Indonesia and Australia to hold exercises

JAKARTA, Aug. 19 (UPI) -- The special forces of Australia and Indonesia will hold a joint anti-terrorist exercise next month around the southern Indonesian resort city of Bali.

Indonesian Army Cmdr. Lodewijk Friedrich Paulus said the joint exercises by Indonesia's Kopassus would improve its professional relations with Australia's SAS.

Relations were abruptly stopped in 1999 over Australia's concerns about the occupying Indonesian army's behavior in East Timor, now called Timor Leste since formal independence in September 2002.

During an independence referendum in 1999, it was alleged that pro-Indonesian militia, with Indonesian army support, attempted to physically discourage voters from casting their ballots. After the referendum vote showed a majority in favor of independence, the local militia went on a rampage, killing hundreds, until a U.N. peacekeeping force intervened.

But relations between Indonesian and Australian forces have been improving. "We have conducted joint exercises routinely in different places, sometimes in Indonesia, other times in Australia. This year it will be held in Bali," Paulus said.

The location of Bali for the exercises holds significance for Australia, as well as Indonesia, regarding terrorist activity.

Nearly 90 Australians and 40 Indonesians were among the 240 who died in several bomb attacks on the evening of Oct. 12, 2002, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of Indonesia.

Several members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a violent Islamist group, were convicted in relation to the bombings, and three were sentenced to death.

Kopassus also routinely conducts training exercises with the militaries of Singapore and Thailand. It is also beginning to work on improving relations with the U.S. military, including restarting joint exercises.

Earlier this month Indonesian crews flying their Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft conducted airdrop missions alongside their Australian counterparts, also in C-130 aircraft.

They were participating in Exercise Rajawali Ausindo near the northern Australian city of Darwin.

Group Capt. Richard Lennon, officer commanding of Australia's No. 86 Wing, said Australia and Indonesia share a history of using the Hercules to assist one another.

"Indonesia sent their Hercules to provide relief to Australians following Cyclone Tracy, and Australia's Hercules provided support in Sumatra for the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami relief effort," Lennon said during the exercise.

The announcement for Bali's joint exercise comes after the U.S. Defense Department said last month it would lift a ban on contacts with Kopassus.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates met President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta to officially tell him of the decision to lift the decade-old ban and take initial steps to train Kopassus.

"These initial steps will take place within the limits of U.S. law and do not signal any lessening of the importance we place on human rights and accountability," Gates told reporters after meeting with Yudhoyono.

However, Pentagon officials said contact would be limited and training would not include military training.

Kopassus members have been convicted of abducting student activists in 1997 and 1998 and for abuse that led to a Papuan activist's death in 2001.

U.S. defense officials said the group has reformed enough recently to support renewing contact.