On September 13, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age published a set of articles by Fairfax group Indonesia correspondent Tom Allard presenting detailed claims by victims of torture by members of the elite Indonesian National Police (POLRI) Anti-Terror Squad known as Densus 88 or Detachment 88.

The unit, which is part of POLRI's Mobile Brigade (Brimob), was established to be the country's primary counter-terrorism police unit & has received considerable Australian & US government assistance. However, for a number of years Indonesian & foreign observers have reported numerous cases of Densus 88 human rights violations. Allard's report presented accounts of torture of activists arrested for non-violent support for the banned Republic of South Moluccas (Republik Maluku Selatan or RMS).

The Allard articles followed a June 2010 Human Rights Watch report on political prisoners throughout Indonesia, including a detailed account of ill-treatment of Malukan prisoners following a 2007 RMS flag-raising ceremony. One of the most striking features of the Human Rights Watch report was a map of political prisoners in Indonesia today that showed a disturbing resemblance to the pattern of state violations of citizens' human rights during the Soeharto dictatorship.

A year earlier an Asia Times investigation by John McBeth had focused on the detachment's spreading reputation for a "licence to kill" - an apparent preference for immediate resort to lethal force in policing. In 2009 Allan Nairn published detailed allegations, denied by Indonesian armed forces (TNI) representatives, that the Army's Kopassus (Special Forces) & other TNI personnel carried out extra-judicial executions in Aceh. Similar claims have been made about Kopassus illegal activities in Papua.

Allard's report brought the question of Australian government funding for the POLRI Anti-Terror Squad's activities into mainstream public scrutiny for the first time. Allard wrote that:

"Detachment 88 was, at its inception, equipped & trained in large part by the US & Australia, which provided it with high-level training in communications interception, close combat, forensic sciences, surveillance & intelligence gathering & analysis."

Allard also stated that Detachment 88 has "a facility at the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Co-operation, set up in 2004 with almost $40 million of Australian funding. According to the centre's website, the Australian Federal Police still run most of the counter-terrorism seminars." The Centre, which continued to receive substantial Australian funding in the 2009-10 budget, is seen by Australian authorities as a key element in its wider objectives of cooperation with Indonesian police over counter-terrorism & illegal migration.

These allegations of serious human rights abuses by an Australian & US-funded Indonesian National Police squad lead to a renewed assessment of questions raised at the time of the resumption of Australian military assistance to the elite Indonesian army counter-terrorism unit within the army's Kopassus (Special Forces) in 2003.

The Obama administration's decision in July of this year to resume direct US military assistance to Kopassus, despite widely acknowledged limitations in TNI reforms, was justified by the Secretary of Defense in terms of global & regional counter-terrorism requirements.

In both cases, Australian & US government support for close financial, organisational & indeed political support for Indonesian military & police activities rested on the claim that, after three decades of military dictatorship, Indonesia had a democratically elected government committed to civilian control of the armed forces & to the rule of law. The well-informed warning that the former Australian Assistant Secretary of Defence, Allan Behm, made on the decision to resume support of Kopassus in 2003 still holds today & applies as equally to Detachment 88:

"Kopassus is, in some respects, a law unto itself, able to use its relatively advanced capabilities in the use of armed force as & when it sees fit. Dominating the Indonesian command chain as it does, Kopassus is well able to employ the very specific skills it might learn or reinforce from Australia against its own government.

And therein lies the greatest danger to Australia from the provision of Special Forces training. Dealings with Special Forces should await much clearer indications that they are under the full and effective control of the Indonesian military leadership & more importantly, the elected Indonesian government."

The cases of Detachment 88 & Kopassus both raise key questions of the extent of post-Soeharto democratic control of armed forces, & indeed, of the capacity of the Indonesian police & army commands to control their own nominally subordinate organizations & to ensure adherence to Indonesian law. With the shadow of three decades of bipartisan Australian government support for Indonesian state terror in the Soeharto period, & given clear limitations on effective Indonesian government controls over its own military and police, it is in the interests of both Australia & Indonesia that the Australian government scrutinise all aspects of its involvement with Detachment 88 & Kopassus.

Then, on September 28th, Soldiers from the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus) conducted a joint counterterrorism exercise with Australia's elite SAS in Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport on Tuesday.

The drill scenario was that fifteen terrorists had managed to gain control of the international departure terminal of the airport & hold several local and foreign passengers hostage at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

They demanded the government release all terrorist suspects within 48 hours & provide logistics, drugs & a reserve pilot to transport them abroad. They even shot one of the hostages.

The Indonesian Military chief assigned Kopassus soldiers the job of freeing the hostages & regaining control of the airport.

Within six minutes, following simultaneous attacks by Kopassus & Australian Special Air Service (SAS) troops, some of the terrorists had been killed, the hostages had been released & the soldiers were in control of the airport.

The drill is conducted every year, with Indonesia & Australia taking turns being the host.

Fifty personnel from the Kopassus & 20 from the SAS were deployed for the drill, & six helicopters & dozens of motorcycles were used.

Kopassus commander Maj. Gen. Lodewijk F. Paulus, who led the operation together with SAS Gen. Mc Owen, said the joint training drill aimed to improve the troops' skills in field operations, including techniques for releasing hostages.

"We have been working together with the SAS & held this training exercise in Bali since the island remains a primary destination for Australian tourists," he said.

now .....

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."

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

The disclosure comes as US President Barack Obama is touching down in Indonesia. His administration recently announced the restoration of US aid to Kopassus.

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.

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."

Secret Files Show Kopassus, Indonesia's Special Forces, Targets Papuan Churches, Civilians. Documents Leak from Notorious US-Backed Unit as Obama Lands in Indonesia.