Allan Nairn, investigative journalist for The Nation, has made more discoveries of links between U.S. intelligence and Indonesian intelligence units, particularly the notorious KOPASSUS Group 4, responsible for the detainment, torture, and disappearance of pro-democracy activists.

Colonel Chaiwaran, the commander of Group 4, admitted to Nairn that he regularly reports to Col. Charles McFetridge, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) attache at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. Other members of the Indonesia military have told Nairn that Group 4 men have been trained by U.S. intelligence and that, with U.S. support, KOPASSUS was expanded from 3,000 to 4,800 troops early this year, in anticipation of "domestic instability." The Pentagon helped train these new recruits through 24 of their Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program exercises, in secret violation of a U.S. Congressional order.

Furthermore, Nairn writes, Defense Secretary William Cohen praised the head of KOPASSUS, Lieutenant General Probowo (Suharto's son-in-law) in January during a visit to Indonesia, where he met with leaders of all the Indonesian intelligence agencies. Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth took Probowo with him twice to prison meetings with Xanana Gusmao, head of the resistance movement in East Timor.

Information has also leaked regarding U.S. military support for General Wiranto, the head of the Indonesian armed forces, the country's Defense Minister, and the real power behind new President Jusuf Habibie. Wiranto controls the BIA, the armed forces' intelligence unit, which has also received training through the Pentagon's JCET. In recent weeks, the BIA has been responsible for arresting labor activists calling for an increase in the minimum wage, ransacking the offices of labor, student, and women's organizations, and the arrest and torture of the chief field organizer for Megawati Sukarno (an opposition political leader). One U.S. official told Nairn that the BIA is using a new torture technique in East Timor: breaking the hips of political prisoners.

In response to massive protests, the new Indonesian government has released some political prisoners, yet many more of the abducted remain missing, and more activists are continuing to "disappear." U.S. newspapers, however, are happy to print tales of new political freedoms in Indonesia, without covering the brutal realities that Indonesian activists face everyday. As the repression continues, students, labor leaders, and political activists are bravely demanding elections, a complete change of government, the end of corruption among the wealthy and well-connected, and economic reparations from Suharto, his family, and cronies, who have looted this island archipelago for over 30 years.

Information for this piece came from an article Allen Nairn wrote for the June 15-22 issue of The Nation.