The Obama administration has lifted a twelve-year-old ban on the training of the notorious Indonesian military unit known as Kopassus. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the announcement in Jarkata after meeting with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Gates said the lifting of the ban does not “signal any lessening of the importance we place on human rights and accountability.” But the move has been condemned by many human rights groups. John Miller is the national coordinator of the East Timor & Indonesia Action Network.

John Miller: “Kopassus is Indonesia’s notorious special forces. Any of the major events of the last thirty, forty, fifty years in Indonesia — human rights violations by the Indonesian military from Suharto’s seizure of power in 1965 to the invasion and occupation of East Timor to ongoing conflict in West Papua — Kopassus troops have been among the leading human rights violators.”

John Miller went on to say resumed US training of Kopassus would violate the Leahy Law, which prohibits military assistance to units with unresolved human rights violations.

John Miller: “The Bush administration, which had raised the issue of training Kopassus a few years ago, even their State Department said it would violate the Leahy Law. What has change in the last two years is not clear to us.”