassus documents includes operational,
intelligence and field reports as well as personnel records which list
the names and details of Kopassus "agents."<br><br>
The documents are classified "SECRET" ("RAHASIA") and
include extensive background reports on Kopassus civilian
targets -- reports that are apparently of uneven accuracy.
<br><br>
The authenticity of the documents has been verified by Kopassus personnel
who have seen them and by external evidence regarding the authors and the
internal characteristics of the documents.<br><br>
Some of the Kopassus documents will be released in the days to come, in
part via my <a href="http://www.allannairn.com">website.</a><br><br>
Those being released with this article concern West Papua, where tens of
thousands of civilians have been murdered and where Kopassus is most
active. Jakarta has attempted to largely seal off Papua to visits
by non-approved outsiders.<br><br>
When the US restored Kopassus aid last July the rationale was fighting
terrorism, but the documents show that Kopassus in fact systematically
targets civilians.<br><br>
A detailed 25-page secret report by a Kopassus task force in Kotaraja,
Papua defines Kopassus' number-one "enemy" as unarmed
civilians. It calls them the "separatist political
movement" "GSP/P, " lists what they say are the top 15
leaders and discusses the "enemy order of battle."<br><br>
All of those listed are civilians, starting with the head of the Baptist
Synod of Papua. The others include evangelical ministers, activists,
traditional leaders, legislators, students and intellectuals as well as
local establishment figures and the head of the Papua Muslim Youth
organization. <br><br>
The secret Kopassus study says that in their 400,000 - person area of
operations the civilians they target as being political are
"much more dangerous than" any armed opposition since the armed
groups "hardly do anything" but the civilians -- with popular
support -- have "reached the outside world" with their
"obsession" with "merdeka" (independence/ freedom)
and persist in "propagating the issue of severe human rights
violations in Papua," ie. "murders and abductions that are done
by the security forces." <br><br>
The Kopassus document cited above is embedded below, followed by
supplementary field reports. [The documents can be viewed
<a href="http://www.allannairn.com/2010/11/breaking-news-secret-files-show.html">
here</a>.
<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/41522587/Satgas-Ban-5-Kopassus-Triw">
Satgas Ban - 5 Kopassus
Triw</a><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/41521310/lapharian">
lapharian</a>
.]
<br><br>
Given that the Kopassus report states as settled fact that security
forces do "murder, abduction," those who they define as being
the enemy can be presumed to be in some danger. <br><br>
In its discussion of "State of the enemy" Kopassus identifies
the enemy with two kinds of actions: "the holding of press
conferences" where they "always criticize the government and
the work being done by the security forces" and the holding of
private meetings where they engage in the same kind of prohibited speech.
<br><br>
The Kopassus "enemies" list -- the "leaders" of the
"separatist political movement" includes fifteen civic
leaders. In the order listed by Kopassus they are:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>-- Reverend Socrates Sofyan Yoman, chair of the Papua Baptist
Synod<br><br>
<dd>-- Markus Haluk head of the Association of Indonesian Middle
Mountains Students (AMPTI) and an outspoken critic of the security forces
and the US mining giant Freeport McMoRan;<br><br>
<dd>-- Buchtar Tabuni, an activist who, after appearing on the Kopassus
list, was sentenced to three years prison for speech and for waving
Papuan flags and was beaten bloody by three soldiers, a guard, and a
policeman because he had a cell phone;<br><br>
<dd>-- Aloysius Renwarin, a lawyer who heads a local human rights
foundation;<br><br>
<dd>-- Dr. Willy Mandowen, Mediator of PDP, the Papua Presidium Council,
a broad group including local business people, former politcal prisoners,
women's and youth organizations, and Papuan traditional
leaders. His most prominent predecessor, Theys Eluay, had his
throat slit by Kopassus in 2001;<br><br>
<dd>-- Yance Kayame, a committee chair in the Papuan provincial
legislature;<br><br>
<dd>-- Lodewyk Betawi;<br><br>
<dd>-- Drs. Don Agustinus Lamaech Flassy of the Papua Presidium Council
staff<br><br>
<dd>-- Drs. Agustinus Alue Alua, head of the MRP, the Papuan People's
Council, which formally represents Papuan traditional leaders and was
convened and recognized by the Jakarta government;<br><br>
<dd>-- Thaha Al Hamid, Secretary General of the Papua Presidium
Council;<br><br>
<dd>-- Sayid Fadal Al Hamid, head of the Papua Muslim Youth;<br><br>
<dd>-- Drs. Frans Kapisa, head of Papua National Student
Solidarity;<br><br>
<dd>-- Leonard Jery Imbiri, public secretary of DAP, the Papuan Customary
Council, which organizes an annual plenary of indigenous groups, has
staged Papua's largest peaceful demonstrations, and has seen its offices
targeted for clandestine arson attacks;<br><br>
<dd>-- Reverend Dr. Beny Giay, minister of the Protestant evangelical
KINGMI Tent of scripture church of Papua;<br><br>
<dd>-- Selfius Bobby, student at the Fajar Timur School of Philosophy and
Theology.<br><br>
</dl>Reached for comment, Reverend Socrates Sofyan Yoman of the Baptist
Synod laughed when told he headed the Kopassus list. He said that
churches were targeted by TNI/ Kopassus because "We can't condone
torture, kidnapping or killing." He said that he has received
anonymous death threats "all the time, everywhere," but that as
a church leader he must endure it . He said the real problem was
for Papua's poor who "live daily in pressure and
fear."<br><br>
Markus Haluk said that he is constantly followed on foot and by
motorcycle, has been the subject of apparent attempts to kill him, and
receives so many sms text death threats that he has difficulty keeping
current with the death-threat archive he tries to maintain for historical
and safety purposes.<br><br>
One threat, written months after his name appeared as a target in the
Kopassus documents, promised to decapitate him and bury his head 200
meters deep, while another imagined his head as a succulent fruit to be
devoured and swallowed by security forces.<br><br>
But as a famous figure in Papua, Haluk enjoys, he thinks, a certain kind
of protection since when security forces have actually arrested him it
has at times touched off street uprisings.<br><br>
Village Papuans, he said, enjoy no such advantage. For them, being
targeted by Kopassus "can get you killed. If there's a report
against you, you can die."<br><br>
Contacted in prison, Buctar Tabuni, the number three enemy on the
Kopassus list, told of getting a death threat with a rat cadaver,
described living with round-the-clock surveillance, and said the threats
to him repeatedly stated that "you will be killed unless you stop
your human rights activities."<br><br>
Three days ago, writing from his prison cell, Buctar Tabuni called on
President Obama to cut off aid to TNI and back a democratic vote on
Papuan independence. He told me that Indonesia follows the US lead and
that the US was complicit since, as he wrote Obama, US-trained
"troops in cities and villages all over West Papua treat the people
like terrorists that must be exterminated."<br><br>
Anti-terrorism was indeed Obama's main argument for restoring US aid to
Kopassus, but the documents make clear that Kopassus mainly targets
unarmed civilians, not killers.<br><br>
In fact, the main unit that wrote the secret documents, SATGAS BAN - 5
KOPASSUS, is ostensibly doing anti-terrorism, with the Kopassus Unit 81,
Gultor.<br><br>
Obama justified the Kopassus aid restoration to Congress by saying that
the initial US training would be given not to Kopassus as a whole but
only to its anti-terror forces. The White House and Pentagon suggested
that these forces were less criminal than the rest of Kopassus and of
TNI/POLRI, but the documents establish that they, like the rest, go after
civilians like the Papuan reverends and activists.<br><br>
Reverend Giay said, when reached for comment that TNI, Kopassus and POLRI
were making the case that "it's OK to kill pastors and burn churches
since the churches are separatist."<br><br>
Among Giay's collection of anonymous sms death threats was a political
missive demanding that "the reverend stop using the platform of the
church to spread the ideology of free Papua."<br><br>
Giay said that "they need ideological and moral support from the
Indonesian majority and the media" so they use Kopassus and others
to attack the churches as constituting security threats.<br><br>
He compared TNI/Kopassus actions in Papua now to those earlier in East
Timor and the Malukus where "they created this conflict between
Muslims and Christians" to expand their presence and get more money
and power.<br><br>
Reverend Giay said that "local pastors have been targeted. They kill
them off and report them as separatists."<br><br>
The Kopassus documents boast that "in carrying out the operational
mission of intelligence in the kotaraja area, we apportion work in order
to cover all places and avenues of kotaraja society.”<br><br>
The files show that Kopassus indeed penetrates most every part of <br>
popular life. In addition to plainclothes Kopassus officers who go
undercover in multiple roles, Kopassus fields a small army of non-TNI
"agents" -- real people with real lives and identities, who are
bought, coerced or recruited into working covertly.<br><br>
Kopassus Kotaraja area agents discussed in the secret personnel files
include reporters for a local newspaper and for a national TV news
channel, students, hotel staff, a court employee, a senior civil servant
who works on art and culture, a 14 year old child, a broke,
"emotional, drunken" farmer who needs money and
"believes" that Kopassus will "take care of his
safety," a "hardworking" "emotionally stable"
farmer who also is a need of funds, a worker who "likes to drink
hard liquor," is poor and "likes to believe things," a
motorcycle taxi driver, a cellphone kiosk clerk who watches people who
buy SIM card numbers, and a driver for a car rental company who
"frequently informs on whether there are elements from the
Separatist Political Movement who hire rental cars and speak regarding
independence/freedom (merdeka).”<br><br>
In the file, though, the word "merdeka" is not spelled out. In
accord with Kopassus practice, only an initial is written, in quotation
marks: "'M'", the unwritable, unspeakable M-word.<br><br>
The documents support the longtime word on the street: you rarely know
who is Kopassus. So best watch what you say if you care for safety,
especially if what you say is "freedom."<br><br>
Allan Nairn</b> is a journalist living in Indonesia. <br><br>
<br><br>
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