[R-G] US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian Phones

[Anthony Fenton]

December 12, 2007
Detachment 88, Kopassus Get Covert US Aid
US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian Phones
http://counterpunch.org/nairn12122007.html
By ALLAN NAIRN http://www.newsc.blogspot.com/

US intelligence officers in Jakarta are secretly tapping the cell  
phones and reading the SMS text messages of Indonesian civilians.

Some of the Americans work out of the Jakarta headquarters of  
Detachment 88, a US-trained and funded para-military unit whose  
mission is described as antiterrorism, but that was recently involved  
in the arrest of a West Papuan human rights lawyer.

The Papuan lawyer, Iwangin Sabar Olif, was seized by police and  
Detachment 88 on the street and later charged with "incitement and  
insulting the head of state" after he forwarded SMS text messages  
that criticized the Indonesian armed forces (TNI), as well as the  
President of Indonesia, Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. (West Papua is  
a restricted-access region where Indonesian forces have been  
implicated in rapes, tortures, kidnappings, assassinations, mass  
surveillance and intimidation.)

The information on the US surveillance program is provided by three  
sources, including an individual who has worked frequently with the  
Indonesian security forces and who says he has met and formally  
discussed their work with some of the American phone tappers, as well  
as by two Indonesian officials who work inside Detachment 88.

The first source says that the he was told that the Americans are  
employees of the US CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), but it could  
not be confirmed whether they work for the CIA or other US agencies.  
He says that through his work he has observed that these US  
intelligence specialists help run a sophisticated wiretapping network  
that uses much new US equipment.

He says the US operation includes the real-time monitoring of text  
messages, as well as mapping contact "networks," ie. tracing who is  
calling or texting whom.

This individual deals frequently with Detachment 88, but says that he  
has not inquired about the seizure of the Papuan human rights lawyer,  
Iwangin .

He said that Detachment 88 units are also present in other outlying  
zones including Solo, Ambon, and Poso, the later two of which have  
been the scene of TNI - POLRI (the Indonesian National Police, who  
formally oversee Detachment 88) "provokasi" operations that have  
helped to spur deadly fighting between poor Muslim and Christian  
villagers.

This source also says that US intelligence is providing covert  
intelligence aid to Kopassus, the Indonesian army's red beret special  
forces famed for abduction, torture, and assassination.

Classified Kopassus manuals discuss the "tactic and technique" of  
"terror" and "kidnapping" (see "Buku Petunjuk tentang Sandi Yudha TNI  
AD, Nomor: 43-B-01").

Kopassus has, in the past, been heavily trained by US Green Berets  
and other forces, in topics that included "Demolitions," "Air  
Assault," "Close Quarters Combat," "Special Reconnaissance," and  
"Advanced Sniper Techniques" (all of these during the Clinton  
administration, under a program called JCET -- Joint Combined  
Exchange Training).

But after this training was exposed and after the TNI - POLRI Timor  
massacres of 1999 (which followed a UN - supervised independence  
vote, and in which Kopassus was implicated), many in Congress were  
under the impression that they had succeeded in stopping US aid to  
Kopassus.

(Congress is due to decide within days on a new lethal aid bill for  
Indonesia).

The American presence inside Detachment 88 was confirmed by an  
Indonesian Detachment 88 official who said that a team of Americans  
did telecommunications work in the "Intel Section," along with an  
individual whom they believed to be a British national.

A second Detachment 88 official also confirmed the US presence, but  
said he did not know the name of the American team leader. Like the  
first Detachment 88 official, he gave the name of the operative whom  
he said was British, but that named individual could not be reached  
for comment.

Asked for comment on December 12, during the late afternoon, local  
time, Stafford A. Ward, a spokesman for the US Embassy in Jakarta at  
first said he was not familiar with such a US program and did not  
know what Kopassus was.

An hour later Ward read out a statement that said that "there are no  
Americans in either Detachment 88 or Kopassus." When asked if there  
was any kind of US assistance to those units he said: "The US is not  
involved with either of those organizations. I can confirm to you  
that the US has no involvement with either Detachment 88 or Kopassus."

In fact, though, that US Embassy statement appeared to contradict the  
public record. US officials have frequently spoken on the record  
about their involvement with Detachment 88, including to the press  
and in meetings with and testimony to the US Congress.

Twenty minutes after issuing that denial, Embassy spokesman Ward sent  
the following email: "I misspoke earlier when you called me a second  
time today. The U.S. government works with Indonesia to bolster its  
counterterrorism capabilities. For example, the Department of State  
Bureau of Diplomatic Security's Office of Antiterrorism Assistance  
has trained Indonesian Antiterrorist Units."

This revised Embassy statement did not repeat the denials of the  
earlier statement, nor did it deny the presence of US personnel  
inside Detachment 88, nor did it deny the existence of covert US  
intelligence aid to Kopassus.

US officials have never acknowledged on the record the presence of US  
intelligence wiretappers inside Jakarta's security forces, nor have  
they acknowledged on the record the provision of intelligence  
assistance to Kopassus.

The initial Embassy denial, phrased in the present tense, came less  
than 24 hours after the US Congress, in Washington, made private  
inquiries to the US Executive Branch about whether the US was aiding  
or planning to aid Kopassus.

These Congressional inquiries came after this blog reported on  
December 7 that "the State Department this week was putting out  
urgent queries around Washington that make it sound as if they are  
planning to openly aid Kopassus," and after people in a position to  
know privately declined to deny that report.

It is not known whether the Congressional inquiries included the  
question of Detachment 88.

But in a call to the Detachment 88 office hours before today's  
initial carefully-phrased Embassy denial, the Indonesian officer who  
answered the phone said that the Americans had not come in to work  
today and that, as far as he knew, the British staffer there was on  
vacation.

Detachment 88 has been mentored by veteran CIA and State Department  
official Cofer Black, who was one of the architects of the US  
invasion of Afghanistan.

Detachment 88 is publicized as being aimed at violent jihadists, like  
the groups implicated in the bombings in Bali and Jakarta that killed  
more than 200 civilians.

But the US wiretapping program provides a capacity to target any kind  
of phone user in Indonesia, an issue of concern in a country where  
the security forces -- often US-assisted -- have killed many hundreds  
of thousands of civilian dissidents.

Allan Nairn can be reached through his blog.