Military Career
Prabowo enrolled in Indonesia's Military Academy in Magelang in 1970. He graduated in 1974 with others who would gain senior leadership positions such as Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
In 1976, Prabowo was assigned as commander of Group 1 Komando Pasukan Sandhi Yudha (Kopassandha), which is part of the Indonesian Army's Nanggala Operation in East Timor. Prabowo, then 26 years old, was the youngest Nanggala commander. Prabowo led the mission to capture and kill the founder and vice president of Fretilin, who was the first Prime Minister of East Timor, Nicolau dos Reis Lobato. Guiding Prabowo was Antonio Lobato – Nicolau's younger brother. Prabowo's company found Nicolau as he was being escorted in Maubisse, fifty kilometers south of Dili. Nicolau died from a bullet wound to his stomach on 31 December 1978.
In 1983 Prabowo was appointed vice commander of Kopassus's 81 Detachment before going to Fort Benning, in the United States for commando training.
As commander of Kopassus Group 3 in the early 1990s, Major General Prabowo attempted to crush the East Timorese independence movement by using irregular troops (hooded "ninja" gangs dressed in black and operating at night) and, in main towns and villages, militias trained and directed by Kopassus commanders. Human rights abuses rose. The Army's 1997 campaign was called Operation Eradicate.
In 1996, Prabowo led the Mapenduma Operation in the mountainous terrain of Papua, Indonesia. The primary target of the operation was the release of 12 researchers from the Lorentz expedition, who were captured and taken hostage by the Free Papua Movement. 5 of the researchers were Indonesian, with the remainder being English, Dutch and German. The operation involved a Marine unit, Battalion 330 of Army Strategic Command, and a battalion belonging to the VIII/Trikora Military Area Command.
In the late 1990s, Prabowo was appointed head of the 27,000-strong Army Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad), the key Jakarta garrison that Suharto had commanded in 1965.
Read more about this topic: Prabowo Subianto
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