TNI PROMOTIONS: TIME TO DECLARE VICTORY

C O N F I D E N T I A L JAKARTA 000052 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR P, G, T, EAP, DRL, EAP/MTS, EAP/RSP NSC FOR E.PHU SECDEF FOR USAP/ISA/AP P.IPSEN E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/09/2018 TAGS: PREL PHUM MARR MASS ID SUBJECT: TNI PROMOTIONS: TIME TO DECLARE VICTORY REF: A. JAKARTA 0008 ¶B. 07 JAKARTA 3128 Classified By: DCM John A. Heffern, for reasons 1.4(b,d). ¶1. (C) Over the past two months, President Yudhoyono has replaced the top echelon of the Indonesian military command. All four of the top slots--the TNI Commander and the Army, Navy and Air Force Chiefs--have changed hands (reftels). SBY has made these moves quietly, and without great fanfare. We may never know the extent to which U.S. policy views, reiterated regularly to top GOI officials, were a factor in his choices, although those views were regularly communicated and almost certainly played a role. What is more important is the outcome: that Indonesia's democratically elected, civilian president has selected four commanders from the ranks of the Indonesian military who have essentially clean records on human rights and who set an example of military professionalism, pointing the way forward. The President passed over several strong candidates with problematic human rights records. ¶2. (C) We take this as a deliberate step on Indonesia's part to recognize U.S. and other international concerns about the troubled past of Indonesia's military forces. It is also a good-faith effort to help create the basis for closer mil-mil cooperation in the future. We should welcome and reinforce this positive outcome with a calibrated response which signals our support. A response could take several forms, for there are many elements to our mil-mil relationship. We believe the most appropriate response would be to resume engagement with KOPASSUS, the Indonesian Army's Special Forces Unit, Indonesia's most capable force but the one which has had the furthest to go in breaking from the past. Engaging with KOPASSUS would signal our endorsement of Indonesia's desire to set a new course and would provide concrete support to Indonesia's efforts to remold inherited institutions like the TNI into modern components of democracy. HUME