Russ Feingold: “I would like to comment on one provision of the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that does not appear in this…”

“I would like to comment on one provision of the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that does not appear in this year's bill, for fiscal year 1999, and that is the provision that would impose certain restrictions for security assistance to Indonesia. As many of my colleagues may know, since 1992, the Congress has imposed restrictions on the provision of International Military Education and Training, known as IMET, to Indonesia, in response to the despicable treatment by the Indonesian military in East Timor the previous year, when more than 100 civilians were brutally massacred. In the Foreign Operations bill that year, for FY 1993, the Congress cut off all IMET assistance for Indonesia. A few years later, in the Foreign Operations Appropriation bill for fiscal year 1996, Congress authorized a limited form of IMET, known as "expanded IMET," meaning military training courses focused on the management of defense resources, improvement in domestic systems of military justice in accordance with internationally recognized human rights, and the principle of civilian control of the military.”