[R-G] Democracy Now: US Intelligence Tapping Phones of Indonesian Civilians

[Tim Murphy]

Indonesia 
Detachment 88
Kopassus
US intelligence

Funding, training and technical assistance from the US for killing people,
tapping phones, mobile phones and text messages (SMS), (and Email as well I
should think). They teach them how to terrorise the population. They have
manuals for teaching this.

=====

December 13, 2007
Democracy Now
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/13/us_intelligence_tapping_phones_of_ind
onesian
 
US Intelligence Tapping Phones of Indonesian Civilians

Investigative journalist Allan Nairn reveals that U.S. intelligence officers
in Jakarta are secretly tapping the cell phones and reading the SMS text
messages of Indonesian civilians. Some of the Americans involved in the spy
operation work out of the Jakarta headquarters of Detachment 88, a
US-trained and-funded paramilitary unit which is part of Kopassus, the
Indonesian army's special forces famed for abduction, torture and
assassination. The news comes as Congress weighs whether to send more
military aid to Indonesia. [includes rush transcript]

Allan Nairn, award-winning investigative journalist and activist who has
reported on Indonesia for years.

Rush Transcript
-------------------------------

JUAN GONZALEZ: Investigative journalist Allan Nairn has revealed that US
intelligence officers in Jakarta are secretly tapping the cell phones and
reading the SMS text messages of Indonesian civilians. 


Some of the Americans involved in the spy operation work out of the Jakarta
headquarters of Detachment 88, a US-trained and-funded paramilitary unit
whose mission is described as antiterrorism. 


AMY GOODMAN: Detachment 88 was recently involved in the arrest of a West
Papuan human rights lawyer who had sent a text message critical of the
Indonesian military and the president, Yudhoyono. The lawyer, Iwangin Sabar
Olif, was charged with "incitement and insulting the head of state." 


Sources have also told Nairn that US intelligence is providing covert
intelligence aid to Kopassus, the Indonesian army's Red Beret special forces
famed for abduction, torture and assassination. These disclosures come as
the US Congress is deciding whether to send more military aid to Indonesia. 


Allan Nairn is an award-winning investigative journalist who has reported
from Indonesia for years. I reached him on the phone in Indonesia yesterday
and asked him to lay out his findings. 


ALLAN NAIRN: US intelligence officials in Jakarta are secretly tapping the
cell phones and reading the SMS text messages of Indonesian civilians, and
they're doing this from inside Indonesian paramilitary units that have been
involved in arrests and attacks on civilians. And it also is the case that
the US has been covertly aiding Kopassus, the most notorious unit of the
Indonesian army, a unit that has been implicated in torture, disappearances,
assassinations, and that the US Congress believed it had stopped aid to. 


AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Detachment 88? 


ALLAN NAIRN: Detachment 88 is supposedly an antiterrorist unit. It is
advertised as going after jihadist groups, like the ones that did the
bombings in Bali and Jakarta in Indonesia that killed more than 200
civilians. 


But recently, Detachment 88 was involved in the seizure on the street of a
human rights lawyer in West Papua, a lawyer by the name of Iwangin, and he
was seized because he had received an SMS text message on his cell phone
that criticized abuses that the Indonesian army was committing in Papua and
criticized the president of Indonesia, General Susilo. And so, he forwarded
these SMS text messages, and somehow Detachment 88 got wind of this. They
snatched him off the street, and he was charged with incitement and
insulting the head of state. And now we learn that US intelligence has
personnel in Jakarta working inside the offices of Detachment 88, and one of
the tasks is precisely to intercept SMS text messages. 


AMY GOODMAN: How do you know that Americans are involved? 


ALLAN NAIRN: Three sources have told me this, one of them a person who works
regularly with the Indonesian security forces and who has spoken directly
formally with the US intelligence people involved in the phone tapping. And
the presence of the Americans was confirmed by two Indonesian officials who
work inside Detachment 88. 


And further, when I asked the US embassy in Jakarta today for comment, they
at first issued a blanket denial, but then, twenty minutes later, revoked
that denial and issued a statement which did not deny the presence of US
phone tappers inside these units and did not deny US covert intelligence
assistance for Kopassus. 


AMY GOODMAN: In the piece you wrote, you talk about classified Kopassus
manuals that talk about the technique of terror. Can you explain? 


ALLAN NAIRN: Yes, in their own internal training manuals, they talk about
training their people in what they describe as the "tactic and technique" of
"terror" and "kidnapping." We have these manuals, because they were
abandoned in East Timor in 1999 after Kopassus helped to massacre the
population there after they voted for independence, and then fled the
country, and they left behind some of these manuals. And they reveal
that-what had long been suspected, that it is formal policy of Kopassus to
commit terrorism and to kidnap civilians. 


It should be noted-and this is a very important point-that although
Detachment 88 is defined as an antiterrorism unit, it only claims to be
antiterrorist in the sense that President Bush defines "antiterrorism," and
that is Islamic jihadists who attack Westerners or the allies of Westerners.
In fact, if you use an objective definition of "terrorism," actually similar
to that in the USA PATRIOT Act, which is attacking civilians, killing
civilians for political purposes, if you use that kind of definition, then
the main terrorist threat in Indonesia is not these jihadist groups, which
have killed several hundred civilians, but other [inaudible] and the
Indonesian military and police themselves, who have been involved in the
killing of hundreds of thousands of Indonesian civilians. They are the main
terrorist threat, by any definition. So the US is giving antiterrorist aid
to terrorists. 


AMY GOODMAN: Explain again the relationship between Detachment 88 and
Kopassus. 


ALLAN NAIRN: Well, Detachment 88 and Kopassus are two different units, but
they are both receiving covert US intelligence aid. Kopassus is part of the
army. They've been around for many years, and they have been involved in
torture and massacres in East Timor, in Aceh, in West Papua, in other
regions. 


Detachment 88 is newly created, just within the past five years. It is
nominally under the Indonesian police, but Detachment 88 was essentially
created out of whole cloth by US intelligence. It was a project of a
longtime CIA and State Department official by the name of Cofer Black, one
of the architects of the US invasion of Afghanistan. Detachment 88 was
provided with advanced US sniper rifles and pistols and machine guns. Former
US Green Berets were brought in to train them. 


And now, in this piece today, I disclose that there are actually US
personnel working inside the Detachment 88 headquarters in Jakarta. And what
they are doing is tapping the cell phones of Indonesian civilians. They're
listening in on their calls. They're reading their text messages. And it's
precisely such an SMS text message that led to the recent arrest by
Detachment 88 of a Papuan human rights lawyer, a man by the name of Iwangin.
And his offense was merely that he forwarded an SMS that criticized the
Indonesian army and criticized the president of Indonesia. And for this, he
was seized by this US-created antiterrorist unit. 


AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned the Detachment 88 mentored by Cofer Black, well
known for his CIA ties, also vice chair of Blackwater and a top adviser to
the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. 


ALLAN NAIRN: Well, I wasn't aware of Black's recent activities with Romney
and Blackwater, but he was definitely one of the key men in the launching of
Detachment 88. And now, his successors in US intelligence have people there
directly on the ground in Jakarta, Americans who work inside Detachment 88
headquarters and are eavesdropping on Indonesians. 


One of the sources who described the work of the Americans-and this is
someone who has worked with them and has heard them describe their tasks to
him-he said that they have very extensive and sophisticated equipment
provided by the US, which, in theory, would enable them to tap into any cell
phone in Indonesia, so they could target anyone and listen in on their
conversations or read their text messages. 


AMY GOODMAN: Allan Nairn, why would the US embassy official in Jakarta first
deny any US involvement, or knowledge even, of Kopassus or Detachment 88?
And then, tell us what's happening now in Washington in the US Congress? 


ALLAN NAIRN: Well, about twenty-four hours before I called the embassy this
afternoon to ask for comment, the US Congress had asked the US executive
branch in Washington about the question of aid to Kopassus. They were asked
whether the US was covertly providing aid to Kopassus or was planning to do
so. The US embassy may have heard about these inquiries, because the
Congress is now deciding within the next few days a military aid bill that
includes aid to Indonesia. So when I called the embassy, they issued the
blanket denial, saying the US is not involved with either Detachment 88 or
Kopassus. That was odd, because they had already acknowledged on the public
record in the past that the US was involved with creating Detachment 88. 


So, twenty minutes later, I received an email from the embassy saying that
the spokesman misspoke, and they said that "The US government"-and then this
is the quote-"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," end-quote. Now, this statement did not repeat their
earlier denials, 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. 


AMY GOODMAN: Why, do you think, the difference in the two responses? 


ALLAN NAIRN: I'm not sure. I think possibly the first time around, they may
have been trying to finesse the matter. The statement used the present
tense. They may have been trying to get away with saying, "Well, we're not
aiding them at this minute." And it so happened that just hours before, I
had called the Detachment 88 office, and the Indonesian officials there said
that the Americans didn't come into work today. So maybe they were trying to
get away with a statement like that. 


But then, I guess they reassessed it and realized that their blanket denial
contradicted some facts that were already on the public record. Some US
official had already testified to Congress about the fact that they had
given public aid to Detachment 88. So they decided to back off. So the final
statement they issued really doesn't deny anything. It doesn't deny any
element from my report that US intelligence has people inside Detachment 88
tapping the phones of Indonesians, reading their text messages, and that US
intelligence is also covertly aiding the notorious Kopassus special forces. 


AMY GOODMAN: And the debate that's going on right now in Washington, what is
it over? 


ALLAN NAIRN: It's an appropriations bill. It's called the Foreign Operations
Appropriations bill. And the Bush administration is pushing for millions of
dollars in aid to the Indonesian military. The House and the Senate are now
trying to reconcile their different versions of the bill. A decision may be
made within days. 


People can contact the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Some of the
key players in this decision will be Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who
is a critic of the Indonesian military and who's chair of the Senate
subcommittee; Representative Nita Lowey of New York, who is also a critic of
the Indonesian military and chairs the House subcommittee. A lot of this
depends on how strong a position Lowey and Leahy take. 


Another key player is Representative Frank Wolf of Virginia, the ranking
Republican on these matters in the House. He previously had stood up for
human rights. He previously was a critic of the Indonesian military, but now
he's switched, and now he's backing them, and he's pushing for many millions
of dollars in aid to these murderous Indonesian armed forces. Another key
player is Senator Bond of Missouri, who is a key apologist for the
Indonesian armed forces and intelligence establishment. 


AMY GOODMAN: On the ground, where you are, Allan Nairn, what does it mean if
the US directly funds Kopassus? 


ALLAN NAIRN: Well, Kopassus-the Indonesian military is hated by the
Indonesian public. The term, if you talk to regular people, poor people in
the neighborhoods, the term they use for the Indonesian military is
"sadists." And everybody knows that. In fact, it's so well known that the
Indonesian military a couple of years ago even put up an entry on their
website in which they denied that they were sadists, because they know that
that's what the people call them. 


Within that military, the most-hated and-feared unit is the Kopassus,
because they are the most highly trained, they are the most specialized in
torture and abduction. And they also are the unit that has historically been
closest to the United States. Previously, Kopassus has received courses from
US Green Berets and other units in matters like advanced sniper technique,
psychological operations, reconnaissance, surveillance, air assault, etc. So
Kopassus is really the worst of the worst in an army that has massacred
hundreds of thousands of Indonesian civilians since they seized control back
in 1965. 


AMY GOODMAN: Finally, General Prabowo, you write, the most notorious of the
Kopassus commanders, his connection to the United States? 


ALLAN NAIRN: Yes, Prabowo was the commander of Kopassus a few years ago, and
he was also one of the officers most highly trained by the US. He trained at
Fort Benning, he trained at Fort Bragg, and other places. And, in fact,
Prabowo once complained to an American that he was so closely identified
with the United States that some of the other Indonesian generals made fun
of him, because he spoke English so well. He said they called him "The
American." 


At one point a few years ago, the US embassy in Jakarta wrote a memo
defending the IMET military aid training program for Indonesian officers,
and they listed what they considered to be several success stories of
US-trained officers, and one of them was General Prabowo, who has been
implicated in torture and kidnappings and massacres in Timor, in abductions
in Jakarta and in many other places. This was an officer cited by the State
Department as a model of US training success. 


AMY GOODMAN: Is there anything else you want to add, Allan? 


ALLAN NAIRN: Yes. It's very important, when we talk about terrorism, to be
objective. Terrorism is the killing of civilians for political purposes. By
that standard, the jihadist groups, like those that did the Bali bombings,
are certainly terrorists, and they've killed several hundred civilians in
Indonesia. But by this standard, the Indonesian military and police are also
terrorists, and terrorists on a much larger scale. They have killed many
hundreds of thousands of Indonesian civilians. 


President Bush has what Karl Rove has called "the Bush doctrine," and that
is, "You aid a terrorist, you are a terrorist." And if we apply that
standard, when the US is aiding the Indonesian armed forces and the
Indonesian police, which meet the objective definition of "terrorism," the
definition included in the USA PATRIOT Act, i.e. killing civilians for
political purposes, then Bush, the US, by the US's own standard, by the Bush
doctrine, is engaging in a terrorist action by aiding terrorists, and he
should stop. We should stop aiding any forces that kill civilians.

AMY GOODMAN: Investigative journalist Allan Nairn, speaking to us from
Indonesia. To read his full report, you can visit his website at
www.newsc.blogspot.com. We will link to newsc.blogspot.com at
www.democracynow.org.

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