Trump’s Indonesian Allies in Bed With ISIS-Backed FPI Militia Seek to Oust Elected President Jokowi
Allan Nairn
With an introduction by Peter Dale Scott

April 27, 2017
Volume 15 | Issue 9 | Number6
Introduction
The following important essay, by the respected and reliable journalist Allan Nairn, reports what Indonesian generals and others have told him of an army-backed movement to overthrow Indonesia’s civilian-led moderate constitutional government. Its thesis is alarming: that “Associates of Donald Trump in Indonesia have joined army officers and a vigilante street movement linked to ISIS in a campaign that ultimately aims to oust the country’s president… Joko Widodo (known more commonly as Jokowi).”
More recently a New York Times editorial, pointing to the electoral defeat on April 19 of Jakarta’s incumbent Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (or Ahok), has also expressed concern about the fate of Indonesia’s fragile democracy.1 But the threat perceived by the Times is that from “hard line Islamic groups” (many of them Saudi-funded), not that from the leaders (often U.S.-trained and financed) of the Indonesian army. The editorial reflects the fear of many scholars that traditional Indonesian Islam, relatively tolerant but unable to compete with Saudi wealth, may lose out to well-funded Salafi extremism. (Last October Margaret Scott warned in the New York Review of Books that it was “far-fetched” to think that Indonesia’s Islamic moderates “can stop Salafi recruitment, much less ISIS recruitment.”2)
Important in both narratives are the massive recent protests in Jakarta by Islamist thugs (preman) of the Islamic Defenders Front or FPI (Front Pembela Islam) that led to Ahok’s defeat.
The FPI was founded in 1998 with military and police backing, and at first served as the army’s proxy to beat up left-wing protesters at a time of transition in Indonesian politics.3 1998 was a key year: with the retirement of Suharto, the end of over three decades of “New Order” army dictatorship, and reforms (reformasi) that led to the army’s surrender of its domestic security function to a newly created civilian police force.
To others, the army’s connection to the FPI is less clear now than it was in 1998. At that time the connection was reminiscent of the army’s use, in its 1965 suppression of the Communist PKI, of paramilitary preman or thugs from its creation, the Pemuda Pancasila (Pancasila Youth). Eventually the FPI, initially financed by Police General Sutanto, began to be supported by funds from Saudi Arabia.4 As the FPI expanded, its makeup and policies became more diverse.
According to Nairn, the army still prevails:
In repeated, detailed conversations with me, the key protest figures and officials who track them have dismissed the movement against Ahok and the charges against him as a mere pretext for a larger objective: sidelining the country’s president, Jokowi, and helping the army avoid consequences for its mass killings of civilians — such as the 1965 massacres that were endorsed by the U.S. government, which armed and backed the Indonesian military.
Allan Nairn has been following and exposing the brutalities of the Indonesian Army (TNI) for decades. He has also been remarkably successful in gaining access to key figures, notably former General Prabowo Subianto, “a US trainee and protege … implicated in torture, kidnap and mass murder.”5 Prabowo in particular is a poster boy for America’s duplicitous policies in Indonesia. Congress cut off funds for training his Kopassus shock troops in 1991, after they murdered up to 270 protesters, including schoolchildren, at a peaceful demonstration in East Timor. But the Pentagon, undeterred, secretly continued the training under a Pentagon project called JCET (Joint Combined Education and Training).6
As Commander of the Army Strategic Reserve Command, KOSTRAD, Prabowo repressed the bloody 1998 Jakarta riots that led to the resignation of his then father-in-law Suharto. Prabowo was subsequently discharged from the TNI, after he acknowledged responsibility for the kidnapping of thirteen activists who “disappeared.”7 He then became a multibillionaire businessman, but also sought a political career. With the support of two pro-military parties he contested the 2014 election, losing narrowly in a runoff to the civilian populist Jokowi.
Underlying Nairn’s latest story is the desire of Prabowo, the TNI generals and their parties, to preserve what they can of their former privileges, in a new age of Reformasi as civilians like Jokowi nudge Indonesia slowly towards a more egalitarian future. Nairn’s chief source, Gen. Kivlan Zen, is a Prabowo ally and associate from KOSTRAD. Kivlan in turn points to the central role in the alleged “coup” plan of Prabowo’s 2014 campaign manager Fadli Zon, who as Nairn reports “is known for publicly praising Donald Trump and appeared with the candidate at a press conference at Trump Tower during the opening days of the [Trump] presidential campaign.”8
Given Nairn’s sterling press record, we can be confident that he has accurately reported what Kivlan and Admiral Ponto and others told him. What we can ask is the reason for their apparent candor: is it simply to reveal truth, or is it rather to restore the threatening image that the generals long used to maintain their influence? (As someone who has never been to Indonesia, I cannot say, but my main Indonesian source advises me not to trust Kivlan Zein “when he says anything.”)
It does seem clear that the Prabowo faction have reached out to Trump and taken heart from Trump’s election. Prabowo himself has boasted to Nairn about his excellent connections with the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency that was once headed by Trump’s now disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.9 And it is indeed telling that Fadli Zon, Prabowo’s contact with Trump, has been an active defender of the FPI and appeared with their leader in the FPI-led anti-Ahok demonstrations.
Americans should also be concerned that the Freeport-McMoRan Mining Company has engaged as attorney Munarman, an FPI spokesperson and former Commander of the FPI’s paramilitary group Laskar Islam. Historically Freeport has not been friendly to democracy in Indonesia. A declassified U.S. State Department cable reveals that by April 1965 (when Sukarno was still in power) Freeport Sulphur had reached a preliminary “arrangement” with unnamed Indonesian officials for what would become a multi-billion dollar investment in West Papua.10 Today Freeport is currently in a dispute with the Jokowi government, and reportedly may be “on the verge of losing what is arguably its most important asset, as Indonesia prepares to strip ownership from it of the massive Grasberg copper and gold mine.”11
Indonesia’s democracy is fragile, and its constitution will continue to be challenged by both generals and Islamists with foreign backing. But the complexity of Indonesia’s pluralist society, which makes it difficult for democracy to function smoothly, also makes it difficult to overthrow it. So many conflicting forces are at work. As Nairn points out, Jokowi’s military defender, Gen. A.M. Hendropriyono, (former BIN chief and CIA asset), has also been implicated in major crimes.
We should not forget that in 2014 Allen Nairn posted a warning similar to his present one, that Indonesia's army special forces (Kopassus) and the state intelligence agency (BIN) are involved in a covert operation … designed to ensure that the July 9 [2014] vote count will be won by General Prabowo Subianto, the former Kopassus commander who was a longtime protege of the Pentagon and US intelligence.12
Nairn’s warning then was well documented. But Jokowi won.
We in America should pursue what Nairn’s current essay has to tell us about Trump’s global alliance in Indonesia. Elsewhere he has reminded us that after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 there were actually presented, at the White House and at Camp David, proposals for a US Special Forces attack on Indonesia. The idea was for a dramatic strike to send a message to the Muslim world. It would involve simultaneous moves against Indonesia and other countries.13
No such attack was launched. But if such ideas could be discussed in the presence of George W. Bush, what may not be contemplated in Donald Trump’s call to fight “Islamic terrorism all over the world”?
Peter Dale Scott
In Indonesia, a Trump-Army-pro-Isis Alliance?
Allan Nairn
Associates of Donald Trump in Indonesia have joined army officers and a vigilante street movement linked to ISIS in a campaign that ultimately aims to oust the country’s president. According to Indonesian military and intelligence officials and senior figures involved in what they call “the coup,” the move against President Joko Widodo (known more commonly as Jokowi), a popular elected civilian, is being impelled from behind the scenes by active and retired generals.
Prominent supporters of the coup movement include Fadli Zon, vice speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives and Donald Trump’s main political booster in the country; and Hary Tanoe, Trump’s primary Indonesian business partner, who is building two Trump resorts, one in Bali and one outside Jakarta.
This account of the movement to overthrow President Jokowi is based on dozens of interviews and is supplemented by internal army, police, and intelligence documents I obtained or viewed in Indonesia, as well as by NSA intercepts obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Many sources on both sides of the coup spoke on condition of anonymity. Two of them expressed apparently well-founded concerns about their safety.
The Coup Movement
On the surface, the massive street protests surrounding the April 19 gubernatorial election have arisen from opposition to Jakarta’s ethnic Chinese incumbent governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as Ahok. As a result of pressure from the well-funded, well-organized demonstrations that have drawn hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — to Jakarta’s streets, Gov. Ahok is currently standing trial for religious blasphemy because of an offhand comment about a verse in the Quran. On Thursday, the day after he hears the results of the very close governor’s election, he is due back in court for his blasphemy trial.
[...]
For the full article, please visit below links:
The Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus 27 April 2017
http://apjjf.org/2017/09/Nairn.html
PDF Version: http://apjjf.org/-Allan-Nairn--Peter-Dale-Scott/5034/article.pdf
Cross-posted at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/trumps...seek-to-oust-elected-president-jokowi/5588694
Allan Nairn
With an introduction by Peter Dale Scott
April 27, 2017
Volume 15 | Issue 9 | Number6
Introduction
The following important essay, by the respected and reliable journalist Allan Nairn, reports what Indonesian generals and others have told him of an army-backed movement to overthrow Indonesia’s civilian-led moderate constitutional government. Its thesis is alarming: that “Associates of Donald Trump in Indonesia have joined army officers and a vigilante street movement linked to ISIS in a campaign that ultimately aims to oust the country’s president… Joko Widodo (known more commonly as Jokowi).”
More recently a New York Times editorial, pointing to the electoral defeat on April 19 of Jakarta’s incumbent Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (or Ahok), has also expressed concern about the fate of Indonesia’s fragile democracy.1 But the threat perceived by the Times is that from “hard line Islamic groups” (many of them Saudi-funded), not that from the leaders (often U.S.-trained and financed) of the Indonesian army. The editorial reflects the fear of many scholars that traditional Indonesian Islam, relatively tolerant but unable to compete with Saudi wealth, may lose out to well-funded Salafi extremism. (Last October Margaret Scott warned in the New York Review of Books that it was “far-fetched” to think that Indonesia’s Islamic moderates “can stop Salafi recruitment, much less ISIS recruitment.”2)
Important in both narratives are the massive recent protests in Jakarta by Islamist thugs (preman) of the Islamic Defenders Front or FPI (Front Pembela Islam) that led to Ahok’s defeat.
The FPI was founded in 1998 with military and police backing, and at first served as the army’s proxy to beat up left-wing protesters at a time of transition in Indonesian politics.3 1998 was a key year: with the retirement of Suharto, the end of over three decades of “New Order” army dictatorship, and reforms (reformasi) that led to the army’s surrender of its domestic security function to a newly created civilian police force.
To others, the army’s connection to the FPI is less clear now than it was in 1998. At that time the connection was reminiscent of the army’s use, in its 1965 suppression of the Communist PKI, of paramilitary preman or thugs from its creation, the Pemuda Pancasila (Pancasila Youth). Eventually the FPI, initially financed by Police General Sutanto, began to be supported by funds from Saudi Arabia.4 As the FPI expanded, its makeup and policies became more diverse.
According to Nairn, the army still prevails:
In repeated, detailed conversations with me, the key protest figures and officials who track them have dismissed the movement against Ahok and the charges against him as a mere pretext for a larger objective: sidelining the country’s president, Jokowi, and helping the army avoid consequences for its mass killings of civilians — such as the 1965 massacres that were endorsed by the U.S. government, which armed and backed the Indonesian military.
Allan Nairn has been following and exposing the brutalities of the Indonesian Army (TNI) for decades. He has also been remarkably successful in gaining access to key figures, notably former General Prabowo Subianto, “a US trainee and protege … implicated in torture, kidnap and mass murder.”5 Prabowo in particular is a poster boy for America’s duplicitous policies in Indonesia. Congress cut off funds for training his Kopassus shock troops in 1991, after they murdered up to 270 protesters, including schoolchildren, at a peaceful demonstration in East Timor. But the Pentagon, undeterred, secretly continued the training under a Pentagon project called JCET (Joint Combined Education and Training).6
As Commander of the Army Strategic Reserve Command, KOSTRAD, Prabowo repressed the bloody 1998 Jakarta riots that led to the resignation of his then father-in-law Suharto. Prabowo was subsequently discharged from the TNI, after he acknowledged responsibility for the kidnapping of thirteen activists who “disappeared.”7 He then became a multibillionaire businessman, but also sought a political career. With the support of two pro-military parties he contested the 2014 election, losing narrowly in a runoff to the civilian populist Jokowi.
Underlying Nairn’s latest story is the desire of Prabowo, the TNI generals and their parties, to preserve what they can of their former privileges, in a new age of Reformasi as civilians like Jokowi nudge Indonesia slowly towards a more egalitarian future. Nairn’s chief source, Gen. Kivlan Zen, is a Prabowo ally and associate from KOSTRAD. Kivlan in turn points to the central role in the alleged “coup” plan of Prabowo’s 2014 campaign manager Fadli Zon, who as Nairn reports “is known for publicly praising Donald Trump and appeared with the candidate at a press conference at Trump Tower during the opening days of the [Trump] presidential campaign.”8
Given Nairn’s sterling press record, we can be confident that he has accurately reported what Kivlan and Admiral Ponto and others told him. What we can ask is the reason for their apparent candor: is it simply to reveal truth, or is it rather to restore the threatening image that the generals long used to maintain their influence? (As someone who has never been to Indonesia, I cannot say, but my main Indonesian source advises me not to trust Kivlan Zein “when he says anything.”)
It does seem clear that the Prabowo faction have reached out to Trump and taken heart from Trump’s election. Prabowo himself has boasted to Nairn about his excellent connections with the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency that was once headed by Trump’s now disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.9 And it is indeed telling that Fadli Zon, Prabowo’s contact with Trump, has been an active defender of the FPI and appeared with their leader in the FPI-led anti-Ahok demonstrations.
Americans should also be concerned that the Freeport-McMoRan Mining Company has engaged as attorney Munarman, an FPI spokesperson and former Commander of the FPI’s paramilitary group Laskar Islam. Historically Freeport has not been friendly to democracy in Indonesia. A declassified U.S. State Department cable reveals that by April 1965 (when Sukarno was still in power) Freeport Sulphur had reached a preliminary “arrangement” with unnamed Indonesian officials for what would become a multi-billion dollar investment in West Papua.10 Today Freeport is currently in a dispute with the Jokowi government, and reportedly may be “on the verge of losing what is arguably its most important asset, as Indonesia prepares to strip ownership from it of the massive Grasberg copper and gold mine.”11
Indonesia’s democracy is fragile, and its constitution will continue to be challenged by both generals and Islamists with foreign backing. But the complexity of Indonesia’s pluralist society, which makes it difficult for democracy to function smoothly, also makes it difficult to overthrow it. So many conflicting forces are at work. As Nairn points out, Jokowi’s military defender, Gen. A.M. Hendropriyono, (former BIN chief and CIA asset), has also been implicated in major crimes.
We should not forget that in 2014 Allen Nairn posted a warning similar to his present one, that Indonesia's army special forces (Kopassus) and the state intelligence agency (BIN) are involved in a covert operation … designed to ensure that the July 9 [2014] vote count will be won by General Prabowo Subianto, the former Kopassus commander who was a longtime protege of the Pentagon and US intelligence.12
Nairn’s warning then was well documented. But Jokowi won.
We in America should pursue what Nairn’s current essay has to tell us about Trump’s global alliance in Indonesia. Elsewhere he has reminded us that after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 there were actually presented, at the White House and at Camp David, proposals for a US Special Forces attack on Indonesia. The idea was for a dramatic strike to send a message to the Muslim world. It would involve simultaneous moves against Indonesia and other countries.13
No such attack was launched. But if such ideas could be discussed in the presence of George W. Bush, what may not be contemplated in Donald Trump’s call to fight “Islamic terrorism all over the world”?
Peter Dale Scott
In Indonesia, a Trump-Army-pro-Isis Alliance?
Allan Nairn
Associates of Donald Trump in Indonesia have joined army officers and a vigilante street movement linked to ISIS in a campaign that ultimately aims to oust the country’s president. According to Indonesian military and intelligence officials and senior figures involved in what they call “the coup,” the move against President Joko Widodo (known more commonly as Jokowi), a popular elected civilian, is being impelled from behind the scenes by active and retired generals.
Prominent supporters of the coup movement include Fadli Zon, vice speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives and Donald Trump’s main political booster in the country; and Hary Tanoe, Trump’s primary Indonesian business partner, who is building two Trump resorts, one in Bali and one outside Jakarta.
This account of the movement to overthrow President Jokowi is based on dozens of interviews and is supplemented by internal army, police, and intelligence documents I obtained or viewed in Indonesia, as well as by NSA intercepts obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Many sources on both sides of the coup spoke on condition of anonymity. Two of them expressed apparently well-founded concerns about their safety.
The Coup Movement
On the surface, the massive street protests surrounding the April 19 gubernatorial election have arisen from opposition to Jakarta’s ethnic Chinese incumbent governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as Ahok. As a result of pressure from the well-funded, well-organized demonstrations that have drawn hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — to Jakarta’s streets, Gov. Ahok is currently standing trial for religious blasphemy because of an offhand comment about a verse in the Quran. On Thursday, the day after he hears the results of the very close governor’s election, he is due back in court for his blasphemy trial.
[...]
For the full article, please visit below links:
The Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus 27 April 2017
http://apjjf.org/2017/09/Nairn.html
PDF Version: http://apjjf.org/-Allan-Nairn--Peter-Dale-Scott/5034/article.pdf
Cross-posted at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/trumps...seek-to-oust-elected-president-jokowi/5588694
