Indonesia was reportedly upset over insulting training material presented at an Australian Special Forces base. The country has now demanded an immediate suspension of its military cooperation with Australia.
Earlier today, reports confirmed that Indonesia will be suspending its joint training activities with Australia for an indefinite period of time. While the official reason behind this decision remains unclear, the latest reports suggested that Indonesia was seriously offended by the materials delivered during the training in Perth.
According to Indonesian newspaper Kompas, the ‘laminated’ training material was found to be disparaging to the Indonesian Special Forces group, known as Kopassus. Before the incident, Kompas claimed that a Kopassus member had discovered that the lessons being presented at Australia’s Special Forces base were not only demeaning to the Indonesian military but also to the nation’s founding principles of Pancasila.
But despite the aforementioned reports, Indonesian military spokesman, Major General Wuryanto, simply said that ‘technical matters’ were behind the suspension. Further, he assured that it is normal to have ‘ups and downs in every cooperation between two national forces’.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian and Australian Navy are scheduled to join the multinational training exercises in February. A spokesman for the Indonesian Navy who had just heard of the suspension said that he cannot give further confirmation on the future of the navy exercises.
“Whether or not we will continue with the joint exercise, I will have to get back to you on that,” First Admiral Jonias Mozes Sipasulta said, as quoted by ABC.
“I need to build more details first. Usually, we don’t suspend cooperation on education and training but now I heard we’ve suspended all cooperation,” he closed.
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