I wonder if a big factor in this resumption is a continued belief that among Kopassus officers are some of the rising 'stars' in the TNI and that this type of 'training' is really a way to get to know these people. The official line of anti-hijacking training does not make much sense to me - it's 20+ years since the last hijacking in Indonesia and terrorists in Indonesia are much more likely to explode bombs.

I recall that after INTERFET various ADF officers said how useful it had been to be able to deal with Indonesian officers who had been to Australia - even though there appears to a good deal of distrust of parts of TNI within the ADF there might well be a continuing wish to get to know them.

Finally without wanting to minimize the nastiness of Kopassus they are far from the only elements of the Indonesian police or army that have used torture and killings of civilians. Certainly in Papua the police mobile Brigade has been very nasty.

Tony

Tony

I agree with your first 2 paras. I think to "get to know" neatly somes up the motivation for aiding (and abetting) KOPASSUS in its training.

Australia always needs to realise that the Indonesia Army has a peculiarly dismissive attitude to human life when it comes to the crunch.

When Keating and (more recently) others in Australia say they wish to "engage with Asia" - they must realise that they are not (condescendingly) dealing with exotic dark people.

The 1965 massacres of half a million Chinese in Indonesia and events in East Timor indicate that "murder with a smile" by Asians is as vicious as "murder with a frown" practiced by whites.

I also agree with you Gary.

Kopassus is just an evil organization with links to Laskar Jihad and also Al-Qaeda. These are the organizations our SAS troops could be fighting in the near future. My bet is the SAS troops themselves aren't too happy about the Kopassus training.

Don't forget what happened at Balibo in 1975 when the Australian Defence Signals monitored Indonesian radio traffic in East Timor. The truth about the fate of the five journalists was kept from the next of kin and the Australian public for thirty years by the Dept of Foreign Affairs. See this web site http://www.wpngnc.org