How the civil society of Indonesia can be assisted by the USA ?

USA is the mother of modern democracies. Since its independence in 1776, the democracy of USA has been challenged many times by various powerful internal narrow interests, who were trying to influence the government for their own narrow interests. USA civil society was emerged during the time, and has been strengthened in spite of all these non-democratic attacks, but still it has to continue struggle with lobbies of narrow interests.

The youngest democratic society of Indonesia can studied a lot from the rich experience of the civil society of the USA . The USA can contribute a lot for the strengthening of the Indonesian democracy by sharing its experience in these fields with local policy makers, and by empowering Indonesian civil society NGOs and initiatives.

USA administration can help the young democracy of Indonesia by sharing its rich experience on subjects like:

• How to protect the democracy from internal non-democratic powers.
• How to promote a society which adhere to the rule of law,
• How to raise civil service that serve the society faithfully, and
• How to enforce accountability on powerful institutions and figures.

If USA wants to strengthen the Indonesian democratic civil society, it should not strengthen elements in the Indonesian societies that were responsible for atrocities, - elements that never regret or paying for their crimes.

It was published that the USA under president Obama is going to defy the US law (Leahy Law) which said that the entire Kopassus unit is banned from receiving US military education or training, following allegations of their involvement in a number of atrocities in restive provinces. The law says the ban will only be lifted if the Indonesian government takes adequate legal steps to prosecute implicated officers.

So far, not even one Kopassus ex-generals were fairly sued in Indonesia …

The whole of the Indonesian army is still defying the civil society: By 2009, the military, known by its Indonesian acronym TNI, told to relinquish its business interests under reform legislation, but defied it.

History can show that collaboration between USA or any other strong power with armies, or army-units in most of the 3rd world, - were almost never strengthen democracy, but the opposite. Military officers, backed by Western powers, performed numerous anti-democracy coup d'états around the 3rd world, including the 1965 coup d'état by Suharto.

I hope the rumors are not true, - and the reality is that USA has changed its attitude since Obama was elected. I hope USA will stop its custom of weakening civil societies in the 3rd world. I hope the civil society of the USA will have the power to change the catastrophic US foreign policies.

(The article was published in www.thejakartapost.com and www.thejakartaglobe.com)