Indonesia’s Arms Appetite
Jakarta wants weapons. Lots of them.
Right after Valentine’s Day, Indonesian Air Force officials met with their U.S. counterparts to discuss “bilateral defense cooperation.” On their wish list were Lockheed Martin’s F-16 fighters and C-130 Hercules tactical transport planes. There will be more defense talks in April between the two countries as they step up military cooperation.
The United States and Indonesia “normalized” military relations in 2005, ending a 10-year period during which Jakarta was essentially barred from receiving most forms of U.S. weapons sales and military aid and training because of its military’s human rights abuses and corruption. Jakarta is happy to be back in Washington’s good graces. U.S. Defense Secretary dropped by for a visit on Monday, February 25th and praised Indonesia as a “huge Islamic country, democratic, secular,” before continuing to say: “I think strengthening our relationship with Indonesia is very important, not just in a regional context, but I think in terms of the role that Indonesia may be able to play more broadly.” But its military is carefully courting other weapons suppliers so it is not again dependent on a single source.
Looking to Moscow
When Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Jakarta in September 2007, weapons were at the top of the agenda. Moscow extended $1 billion in loans for weapons and in December, Indonesia picked up medium and short-range missiles, aerial bombs, and other systems. In 2003, Indonesia bought Russian fighter planes and other hardware as part of a $192 million package of weapons, and Moscow let their new friend pay most of its tab with palm oil. Jakarta’s military is now hoping for more - including 20 fighter planes, six submarines, air defense systems, helicopters, boats, and other systems that could add up to about $3 billion.
Washington is watching this new friendship with a wary eye. Throughout the Cold War, the United States counted on Indonesia as a staunch anti-communist and friend. General Suharto ruled the archipelago with an iron fist and an avaricious eye for more than 30 years.
Jakarta’s rearmament push comes as Indonesia wrestles with Suharto’s bloody legacy following his death in January at the age of 86. The former leader was given the burial of a statesman, and his legacy was burnished to a high gloss. “Though there may be some controversy over his legacy,” eulogized U.S. Ambassador Cameron Hume, “President Suharto was a historic figure who left a lasting impression on Indonesia and the region of Southeast Asia.” The “controversy” includes Transparency International’s 2004 assertion that Suharto was the “world’s greatest kleptocrat ever” with a fortune of $35 billion or more stolen from the Indonesian people. Other controversial issues include mass killings. His extermination of between 400,000 and one million suspected communists as he moved to seize power in 1965 and 1966 stands out in its brutality. There was also the 1975 invasion of East Timor, the Santa Cruz Massacre in 1991, and much more. Suharto was labeled “one of the worst mass murderers of the 20th century,” by the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network.
Throughout the Suharto regime and since, Jakarta enjoyed the full support of the United States. Most of Indonesia’s weapons came from the United States, their officers graduated from U.S. academies, and the two militaries conducted joint exercises. Jakarta was almost completely dependent on Washington for its military strength. Additionally, Jakarta’s generals developed a strong preference for U.S. weapons. Thus, the congressionally mandated checks on weapons sales and military aid effectively hamstrung the Indonesian military and sent it a strong message that it must reform. But pressure from military officials from both countries and the political exigencies of the war on terrorism successfully weakened and eventually undermined Washington’s willingness to use its influence to demand that the Indonesian military respect human rights and eliminate corruption.
Strengthened Ties
Normalization of military ties between the United States and Indonesia in late 2005 was accompanied by State Department assurances that “the United States remains committed to pressing for accountability for past human rights abuses and U.S. assistance will continue to be guided by Indonesia’s progress on democratic reform and accountability.”
The guides seem to have lost their map. This year, over the objections of the State Department, Congress withheld $2.7 million - a fraction of U.S. foreign military financing - until the State Department could demonstrate that Indonesia was taking steps to hold members of the military accountable for human rights violations and implement “reforms to increase the transparency and accountability of their operations and financial management.” John M. Miller, national coordinator of ETAN, reacted to this attempt to influence Jakarta by saying “withholding this small portion of military aid is an inadequate stick, but it serves to keep up appearances. The Indonesian government looks like it is trying, but the Indonesian military correctly interprets it as a token gesture. The military gets what it wants without concretely change how they do business or losing its impunity.”
Meanwhile, Washington nearly tripled Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for Indonesia. In 2006, FMF totaled $990,000 but jumped to $6.5 million in 2007. The request for 2008 is $15.7 million. ETAN reacted in a statement at the time: “we see no dramatic change in the Indonesian military’s conduct over the past year to warrant such a generous increase.”
But this is just the beginning of what the United States is providing to Indonesia. Under a little noticed Pentagon program known as “train and equip authority” or “Section 1206,” Washington gave another Indonesia another $18.4 million in 2006 to procure coastal radar stations, and improved air and sea surveillance capabilities. In 2007, “1206″ funding totaled $28.7 million and was used to beef up radar and communications equipment for the Indonesian navy and coast guard. For 2008, details have not been released, but funding is expected to be comparable.
The Global Train and Equip program is designed to help armed forces address regional terrorism problems, while bypassing the normal State Department channels for aid. In 2006, the Pentagon doled out a total of $200 million to foreign militaries through this program. Now the Defense Department is seeking to increase “1206″ authority to $750 million and make the program permanent.
Military aid is not the only thing pouring in. In 2005, the State Department authorized Jakarta for $51 million in licenses for weaponry, defense articles, and services. The next year, the State Department issued licenses for more than $100 million in military hardware including spare parts for fighters, cargo planes and helicopters, explosives and torpedo launchers were issued. Not all licenses are exercised, but the list gives a sense of Indonesia’s voracious appetite for weapons.
Why So Many Weapons?
Washington hopes that by bulking up Indonesia’s military capacities it can help the nation counter terrorism and emerge as a regional leader able to thwart North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and deter China’s aggressive military build-up. That’s what Secretary Gates means when he talks about the “role that Indonesia may be able to play more broadly” and that’s why Washington is so threatened by the way Russian President Putin has reached out to Jakarta.
So, Washington dangles F-16s to make its sweeping vision of Indonesia’s strategic importance a reality. But, in the past, U.S.-origin weapons, military know-how and aid, were not used to achieve lofty political aims. They were turned on Indonesian citizens active in the multiple movements for self-determination and autonomy in far-flung regions like Aceh, Papua, and Timor. They were used to put down political demonstrations and quell unrest after economic collapse destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands.
The checks on U.S. military aid are gone, and now the floodgates have opened. Political and military officials need to watch what Jakarta does next very carefully. Human rights, broad political participation, secular democracy, and regional leadership do not spring fully formed from the belly of an F-16 or the barrel of a gun.
FPIF columnist Frida Berrigan is a senior program associate at the Arms and Security Project of the New America Foundation.
Copyright © 2008, Institute for Policy Studies
“Why So Many Weapons?”
Because they can’t practice birth control and have to kill people to lower the regional population that is straining their resources and country boundaries. Weapons also allow their oligarchs to steal from others like ours do and prevent ours from stealing from theirs.
I am beginning to wonder about Bush.
1st - our misguided Middle East policies have increased Iran’s influence in the area worrying our long-time Sunni allies, especially Saudis.
2nd - Gates pushing arms to India - the 2nd largest Muslim country in the world (India is # 2 in numbers of Muslims)
3rd - Gates pushing arms to Indonesia - the most populous Muslim country in the world.
If Bush is really doing a crusade as he claims - he sure goes about in a strange manner.
Yes, what does Indonesia want all those weapons for? Who is their potential enemy? Or is all this to put down the militant Islamists on Aceh?
The U.S. is a war economy. When it’s not making war itself, it’s promoting it by proxy through making sure other nations have the “necessary” accoutrements to sponsor wars of their own. When war is your product, then weapons are what you’ll be selling. Whatever the blood profits, the law of karma will extract its price.
Siouxrose maybe it’s … when weapons are your product, then weapons will be what you are selling. Or maybe I just don’t want to admit to myself that your phrasing might be more honest.
The lack of trust and dislike for America that Bush has engendered for us around the world is sort of working like an economic karma. To keep our influence with ‘friends’, we must buy them. One begins to wonder whether we have any real ‘influence’ left anymore other than weapons and cash (which the world sees that we must borrow). Our ‘economic karma’ makes us susceptible to the ‘influence’ of those we borrow from. What can Bush say to China when at the same time he must beg to borrow from them thus tying our hands (neutralizing our influence)?
As Frida points out, Putin is also in the mix. While we have little choice but to borrow to provide the largesse we bestow, Putin didn’t need to. If we try to actually influence friends, say with criticism of their human rights records by threatening to withold our remaining influence (read military largesse), they look elsewhere.
Like an arrogant rich man who always bought his friends, if the money stops, that man gets lonely fast. Putin laughs as we borrow to keep up appearences (influence through largesse) because either we do, which then increasingly ties our hands elsewhere or we don’t, which loses … our friends, since they have other options which he among others, are happy to provide.
I went to the site listed at the bottom of the article… facts and figures and analysis …yummy! Thanks Frida for the work involved but I wish there were an overall scorecard or tally country by country which puts the accumulated totals for each as to who is getting what and when they did over the years as a quick reference. It’d be a shock to see for most Americans… the costs of our … being rich with friends.
BUGS B BUNNY: I don’t think the wording is that different, either way, it’s the same thing. And the economic karma is only the tip ofo the ice berg as per the full karmic boomerang for the loss of lives that cannot be measured by or through any economic scale/agency.
That Bush stooge, Robert Gates had the gall to visit our country (Australia) the other week and rant on and on about the Australian/US alliance and our need for new (US arms merchant-supplied) weapons, to keep up with the threat of “Terror”. Next stop, Indonesia, to encourage them to spend their petrodollars with US arms merchants. The last things either we Australians or the Indonesians need are more American guns and bombs or expensive fighter jets to protect us from non-existent, fantasy threats such as North Korea, Iran or China. The real threat to the Indonesian people is the vast wastage of their oil revenue spent on weapons, more often than not used against other people in the region who understandably desire independence from a corrupt government and a military that extracts graft from all local businesses so that the military leaders can make even more personal money.
Understandably, the Indonesian people are angered by this very real terror from the military and the US support for it.
The only real terror that we in Australia face, is the prospect of invasion by the only real organisation capable of such a feat–the US military.