Transcript: Admiral Blair Says Indonesia Must Reform Military
(Nov. 27 remarks at National Resiliency Institute, Jakarta)Indonesia's military leaders may desire reform, but they have yet to act, says Admiral Dennis C. Blair, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command.
"When I talk with Indonesian military leaders and with others, I am convinced of the sincerity of their commitment to reform, but I also have not seen that sincerity translated into actions," Blair said in response to press questions he took at the National Resiliency Institute in Jakarta November 27.
Regarding the Indonesian military's human rights violations, Blair said good intentions must be turned into investigations and possible court martials. He called for "full explanation and then accountability for the actions like East Timor."
"The position of my government," Blair said, "is that the sincerity and the intentions need to be translated into actions. When that process is complete, then we can have a relationship that we have with other armed forces that we have worked with as allies and as partners for a long time, like the armed forces of Australia or the armed forces of Japan or the armed forces of Korea...."
Indonesia's police and the armed forces need to respect human rights not just because of what the United States or other countries think, Blair said, but because it is the only effective route for the long term.
Following is a transcript:
(begin transcript)
UNITED STATES PACIFIC COMMAND TRANSCRIPT
Adm. Dennis C. Blair Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command
Lemhannas, National Resiliency Institute News Media Attending Jakarta, Indonesia November 27, 2001
Adm. Blair: I have enjoyed this opportunity to visit Indonesia again and appreciate your excellent hospitality. I also thank you for your kind attention today and look forward to your questions.
Question: Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Your excellency, I would like to thank your presence in this very active event. We do recognize and understand that U.S. has been playing a major role in the direction of the humanity with your campaign on the human rights, democratization, and environmental. However, I would like to raise some questions that may clarify our inquiry of information personally for public as a role, as a member parliament.
Currently as you explained before, the political grouping of the international relations has been colored by the top principle, that is to fight or not to fight terrorism. I think this has put difficulty for some nations.
So my question. We would like to know your general information on the sense of on the U.S. commitment to the global economic recovery based on your understanding of this economical situation. I think that is my question and thank you for your answer.
Adm. Blair: Your comments and questions are covering a wider area than my responsibility when you talk about the overall international economic policies, but perhaps I can make a few observations.
Mr. Little, do you want to translate as we go?
As I said in my remarks, the world's response to terrorism has to have many different components -- economic, military assistance, legal, financial. I think if you look at the U.S. response you see all of those components. Certainly we participate with the international financial institutions, IMF, World Bank, those institutions which are responding in many ways including assistance to Indonesia right now.
In the military and security sphere we're responding, as I mentioned in my remarks, a sharing of intelligence information so that our security forces can take action as well as international cooperation against common threats.
So I'm sure there are changes and improvements and refinements that can be made in many different aspects of this cooperation, but I think the overall direction of a multi-prong attack in cooperation is the correct approach.
Other questions?
Question: I am (unintelligible).
I want to give you a question on something. We all agree that terrorism is unacceptable and to keep Osama bin Laden from committing further terrorism. But on the other hand, the (unintelligible). There are so many civilians become innocent victims of the attacks. I believe is also again important that human rights are important to U.S. national interests.
I would like to receive your comments on that.
Secondly, I would like to comment on your speech. There you mention about the readiness of Pacific Command to collaborate with TNI, our Indonesian military in a bilateral coalition.
My question is what is your measure on making the collaboration work. Thank you very much.
Adm. Blair: I'm sorry, let me answer the first question about civilian casualties and then we can try again on the other question. I understand that we don't require translation, John, thank you.
The question concerned civilian casualties of the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. There was a lot of the public information about civilian casualties that had been coming from the Taliban in the past was wrong and exaggerated. The number of civilian casualties from U.S. attacks in Afghanistan has been extraordinarily small and we have many times limited our operations because of the concerns about innocent casualties.
The Taliban has been moving, had been in the past, moving its forces and its equipment inside of populated areas, inside of mosques and we have decided not to attack those equipments and those people in those locations.
We don't know what the exact number of casualties are from our operations but they have been very, very limited and we have made our attacks with extraordinary care. I would contrast that with the attacks against our country on the 11th of September in which the terrorists sponsored by Osama bin Laden, sanctioned by the Taliban, tried to inflict as many innocent casualties as possible with their actions. They tried to kill as many people as they could.
So we have been careful.
I also would point to the reaction of the Afghan people in places like Kabul and Kunduz and Mazar-e-Sharif, the other cities where the United States support of the opposition to the Taliban has been successful and the cities have been liberated. I think you find that the Afghan population has been overjoyed, have greeted the end of the campaign with tears and with happiness despite the limited number of casualties that were caused in that campaign. So we have taken our actions with extraordinary care.
That would be the way I would address the first question. Why don't we try again on your subsequent questions and see if I can understand them.
Question: Second question. What is your U.S. criteria to measure on making the collaboration work according to your speech on page 16.
Adm. Blair: The key to resumption of full military relations between our countries is the completion of the actions regarding accountability for the actions of TNI and East Timor following the referendum in 1999. The actions of TNI as it was leaving East Timor resulted in the destruction of many parts of the cities, the injury or deaths to many citizens, and the United States has insisted that there be some sort of accountability procedure for those actions before we can resume the full range of our actions. So the primary criteria is accountability for the actions in East Timor after the referendum.
Question: Thank you very much. I am from Air Force.
At Pacific Command the units of Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force operations across more than a hundred million square miles includes Pacific and Indian Ocean area. How about the Air Force or Navy movement on these areas? Do you have special authority or you must get permission from countries to respond by air or sea?
Adm. Blair: In our operations of our aircraft and of our ships we follow the UN convention on the law of the sea rules regarding archipelagic passage, or often referred to as innocent passage, international passage. So when our ships or aircraft pass through the Malacca Straits, Lombok Straits, Sunda Straits, we follow the rules of UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS. If there are any differences of interpretation on those provisions we have diplomatic negotiations with Indonesia concerning the interpretation and then we will adjust as necessary. So those are the rules that we follow.
I know I've seen sensational articles in Indonesian newspapers about sort of hostile activity by ships in certain areas, but our policy is to follow UN Convention on Law of the Sea rules.
Question: My name Alexander. I am policeman from politic quarters.
According to your statement, you mentioned that police cannot maintain order and enforce the law.
Would you please to explain your statement. Is that a U.S. government contention, or maybe your contention?
Adm. Blair: In the first question you said I mentioned in my speech that there are some areas where the police are unable to maintain law and order?
Question: Yes.
Adm. Blair: I'm referring to an area, for example, such as the island of Basilan and Jolo in the southern Philippines where the police do not have the resources, do not have the capability to carry out law and order right now. A bandit group like the Abu Sayyaf Group can take hostages, can survive without the police arresting them.
In that case the government of the Philippines found it necessary to send the army into the area in order to reinforce the police in order to arrest the Abu Sayyaf Group and restore law and order.
In addition, because that is an international are, the Abu Sayyaf Group can go into Malaysia and take hostages or take refuge or can move in other places.
The point I was making is that strong and competent police forces and international cooperation are both necessary in order to eliminate groups like the ASG and eliminate which could possibly support international terrorism which conducts terrorist acts themselves of taking hostages and beheading hostages, and that this is one area in which we must improve our capability here in the Asia Pacific region.
Question: I am Aruba Dangulan. I'm not from the army, I'm a civilian from the local government.
In line with the question my colleague just asked your speech, there you mention that the Pacific Command is willing to work out with TNI if there is, if the military department can work. So there is criteria that if we will work with you if...
The question is, is there still a doubt in the Pacific Command that your information, the military reformation in Indonesia can work? You answer about there is the experience of East Timor. We thought that we are already doing something on that and we are working for a better resolution.
I would like to ask your opinion about whether you still have doubts that reformation can work.
And then the second, I would also like to ask about your comments on the progress of the Aceh situation in Indonesia. I believe you also know about all the progress that we have tried to do. The new government also tried to solve all the problems. So I would like to know your opinion on that. Thank you.
Adm. Blair: When I talk with Indonesian military leaders and with others I am convinced of the sincerity of their commitment to reform, but I also have not seen that sincerity translated into actions which give a full explanation and then accountability for the actions like East Timor. So the position of my government is that the sincerity and the intentions need to be translated into actions. When that process is complete then we can have a relationship that we have with other armed forces that we have worked with as allies and as partners for a long time like the armed forces of Australia or the armed forces of Japan or the armed forces of Korea, our traditional allies.
So it is a case of turning the intentions into investigations and results of court martials or other cases which will show results as well as intentions.
I do not follow minute by minute developments in Aceh, so it's really not my place to comment on that aspect of the situation. My government, the United States supports the territorial integrity of Indonesia. We do not support the Independent GAM Movement. We support a unified and whole Indonesia including Aceh. We recognize that the security aspects of that require action by police and armed forces.
As I said in my speech, we believe that the actions of the police and the armed forces need to respect human rights not just because of what the United States and other countries think, but because that will only be effective in the long term. You don't want to create more members of GAM than you remove. That's a basic principle of counter-insurgency operations.
So we believe that it is both a correct and effective policy to respect human rights as you move forward.
So so far we are watching the activities in Aceh. We look for a good solution for them, but they are not really part of the criteria that I talked about for resumption of relations with TNI.
Question: Nandika from Bogara.
Admiral Blair, by military action let's say there are limits which some countries that they achieve. Is there any idea on how to control the activities from the second generation of the terrorism? Thank you.
Adm. Blair: I think that we have to remove all of the tools that terrorism uses to attack our societies. We have to remove their financial support.
The terrorists who attacked the United States received money by wire notes in order to buy flying lessons and airplane tickets and to move around our country, and these were, we need to control those money transfers that terrorists depend on to lay their plans.
We need to more carefully follow our own regulations for immigration facilities, immigration rules so that when we issue a visa to someone we ensure that when that visa is complete we know where that person is and we can track them. We need to improve the safety on our aircraft so that when a person comes onto an aircraft the luggage is checked and a person cannot smuggle a weapon onto an airplane. We need to strengthen the compartments of our aircraft pilot decks so that a terrorist cannot take over an airplane. We need to follow the groups who receive terrorists when they come into our country and help them to move around the country and stay there.
So it requires a lot of actions to tighten up the many activities in our country.
At the same time we cannot sacrifice the openness and democratic and free things which make our country attractive. We don't want to turn our countries into states which sacrifice our human freedoms, which stop business, which prevent legitimate people from doing things that they have a right to do.
So it's a balancing act and it puts an extreme pressure on police, on Customs officials, on military officials. I know this will be a very hard task. However, we must follow this task.
I need to tell you just how angry the American people are from the events of September 11th. I know to everyone in foreign countries that was a picture on a screen on CNN. To us it was friends and neighbors and relatives who were killed. The United States is angry about that and we are pursuing a campaign against those who perpetrated it and to prevent something like that happening again. We will pursue that very strongly in the weeks and months ahead and no one should underestimate that resolve. It will take money, it will take people, it will take perseverance, and we will do all of that. That's what we have to do to defeat terrorism.
Question: In the context of the anti-terrorist campaign, I am referring to pages 11 and 12 of your remarks in Indonesian language. You say that peacekeeping force operation of United States, military operation, will have a mission (unintelligible) in combating the anti-terrorists. My question is how you make justification regarding the national integrity among the Asian region including the Indonesian territory and jurisdiction. First question.
Second question, how far you have made cooperation with ASEAN Regional Forum, the ARF? Have you make any discussion, and is there any conclusions regarding this campaign and the mission? Thank you.
Adm. Blair: I think your second question was regarding the effectiveness of ARF as an institution. Let me answer that one and then ask you to repeat the first question.
The ASEAN Regional Forum is a young organization. It's getting started. It's often compared with organizations like NATO or more traditional security organizations which were founded in response to a threat and it really is not that kind of an organization.
I think that it has real potential in terms of being able to contribute to common missions like the campaign against terrorism, but I think it will take time to develop that.
Some of the immediate regional responses to terrorism I think are important and worthwhile. I mentioned in my remarks the ASEAN Declaration in Brunei. That is resulting in additional meetings at the lower levels to make practical programs and I think that will provide a good basis for action.
I think the countries like Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, which are most closely concerned, are working together on real problems like their common borders, and that's good.
So I see the regional organizations within the Southeast Asia region and in the larger Asia region as developing in positive ways in response to real challenges. But I don't think that they are immediate solutions. I think they are more longer term solutions.
Perhaps you could repeat the first question you had for me.
Question: Yes, thank you.
My first question, I would like to have your comments regarding the cooperation with ASEAN and how you make justification for using U.S. force when you are entering the ASEAN region of territories. Are you going to cooperate with ASEAN countries, let's say with TNI when you under operation for the anti-terrorist campaign? How you make justification that you're not going to break our national immigration, national integrated territory?
Adm. Blair: We will cooperate with ASEAN countries in ways which are agreed by all of the countries. I mentioned, for example, our military cooperation with the Philippines in the southern Philippines and we also will coordinate that action with Malaysia and we will inform Indonesia because it's right in an area that's close to both of those countries.
So our military cooperation with countries in ASEAN will be on a unique basis depending on the nature of the cooperation and the countries' concern.
Moderator: Admiral, on behalf of our governor and our participants, please allow me to express our steep gratitude and highest appreciation for allocating your very busy time to give us a very expert and professional lecture and the discussion.
Thank you.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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