[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 71 (Thursday, June 4, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S5658]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      U.S. SPECIAL FORCES TRAINING

 Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, several months ago, as the conflict 
in Indonesia escalated, United States Special Forces training of 
Indonesian troops came under intense scrutiny. As journalists and human 
rights groups compiled and publicized allegations of torture, 
disappearances and killings by ``Kopassus,'' an Indonesian special 
forces commando group, and other Indonesian military units, the Defense 
Department was conducting joint exercises with some of these same 
forces. It was only several weeks ago that Defense Secretary Cohen 
suspended the program because of instability in the country.
  The training of U.S. Special Forces on foreign soil provides a 
valuable opportunity for our soldiers to learn how other militaries 
operate and to familiarize themselves with different cultures, climates 
and terrain. They need to be able to operate in the most difficult 
conditions. However, while the program benefits our soldiers, it also 
provides training to foreign security forces. And sometimes those 
forces have a history of involvement in human rights violations. Unlike 
the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program which 
screens foreign participants for any involvement in human rights 
violations, the Special Forces program, which conducted training 
exercises in 102 countries in fiscal year 1997, apparently does not. No 
credible effort is made to screen prospective foreign participants. If 
there were, there is no way this training would be conducted with 
Kopassus, which has been implicated in a pattern of torture and 
extrajudicial killings dating back many years.
  A May 25, 1998 article in the Washington Post describes how the 
Special Forces program in Colombia has continued to operate and 
maintain close relationships with foreign security forces there despite 
the Colombian army's abysmal human rights record, pervasive allegations 
of drug-related corruption and accusations linking the armed forces 
with paramilitary killings of civilians. Just as in Indonesia, where 
Special Forces training continued despite a congressional cut-off of 
IMET assistance due to human rights concerns, the Special Forces 
training program in Colombia, funded by the Department of Defense, 
continued in 1997 even though our aid to the Colombian army was 
withheld on account of a human rights provision in our Foreign 
Operations law.
  I do not oppose Special Forces training. Our soldiers need the 
experience. But we also need a consistent human rights policy. The 
human rights procedures that have been applied to the IMET program are 
far from foolproof, but they do help reduce the chance that the foreign 
forces we train have been involved in human rights abuses. These same 
screening procedures should apply to training conducted by U.S. Special 
Forces.
  Mr. President, a country is judged, in part, by the company it keeps. 
By failing to establish a clear, transparent and comprehensive policy 
that governs all our military training programs and adequately takes 
into account human rights considerations, the United States, and our 
soldiers, will continue to be implicated in the atrocities of those we 
train.

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