Nairn: Prabowo Is a Pawn of the United States

Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto delivers a speech before the Indonesian Council of World Affairs in Jakarta on June 30, 2014. (AFP Photo/Romeo Gacad)

Jakarta. Speaking to a select group of Indonesian press at an undisclosed Jakarta location on Tuesday, controversial American journalist Allan Nairn emphasized that a Prabowo Subianto win, come election day, will “absolutely” serve the interests of America in all of the wrong ways.

The secret meeting was scheduled to coincide with the release of Nairn’s second article based on an off-the-record conversation he had with Prabowo in 2001.

Speaking of the article — which details Prabowo’s links to the highest echelons of American government, big business and military including a handful of presidents, the Central Intelligence Agency as well as the Pentagon — Nairn deemed Prabowo’s nationalist campaign as a “scam” and “a 180-degree inversion of the truth.”

Asked why Prabowo’s so-called connections with the United States is of concern for Indonesians heading to the polls, Nairn told the Jakarta Globe that the web of economic interest, old intelligence associations and military cooperation that bind Prabowo and his family to US corporations and the Pentagon is so tight that one-sided American business interests as well as the US military will flourish with a Prabowo presidency.

“He should stop claiming that he is the hero who is going to stand up to America, that he is going to stand up to the foreign corporations and stop their exploitation because they become empty words,” said Nairn, who last week challenged the former lieutenant general to a day in court in an attempt to validate his claims.

Having been declared by the Indonesian Military “as a threat to national security” during his time reporting in East Timor’s fight for independence, Nairn is clearly no stranger to the country and of provoking those in power. He avoided a 10-year prison sentence in 1999 for defying a government ban on reporting in Dili.

It is not clear exactly how long Nairn has been here, or how he entered the country. However, judging by the unusual circumstances surrounding the press conference, the numerous cell phones he was juggling and the reported safe houses organized for him throughout the capital, he is an unwelcome visitor.

Nairn is currently preparing a third installment to his series, focusing on Prabowo’s links to the National Security Agency and his involvement in militia terror.

By Rebecca Lake on 08:41 pm Jul 02, 2014