Kopassus

- in a nutshell - downright murderously evil.

Two quotes
"know for their human rights abuses"
"perhaps the best SF group in SE Asia" (SF = Special Forces)

Just read the 1st two items in the linked list from my 1st post but in the case of 1st item go down about half way to start reading.

I deliberately didn't summarise them because then the remarks become mine rather than all the journalists who have detailed the odious exploits of Kopassus over the years.

Kopassus were & continue to be trained by US & Australian & UK speciaql forces. US Senate froze funding for their training 12 years ago (after one murderous rampage in East Timor when 276 students were slaughtered while marching therogh Dili in a silent protest against occupation), but other US agencies skirted round that ban.

The item included below is bit easier to read than some of the others.

The person writing the item is part of a US based Indonesian Human Rights Campain & seems to be stating the facts accurately as I know them. The item highlights a number of issues such as I mentioned, about Kopassus getting training in US despite a senate ban on doing so. Kopassus officers were in East Timor & led and directed most of the attacks on the East Timorese civilians after the independance vote. When Australia was sent in to East Timor by the UN to take control from the TNI (Indonesian Army) they arrested one group of Militia soldiers only to discover that ten of them had Kopassus id cards.

Kopassus are probably the toughest soldiers in SE Asia and have a truly fearsome reputation. I would probably bet on the outcome of a skirmish between Kopassus forces and Ghurkas in that I lean toward the Kopassus guys being far more ruthless.

To join Kopassus requires feats of incredible stamina. Their training program was designed by the British SAS. Also when Sth Africa was still controlled by the whites, SA provided some training & assistance to Kopassus in insurrection ops. US special ops training features prominently in Kopassus programs (despite the 1991 US senate ban).

Everywhere there is civil strife in Indonesia Kopassus appear and very quickly accustaions of murders & bomb blasts & others disorder appear. There are serious accusations they had people planting bombs in Ambon and Sulawesi to stir up trouble between Christians & Muslims.

Kopassus were known to torture & kill all captives no matter who they were (Indonesian polititians, students (both Indonesian, Acehnese & Timorese), other military, Timorese & Acehinese resistance fighters etc: etc) and it was only after intense pressure from US & Indonesian civilian administration that they finally agreed to hand over those that didn't get killed in the torture. The stories that began to emerge from these survivors were quite nasty. The head o Kopassus was drummed out of the team after one govt investgation. But, even Indonesian politicians on both sides, fear Kopassus.

When the writer below says that Kopassus have a human rights problem, he is grossly understating just how evil some of their known deeds were. I could write a lot more but this post would get too long & the deeds would defy the belief of the average person. Their approach to torture was not far off the techniques of 15th century inquisitions. All I can repeat is just how deviously evil Kopassus troops can be to some other humans (before they turn them into dead meat) by murder, torture & covert ops such as bombings. Kopassus forces have been used many times to protect US & British & Australian mining & oil interests in greater Indonesia during periods when local insurgents have interupted the smooth workings of the mines & drilling.

Cheers

Doug


[link|http://www.blythe.org/nytransfer-subs/2000pac/Indonesia:_USA_Trained_Kopassus_in_Biological_Warfare|USA Trained Kopassus in Biological Warfare]

The full text is below ....



Indonesia: USA Trained Kopassus in Biological Warfare
Fri, 4 Feb 2000 08:35:20 -0500

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

source - TAPOL <tapol@gn.apc.org>

Kopassus and biological warfare
From the letters column of The Jakarta Post, 19 January 2000

[Can friends in the US check this information? TAPOL]

In the middle of 1997 members of the Army's Speeial Force, the red
berets, known locally as Kopassus, received Pentagon training in
a course entitled Nuclear Chemica] Biological. It is no idle question
to ask to just what use this training, part of a wider program of
illegal U.S. military assistance given in defiance of Congress,
may have been put.

Kopassus, which has been implicated in a whole swathe of state
terror actions, from disappearanees of activists to Aceh and East
Timor atrocities, is not just any unit of the Indonesian Military
(TNI). It is the elite action squad, and in 1997 was under the
leadership of the highly ambitious soninlaw of Soeharto, Prabowo
Subianto, who has subsequently been drummed out of the service.

Why exactly Kopassus was interested in chemicalbiological warfare
(CBW) capability is a matter that can hardly be allowed to go away.
Indeed, what its interests in the nuclear field were, when Indonesia
has neither nuclear arms nor nuclear power to defend, are also
worthy of our attention.

When states acquire CBW capability, in whatever degree, they broadly
have in mind two uses for it: one offensive, the other defensive.
If we leave aside for a moment the feet that chemical and biological
(CB) agents used against an enemy may rebound on the attacker gases
and spores, for example, returning on the wind we may reasonably
ask just who Kopassus and the regime had in mind as potential
targets.

In 1997 Indonesia had no external enemies, but it did have "internal"
ones. Among the latter of course were the people of East Timor
and the Free Aeeh Movement (GAM). Were they targets, potential or
real, for CBW carried out by Kopassus under Prabowo Subianto?

A country sends its soldiers on a course designed to inform them
about CBW. Then what?

In several known eases it develops them. Did Indonesia's military
or a section thereof do so? It may be objected that even if Kopassus
had the intent it would not have been able to disguise this completely
from outside surveillance, but the difference between Indonesia
and Iraq is that this country is not perceived by the international
community as a belligerent. Whilst it may have received international
opprobrium over East Timor, it has not gone to war against Western
strategic interests. Its military arsenal is not under the minutes"
scrutiny.

If Kopassus were developing CB agents what would it concentrate on
to such scrutiny? Probably the biological element. Terenee Taylor,
a biologieal weapons expert from the London International Institute
for Strategic Studies, says,"It is easier to hide a biological
warfare program in civilian research and production facilities than
either a nuclear or chemical one."

What then if Kopassus had decided to trim sails and focus on
biological warfare agents? Prabowo's web of contacts includes his
brother Hashim Djojohadikusomo, a man with an industrial plant
under his control. Such a plant could theoretically be used to
conceal sueh production. Equally, Kopassus camps, which exist
outside all public purview, might disguise small-scale facilities.

Lastly, if there is or has been a secret CBW program run by Kopassus,
we should point out that under the 1975 Biologieal Weapons Convention
all "research, development, produetion, stockpiling or acquisition
of biological and toxic weapons" is forbidden. Likewise "delivery
systems designed for such weapons". The new Chemical Weapons
Convention, which came into force in April 1997 around about the
time Kopassus men were receiving the training mentioned above,
forbids the production, acquisition and stockpiling of the ehemieal
equivalents.

The Indonesian people surely have a right to know, even at this
late hour, just why Kopassus was interested in Nuclear Chemical
Biological and to what use this knowledge has been put. So, too,
do the I East Timorese.

DAVID JARDINE