Indonesia-US NAMRU-2 (Naval Medical Research Unit Two)

The presence of US NAMRU-2 (US Naval Medical Research Unit-2 ) in Indonesia as a tool of US intelligence interests in order to perpetuate the US healthcare business in Indonesia, has been justified by someone who has worked for 30 years as Indonesian intelligence officer.

Tracking the career record of former Indonesian Health Minister, named Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih has given too much controversy. Before her death, Endang was known as a person that chosen by President of Indonesia to replace Siti Fadilah Supari, previous Health Minister, because her tight connection to the US.

Before served as Indonesian Health Minister, Endang name was rarely mentioned by media. She earned a Master of Public Health in University of Indonesia (UI) in 1979, and earned a Doctor of Public Health in Harvard University, USA 1992 and 1997. She started her career as Head of Puskesmas (Public Health Center) in Waipare NTT, Indonesia.

During her serving as an employee of Indonesian Public Health Department, Endang has close connection to the US through NAMRU 2 (US Naval Medical Reseach Unit Two). Due to her proximity to the US, many rival political parties accusing her as US stooge in Indonesia.

Endang’s closeness and interests with NAMRU-2 has been justified by Siti Fadilah Supari (a former Health Minister). NAMRU-2 operation had ever been shut down in October 16, 2009, because there were many demonstrations reaps criticism. As a former employee of NAMRU-2 and then served as important employee of Health Ministry, Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih had re-opened NAMRU-2 operation.

This attitude makes the Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari feels so upset and accused Endang sold H5N1 virus to US without permission, and assessed Endang more concerned into the business than Indonesian internal interests. Then Endang suspended and transfered to become regular staff by Siti Fadilah Supari.

Endang responded Siti Fadilah Supari’s reaction calmly, because she knows the plan of President of Indonesia to replace Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari with herself. Siti Fadilah Supari was so shocked, after hearing the president decision to choose Endang to become Health Minister, then it really happens, finally Endang chosen to replace Siti Fadilah Supari officially by decision of President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY).

President SBY is also known as a best person who having connection to the US, he has owned many good relationships with US, especially Bush and Obama who has visited him three times. President SBY had ever served as Chief of United Nations Military Observers and United Nation Protection Force in 1996-1997, and his long career lists made him not as a stranger anymore for the US:

1. American Language Course, Lackland, Texas US (1976)
2. Airbone and Ranger Course, Fort Benning, US (1976)
3. Infantry Officer Advanced Course, Fort Benning, US (1982-1983)
4. Jungle Warfare School, Panama (1983)
5. Anti-tank Weapon Course in Belgium and Germany (1984)
6. Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenwort, Cansas, US and
7. Earned Master of Art (MA) from Management Webster University, Missouri, US.

NAMRU-2 is a biomedical research laboratory for studying the infectious diseases for the common interest of US Department of Health, and the international public health community. NAMRU-2 was established in 1970 under request of the Dept of Health Ministry in the era CIA-backed Soeharto regime.

This joint research activities focusses on malaria, viral diseases such as dengue fever, intestinal infections, and other infectious diseases, including avian influenza. NAMRU-2 claims, their research is only related to tropical diseases which occurs naturally.

The suspicion on NAMRU-2 as a tool of US intelligence interests in order to perpetuate the US healthcare business in Indonesia has been warranted by some intelligence experts, such Rear Admiral (Ret.) Subardo who had served for 30 years in the field of intelligence service.

Subardo’s expression was strengthened by the results of Endang’s scientific works, that is in the same line with NAMRU-2 mission which used as research material for US intelligence to get H5N1 vaccines from Indonesia.

The following is a few Endang’s scientific papers on the health:

1. Network Development of Virology and Epidemiology of Influenza in Indonesia (2007),
2. Characteristics of bird flu cases in Indonesia (July 2005-May 2006), and
3. Social and behavioral research studies that related to the sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS in Indonesia (1997-2003).

In response to the chosen Health Minister, Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih. Siti Fadilah Supari wrote a book “Time to Change the World! God Hand Behind Avian Influenza Viruses and the United States and WHO Conspiracy” in developing a biological weapon using bird flu virus. This book drawn protests from the officials of WHO and the US.

London Economist magazine put Fadilah as a figure who started a revolution in saving the world from the impact of bird flu. In her book, Siti Fadilah Supari reveals the masks of US intelligence in the third world countries and the dirty health project.

Began when many countries (including Indonesia) stricken by bird flu virus. WHO orders the countries that suffering from bird flu virus to submit virus sample to the WHO lab. Then in the book said, the results of the virus research never come back to he affected countries. She took an example from Vietnam, which has a same character of bird flu virus in Indonesia, the places where the bird flu disease were spreading rapidly.

Due to the absence of Avian influenza vaccine that has been promised by the US to resend it to the affected countries, then it forced the third world countries to buy Avian influenza vaccine from one of US pharmaceutical company with very expensive price. Bird flu or Avian influenza vaccine the US company has sold, allegedly obtained from the samples of the bird flu virus in Vietnam and Indonesia. This acts were also allegedly committed by NAMRU-2 in Indonesia through Endang’s help.

Some experts still suspecting, the President’s decision to choose Endang as a Health Minister because of her proximity with NAMRU-2, Endang had ever served as Head of Laboratory in NAMRU-2 and the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, in the field of infectious disease management, on July-December 2001.

The allegations were strenghtened by some reasons such the rejection of ministerial candidates to replace Siti, i.e Nila Djuwita Anfasa Moeloek, with reasons, she doesn’t have ability to face heavy pressures. In fact, Endang have a bad record during her career in the Health Ministry.

Even, Endang was chosen as Health Minister without going through the medical tests during the selection, then a year later, Endang was sentenced having cancer by Gatot Subroto Military Hospital. However, yes or not a candidate to be elected as a minister, it will depend fullest to the President of Indonesia, SBY. Because the statement of medical tests for a ministerial candidate was only initial part assessment for Endang. Many people believes, it was because of SBY’s attitude which closely connected with the US political interventions.

Finally Endang passed away in the age 57 years old, on Wednesday (05/02/2012) around 11:41 PM in Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital (RSCM),Jakarta. Lung cancer that suffered by Endang also left controversy. How could a cancer suddenly appeared within 1.5 years. Moreover, she was not a smoker and her past medical reports doesn’t explain the presence of cancer cells in her body. As a Health Minister, the routine medical check-up will always be held. Although there was a symptom of the cancer cells, but if constantly put through medical check-up on regular basis, the cancer will be detected and it can be cured in its early stages. Endang was even reported ever had medical check-up in US in regular basis. Now she has gone, her recent life story has become a big question, and no one talks about it anymore.

B. JAKARTA 673 C. JAKARTA 575 AND PREVIOUS

Classified By: Pol/C Joseph Legend Novak,

reasons 1.4(b+d). 1. (C) SUMMARY: The basis of Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari’s vitriolic public attacks against the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit in Jakarta (NAMRU-2) is her desire to make it a populist/vote-getting issue in the run-up to the 2009 national elections. Our failure to respond to Indonesia’s draft MOU on NAMRU’s continued presence here gives her an open field to make mischief. 2. (C) SUMMARY (Con’d): Given rising discontent with the nation’s broken health care system, NAMRU-2 is the one populist issue the grandiose minister can use to burnish her weak credentials. Now that recent Mission outreach has begun to set the record straight regarding Supari’s allegations, we would be best served to sit this one out in the public arena while pursing private diplomacy to educate policy-makers who can be influential on the issue. We also need to continue to try to keep NAMRU’s future separate from the sample sharing issue, resisting the Health Minister’s efforts to conflate the two. END SUMMARY. 3. (C) In the run-up to the 2009 elections, Health Minister Supari has latched onto the presence of NAMRU-2 in Indonesia to appeal to nationalist and populist sentiment. Supari was nominated for her current post by Syafi’i Maarif, former chairman of Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic organization Muhammadiyah. She also is close to Maarif’s predecessor at Muhammadiyah, populist politician Amien Rais, a distant relative. Now chair of the small Islamic National Mandate Party (PAN), Rais is a leading critic of foreign direct investment. Supari’s views on sample sharing and NAMRU are possibly inspired by Rais’ platform of criticizing foreign economic interests, according to Endy Bayuni, Jakarta Post chief editor and an insightful political analyst. BROKEN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM 4. (C) A Muhammadiyah insider, Piet Khaidir, posited that Supari has honed in on NAMRU-2 to promote her own political ambitions. She wants to remain health minister after the 2009 elections. Other sources have told us that she has vice presidential aspirations. While NAMRU-2 is not a major popular issue in and of itself, her success in linking it to her ongoing campaign on sample sharing has increased public interest in NAMRU-2. In addition, Supari’s poor handling of Indonesia’s broken health system and skyrocketing health care costs are huge potential liabilities to her, making NAMRU-2 a useful diversion, Khaidir told DepPol/C. Supari discovered that issues related to divesting foreigners of Indonesian assets are “very sexy,” Khaidir said. 5. (C) Before her appointment as minister, Supari was a cardiologist. According to another Muhammadiyah source, Raja Juli Antoni, her strong nationalistic views were not known until after she became minister in 2004, adding that because she never lived abroad, Supari is very parochial. However, Supari does have a strong mind of her own, Antoni told us. In her recently released book, “It’s Time for the World to Change: Divine Hand Behind Avian Influenza,” Supari describes Indonesia’s inability to acquire Tamiflu in 2005 as a “deep wound in my heart” (ref C). She writes that rich countries intend to profit from epidemics in poor countries like Indonesia. Born in the traditional Central Java city of Solo and schooled entirely in Indonesia, Supari writes fondly of Sukarno as a leader “who made western countries afraid of him,” the same colonialists who “baby-fed” Indonesia through charity. She also refers frequently to her Islamic faith and her role as a champion of the poor. CONSPIRACY THEORIES THRIVE 6. (C) The controversy over NAMRU-2 as a nationalist issue JAKARTA 00000860 002 OF 003 has simmered for a decade. One new element is that Supari has been able to unite this traditional nationalist/xenophobic sentiment here with part of the Islamic community. A society which thrives on rumors and takes conspiracy theories at face value, Indonesia has long accepted western conspiracy theories as fact. The same type of paranoid Indonesian civil servants and pundits who claim that NAMRU-2 is carrying out top secret weapons research (just as Supari claims Los Alamos is doing with Indonesian a.i. samples) also believe the U.S. is plotting to divide and conquer Indonesia by promoting separatism. Ultra-nationalists have even linked NAMRU-2 with designs to support Papuan independence, telling the media that NAMRU-2 is connected to tension in that province through its research in Papua. (Note: In approximately 1995, a NAMRU request to build a small airstrip in Papua–then Irian Jaya–to support a malaria study there, was viewed by TNI as evidence of U.S. meddling in Papua.). 7. (C) On April 23, two radical Muslim organizations, Mer-C and An-Nashir Institute, jumped on the bandwagon with a press conference, a gambit to bolster prospects for conservative Muslim parties in the next elections. On April 25, Supari appeared at another joint press conference with these same organizations. Muhammadiyah sources told us that Supari’s joining forces with these extremist organizations has nothing to do with Muhammadiyah or her own religious views. Rather, both Supari and these organizations are appealing to the same Islamic nationalist base which has a small but important following in Indonesia. 8. (C) Supari’s worldview has enough resonance in Indonesia that mainstream politicians and pundits are publicly walking gingerly around the issue. President Yudhoyono wrote an introduction to Supari’s book reportedly without knowing that it contained farfetched theories about bio-weapons production. (Note: Others say that Supari also is close to the First Lady.) Yudhoyono’s key foreign affairs adviser, Dino Djalal, has been criticized by Yudhoyono’s enemies for supporting NAMRU-2. The defense minister has raised security concerns and the foreign minister diplomatic immunity issues about NAMRU-2, without taking a strong stand on NAMRU’S future. Several members of Parliament have seized on the issue for their own political purposes, calling for NAMRU-2 to be closed. MEDIA COVERAGE CORRECTS THE STORY 9. (C) Given Supardi’s passion for this issue and the hesitation of policymakers to undercut her, it is unclear when her diatribe will relent. However, the U.S. Mission took the offensive against misinformation about NAMRU-2 with a press conference held by the Ambassador and NAMRU Director on April 24. This resulted in extensive media coverage affirming that NAMRU-2 is conducting legitimate research on naturally occurring tropical diseases in transparent, collaborative and mutually beneficial fashion. Nearly 30 journalists toured NAMRU on April 25. During these tours and others by Indonesian officials, visitors have been allowed to open every door and talk to all Indonesian staff. During her April 18 unannounced visit to NAMRU-2, Minister Supari was pleasant and surprised that there were so many Indonesians there, although she never acknowledged this fact in her critical comments later to the media. 10. (C) The current media coverage has allowed the Mission to begin to set the public record straight. Meanwhile, Yudhoyono’s office has been supportive of NAMRU despite negative statements by Cabinet officials. While some skeptics will never believe the true story, attention should now turn from public diplomacy to efforts to educate influential Indonesians individually, such as members of Parliament, officials and civil society. The best hope to keep NAMRU-2 in Indonesia is to convince key policymakers of its continued usefulness to both countries. The critical next step is the resumption of negotiations over NAMRU’s MOU