AMY GOODMAN: You’re listening to Ground Zero Radio’s Democracy Now! in Exile's War and Peace Report as we break the sound barrier. I'm Amy Goodman.

Every time we turn around, it seems that another regulation is being lifted that protects civil liberties or other cases. We’ve just heard that, dealing with terrorism, President Bush says they will try to push through fast-track legislation. And also, there’s this.

Over the weekend, President Bush asked Congress for authority to waive all existing restrictions on U.S. military assistance and weapons exports for the next five years. Separately, on Saturday, Bush lifted all military and economic restrictions on India. He also removed restrictions that barred Pakistan from economic assistance, and prevented it from making commercial military purchases from U.S. companies.

The new proposal would allow the president to lift human rights restrictions imposed by Congress on U.S. military cooperation with other countries, effectively undoing decades of work by human rights and arms control groups.

We first go to Tamar Gabelnick, who is the Federation of American Scientists.

Tamar, can you tell us what the proposal of the Bush administration is?

TAMAR GABELNICK: Well, there are conflicting stories and rumors. There have been many in Washington over the past couple weeks. The original story was that the president — or, actually, the State Department put forward language to Congress last week saying that the president would basically have a blank check to approve military aid and arms transfers to states and nonstate actors, as long as doing so would support not just efforts to prevent or respond to acts of terrorism, but also other actions threatening international peace and security. And I’m reading from a draft bill that I have in front of me. And that would be for five years, from fiscal years 2002 to 2007. And basically, it would get rid of — that would apply to all restrictions in the Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act, but then he also singles out especially for anti-terrorism aid, that that would especially apply to limits that are now in place on countries that have gross or consistent human rights violations, or also to countries that do not cooperate on terrorism. So, basically, he’s saying — and then the bill was saying, in the name of fighting terrorism, we can now support countries that have not been helpful on terrorism. So, that was bill number one.

Now, yesterday, there was a bit of a SNAFU, because President Bush apparently denied that this bill existed, or the draft bill existed. And so that left the State Department apparently scrambling. And they put forward different language, because if the president said there was no such language, then there was no such language. So now it’s just applying to Pakistan and India. That’s of today. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined on the telephone by Kurt Biddle, Washington coordinator of the Indonesia Human Rights Network. The restrictions that are being lifted would apply directly to Indonesia. This past week, the Indonesian president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, came to Washington. What happened on that visit?

KURT BIDDLE: Well, the visit, there was a lot of vague promises made by President Megawati, saying that she understood the value of human rights accountability and respecting human rights. And Bush kind of showered her with a lot of promises, some of them of substance, some of them he needs to check in with Congress to make sure he can get it, including money for police training. He also said that he was lifting a — what he termed as a — the White House termed as a ban on commercial military sales, nonlethal items. That actually was never a ban, except during the Clinton administration right after the East Timor referendum and the military ravaged East Timor with their sponsored militias. So, this actually has been in play. So some of it was a little bit of fluff, but there was some concrete things that he’s going to try to hit up Congress with, and that includes police training, and I think there’s a general move from the White House to try to get rid of all these restrictions that are based there for human rights.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting. I was just talking to somebody in Indonesia, and as we were speaking, he was watching television. And one of the commentators came on and said, “This gives us the right to — they will train us in low-intensity warfare,” taking it as a green light for U.S., you know, working with the Indonesian military, something, as you point out, that’s been fought for the last two years.

KURT BIDDLE: Yeah, I think that this has been seen as a victory for the Megawati regime. Her regime was a bit shaky. Her own vice president opposed her back when Wahid was voted president, because she was a woman, and said that Islam doesn’t allow women to be leaders. So she had a rough coalition of groups, very shaky. But now she comes back with some promises from the U.S., and she’s looked at as, you know, a winner now. And the Indonesian military, who have held hands with Megawati for quite a while now, also see this as a victory.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to move on to John Roosa, who’s just returned from Indonesia. But, Kurt Biddle, what do you think, in the human rights group you’re with, the Indonesia Human Rights Network, people can do? And since you’re not on a great line, on a cellphone, if you can just give out the contact information?

KURT BIDDLE: Yeah. People need to contact their representatives and senators and tell them that this congressional ban limiting military assistance to Indonesia, that’s been set up since 1999, is actually good legislation, should just not be thrown out the door. So they should call the congressional switchboard — that’s 202-224-3121 — to find out the direct numbers. Talk to the foreign policy staffer and tell them that we shouldn’t be rewarding military or police forces that are out of control with training or equipment, and that they should continue to keep these restrictions in place. The Senate is expected to be voting on these in the next couple weeks, the so-called Leahy conditions. People can contact the Indonesia Human Rights Network at area code 202-393-5533, or look for us on the web at www.indonesianetwork.org.

AMY GOODMAN: Thanks very much, Kurt Biddle, with the Indonesia Human Rights Network. John Roosa is also on the line with us, who is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for International Studies at UC Berkeley. John, you’ve recently come from Indonesia. What is the situation on the ground? And also, what will this mean for Aceh, which is an extremely troubled region of Indonesia where more than a million — where more than a thousand Muslims have been killed since the beginning of the year?

JOHN ROOSA: Well, I think it’s going to mean a disaster for Aceh. There’s a good possibility that Indonesia will advertise the struggle in Aceh against the Indonesian military as a terrorist movement, and thereby criminalize them within the international arena. There have already been hints of that, attempts to do that, even though the Acehnese struggle has not been — has not really taken the form of at all of a movement that kills civilians or commits bombings. So, that would be one effect. And the other effect would be it gives a green light to the Indonesian military to continue to commit human rights abuses within Aceh without any fear of any international tribunal or any restrictions from the U.S. government on military aid. There has been no accounting for their last major war crimes in East Timor in 1999. So, naturally, they will commit — they will continue to commit atrocities in Aceh.

AMY GOODMAN: John Roosa, some conservative Muslim groups in Indonesia have warned of a jihad if the U.S. attacks Afghanistan. What does the Megawati administration seem to be saying on this? Where do these groups fit in to the political spectrum? Just the other day, there were two bombs that went off in Jakarta. It’s not clear who was responsible for them. They said they would go through hotels and pick out Americans.

JOHN ROOSA: Yeah. Well, the Megawati government is in a bit of a bind right now because they have — her government, as have the previous government, as have the police and the military — been reluctant to do anything to curb the activities of these Muslim groups. I’m thinking primarily of Laskar Jihad, which is based in Yogyakarta and whose leader went to Afghanistan, was there in 1988, 1989, and received military training there. And he is known as the commander of the forces, and they have done quite a bit of damage, especially in eastern India — Indonesia, to ruin the ethnic relations there and relations between religions, and is now trying to do it in Sulawesi, another island. So, also an organization called FPI, or Islamic Defense Front, which is primarily in Jakarta, they’re the ones that are largely calling for this jihad. And they have acted often with official connivance and even with support of some elements within the military.

So, it is going to be very difficult for the government to crack down on these organizations. However, they have been — the Megawati government has received what could be considered as an ultimatum from the U.S. government that it has to crack down on these organizations so that the personnel of the U.S. multinational companies within Indonesia would feel safe. I read there’s something like 6,000 Americans working in Indonesia, and this does represent quite a serious threat to their safety. And if they leave, some major facilities that provide foreign exchange for the Indonesia government would close down, such as the Freeport mine in Irian Jaya, which perhaps would be attacked, and the Freeport office within Jakarta.

AMY GOODMAN: Freeport-McMoRan being — running one of the largest gold and copper mining operations in the world in Irian Jaya, West Papua, a part of Indonesia, right now.

JOHN ROOSA: Yeah. So, I think Megawati’s government is going to do something to protect U.S. personnel and U.S. investment, I think, inevitably. They cannot do without that foreign exchange, without that revenue. But I think the best way to deal with such Muslim groups is to improve the economy and to provide social welfare. And that is something that the government does not want to do. And instead, the government is paying back the debt of the Suharto regime. And much of the government’s budget, and depending on how you count it and depending on who’s counting, it can be as much as over 50% of the national budget is being sent to the U.S., Japan and Europe to pay back the foreign debt. And if the U.S. actually wants to help Indonesia, it would cancel a good part of that debt, which was, of course, due to corruption. Much of it was due to corruption.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Tamar Gabelnick, what are arms control groups doing to mobilize against the lifting of restrictions on human rights-abusing nations?

TAMAR GABELNICK: Well, we are having an emergency meeting today to talk about options. But, basically, we’re just going to be writing into the International Relations and Foreign Relations Committees to protest these changes. I think we’ll have a fairly empathetic ear on the Hill, because they’re not happy about it just for purely turf battle reasons, that this is denying them the power to have the control over arms exports. So, I’m sure we’ll get a lot of sympathy there. I don’t know how hard we’re going to need to press. But, basically, we need to pay close attention to this, because it seems like, though the administration is going back and forth on the latest proposal, that they could try to sneak something in, and, in the name of national unity and bipartisanship, Congress might be forced to sign onto something that they wouldn’t otherwise do.

So, we’re going to be — again, if people were interested in speaking out, they should write to their member of Congress and say that they oppose giving a blank check to the administration to sell arms to whomever it pleases, and also write the same thing to the State Department, because it was the State Department that put forward this proposal in the beginning, which is upsetting, because they’ve usually been a force for more progressive foreign policy when it comes to arms exports.

AMY GOODMAN: Maybe it has something to do with the secretary of state being a former general? I want to thank you ver much for being with us, Tamar Gabelnick with the Federation of American Scientists, and Kurt Biddle, who we just heard from before, with the Indonesian Human Rights Network, and John Roosa, who is a post-doc fellow at the Institute for International Studies at University of California at Berkeley.

Tomorrow, Thich Nhat Hanh and Judy Collins. But we’re going to break. And when we come back, we’ll hear the story of a firehouse in Brooklyn and development that’s already being talked about in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Stay with us.