Indonesia's New President Has a Friend in Donald Trump

Controversy has been a constant companion of Prabowo Subianto, 72, onetime commander of Indonesia's feared Kopassus special forces and alleged kidnapper and executioner of political dissidents.

But on Wednesday, Prabowo — his history of controversy and condemnation in much of the world notwithstanding — declared he won a landslide election as president of Indonesia.

For more than 20 years, Prabowo was denied admission to the U.S. because of his alleged human rights violations. But that was ended in 2020, thanks to the intervention of then-President Donald Trump.

"He has, after all, been accused of directing the killing of separatists in East Timor during the 1970s and 1980s," noted Ben Bland of the Financial Times in a 2013 interview with Prabowo, "of kidnapping student dissidents and orchestrating riots against the ethnic Chinese to deflect growing public anger at [his then-father-in-law] Suharto's autocratic rule in 1998."

The widespread allegations of human rights violations led to Prabowo's dishonorable discharge from the army and, since 1998, the steadfast refusal of the U.S. State Department to grant him a visa. Even when his son graduated from Boston University, Prabowa was denied entrance to the U.S.

Thanks to Trump, all of that ended in 2020. Prabowo had been appointed defense minister a year before by Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Trump, who had been pursuing closer ties with Indonesia, lifted the ban on Prabowo and he was welcomed to the Pentagon by then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

"Minister Prabowo is the appointed minister of defense of the now twice duly-elected president of Indonesia, which is the third-largest democracy in the world," a Pentagon spokesman told reporters.

Amnesty International denounced Trump's lifting the ban on a visa for Prabowo, with the group's director of advocacy and government relations, Joanne Lin, calling it "an abrupt, complete reversal of long-standing U.S. policy."

Nevertheless, that is the policy of the U.S. toward Prabowo today as he prepares to assume the presidency of the world's largest Muslim-majority country.

Comparing Prabowo to another world leader with a controversial past on human rights, Paul Marshall, senior fellow of the Hudson Institute's Center For Religious Freedom, told us: "Since he is president of an important country, I think this overrides other concerns. Like [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi, he should be allowed to come here."

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.