Nairn Releases More on ‘the Americans’ Fair-Haired Boy’ Prabowo

"Much of Prabowo's power came from the fact that he was Washington's man as well as Suharto's," Allan Nairn wrote on July 1. (Reuters Photo)

Jakarta. Award-winning US journalist Allan Nairn continued on Tuesday to shake up Indonesia’s presidential campaign by publishing another article on his off-the-record interview with candidate Prabowo Subianto conducted in 2001.

Nairn published articles on June 21 and June 26, detailing Prabowo’s 2001 comments on his involvement in human rights abuses in East Timor. The article published on July 1, however, moves away from revelations on Prabowo’s actions — “he killed civilians,” Nairn wrote — and documents the former Army Special Forces (Kopassus) commander’s links to the United States’ intelligence establishment.

“I was the Americans’ fair-haired boy,” Nairn said Prabowo told him, characterizing the relationship as that of “good friends.”

Nairn writes that this relationship changed, however, after Prabowo was dumped out of power with the fall of Suharto, his father-in-law at the time, in 1998. The US switched loyalties to military commander Wiranto — “Prabowo’s most-hated rival” — and began criticizing Prabowo for the abuses he had perpetrated with US backing. According to Nairn, Prabowo was chastened by this experience, which was compounded by Washington denying him entry to visit the United States for his son’s university graduation.

The issue of Prabowo’s relationship with the United States was exhumed in diplomatic circles as recently as last week, when US Ambassador Robert O. Blake Jr. took the controversial step of e-mailing the Wall Street Journal in what was perceived by some in Prabowo’s camp as being tantamount to meddling in Indonesia’s election process.

The ambassador expressed no position on either presidential candidate but, the letter read, “We do, however, take seriously allegations of human rights abuses, and urge the Indonesian government to fully investigate the claims.”

“Washington’s man in Indonesia,” and “our fair-haired boy,” has not been fully investigated, despite his commanding officer in 1998, Wiranto, going on the record last month to say that Prabowo was thrown out of the military for ordering the abduction of Indonesian pro-democracy protesters — 13 of whom remain missing, presumed dead.

Nairn also recounts a quotation by Robert S. Gelbard — the US ambassador to Indonesia from 1999 to 2001 — in which he calls Prabowo “perhaps the greatest violator of human rights in contemporary times among the Indonesian Military. His deeds in the late 1990s before democracy took hold were shocking, even by TNI standards.”

Nairn notes, however, that Gelbard’s predecessor, Stapleton Roy, praised Prabowo in diplomatic cables for “maintaining discipline and restraint.”

This took place at a time and in an environment where schisms in the TNI conferred a sense of unpredictability for the United States, Nairn writes, and Prabowo was a useful character for Washington to cool the nationalist elements in the TNI.

“Within Indonesia,” one US cable said, “especially in the armed forces, an internal debate pits two factions against each other.  One faction is progressive, educated, and enlightened… The other is introverted, ethnocentric, anti-Western.  It believes that foreign education and training is a polluting influence. We have an opportunity to influence that debate and the future in support of our long-term interests.”

The bulk of Nairn’s latest article concerns the details of Prabowo’s on-again off-again relationship with the United States, including Prabowo facilitating the presence of US special forces on Indonesian soil and him being handled by the highest levels of US power — including the secretaries of defense and special operations commanders.

The original interview was conducted under the condition of anonymity. There were no recordings of the exchange. The statements that Nairn attributed to Prabowo were sourced from his notes.

By Jakarta Globe on 09:14 pm Jul 01, 2014