If international peacekeeping forces find themselves confronting the Indonesian army in the near future, it won't be for the first time.
In a corner of the military museum in Jakarta there is a scale model showing Indonesian soldiers fighting at Red Bridge in Surabaya on November 10th, 1945 against a "peacekeeping" mission of Dutch, British and Australian forces. That date is still commemorated in Indonesia as "hero day". The foreign troops had come to disarm the defeated Japanese at the end of the second World War, but found themselves caught up in Indonesia's fight for independence. However, they got more than they bargained for, the museum guide told me, adding with a smile, "like the UN mission in East Timor".
The museum is a monument to the fight to end 350 years of Dutch rule, and it reflects the official version of the role of the armed forces in creating an independent Indonesia in 1945. This is still the account propagated by Gen Suharto, despite his fall from grace last year. "Some of this will have to be rewritten; it's not a real history," the guide conceded as we came to a display showing a "general revolt" by the communist party in October 1965.
The accompanying inscription reads: "After the communists kidnapped seven generals and murdered them brutally, Suharto, as the commander of the strategic command, came forward to save the state."
There is no mention of other, more credible, versions of the killings, or of the 500,000 people slaughtered in mostly communal violence inspired by the military which accompanied Suharto's seizure of power.
Nor is there any mention in the museum of the enormous loss of life which resulted from the Indonesian army's largest and most costly military action ever, the invasion of East Timor in December 1975.
This is the subject of only one of the dozens of "shop-window" displays complete with hundreds of exquisite figures in battle formation which make up the museum. Located in a remote corner of the building, it contains a model of a hillside outside Dili from which members of the elite Kopassus unit are surveying the burning town. The accompanying inscription asserts that after the Portuguese left East Timor in 1974, five parties were formed, of which one, Fretilin, was "established by communist cadres", and that a civil war broke out in August 1975.
The leaders of the other political parties then asked the Indonesian government "to assist their citizens who were caught in the middle of a civil war", and subsequently declared their intention to integrate with Indonesia. Thus, in December 1975, the town of Dili "was seized by the freedom fighters of East Timor with the aid of Indonesian troops".
This, of course, ignores the fact that by December 1975 the civil war had long been won by Fretilin, and that the pro-integration parties formed only a small minority in East Timor politics. The inscription goes on to say that after a "fact-finding commission" visited Dili, Indonesia decided "to accept the wishes of the people of East Timor" and from July 17th, 1976, declared it formally a territory of the Republic of Indonesia.
This official portrayal of the military as almost a charitable organisation in its actions in East Timor - not just in the military museum but in school history books - helps explain the sense of betrayal of the widows and children of the Indonesian soldiers who died in East Timor at the prospect of the territory regaining its independence.
This group has established a "Communication Forum of the Children of the Fighters in the East Timor Military Operation" and this weekend protested outside the US and Australian embassies in Jakarta. Wearing the sometimes tattered uniforms of their dead fathers, they came in five buses from the suburb of Seroja, where widows have military housing. "We reject foreign interference," they said. "We won't keep quiet if we find foreigners intruding in our motherland."
Few people bother coming to the military museum these days. The reputation of the army sank last year to its lowest ebb after the killing of students in anti-Suharto demonstrations and evidence of brutal repression in Aceh.
In the Suharto era military officers moved into key political positions under a "dual role" strategy which allowed it to become the instrument of the dictator, and the armed forces have not lived down this legacy. Today three in four Indonesian people say they want the military out of politics. But the army's basic world view is still dominated by the drive for national unity which made it a cohesive force in 1945.
Today of course it also has many business interests to defend. Even the military museum guide seemed more concerned about the latter. "I have an antique gramophone player at home," he said, out of the blue, as we viewed some old fighter planes parked in the museum grounds. "Would you like to buy it?"