-Caveat Lector-
> www.wsws.org
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> WSWS : News & Analysis : Asia : Indonesia & East Timor
>
> New evidence of Britain's arms trade with Indonesia
>
> By Tony Hyland
> 22 September 1999
>
> Back to screen version
>
> The Labour government's pretence of an “ethical” foreign policy looks
> increasingly threadbare as new evidence mounts over its arms sales to Indonesia.
>
> On Saturday 11 September, the government announced the suspension of further
> arms exports to the military-dominated regime in Jakarta. This followed the
> decision to cancel an invitation for Indonesian officials to attend the largest
> ever arms fair held in Britain last week.
>
> This could only be described by the media as such a major U-turn because the
> Labour government has pursued an unfettered trade in arms with Indonesia since
> coming to power, when Foreign Secretary Robin Cook pledged that humans rights
> “would be at the heart” of British foreign policy. The halting of arms sales to
> countries using them for external aggression or internal repression was meant to
> be an integral part of this.
>
> This pledge was broken as soon as it was put to the test. The new Foreign
> Secretary refused to revoke licenses for £160 million of defence exports,
> including Hawk trainer aircraft, armoured cars and water cannon, making Britain
> one of the major suppliers of military equipment to Indonesia last year.
>
> Instead of exercising greater caution when granting export licenses and
> government defence trading decisions becoming more transparent, there has been a
> deliberate campaign of obfuscation. The government continues to claim that it is
> virtually impossible to monitor the “end use” of the weapons it was selling.
> Journalists and human rights activists have disproved this contention. In July,
> journalists exposed the fact that the Indonesia air force had flown British-made
> Hawk aircraft over the East Timor capital, Dili, in a blatant act of
> intimidation.
>
> Right up until the recent massacres in East Timor the British government
> continued to export weapons to Jakarta, and was eager to solicit more trade with
> a regime whose complicity in the atrocities committed against the East Timorese
> continues to be documented.
>
> British arms exports to Indonesia were only halted after America had announced a
> similar decision 48 hours previously. However, the Ministry of Defence (MoD)
> remains opposed, and three Hawk fighter jets, which were stranded in transit to
> Indonesia in Bangkok, will still be delivered.
>
> The discrediting of Labour's much vaunted “ethical” foreign policy has created
> tensions within the Cabinet, leading to bitter recriminations. Sections of the
> media report that associates of Robin Cook blame Tony Blair's office, former
> Defence Secretary Lord Robertson, and Trade and Industry Secretaries past and
> present for obstructing attempts to block arms sales to “undesirable” regimes.
>
> Ken Purchase, the Foreign Secretary's closest aide, accused the Department of
> Trade and Industry (DTI) of bowing to “merciless” business pressures. Purchase,
> Cook's private parliamentary secretary, broke the PPS's unwritten code of
> silence when he blamed Stephen Byers, the current Secretary of State for Trade
> and Industry, and his predecessor Peter Mandelson.
>
> In the heat of this factional struggle, some aspects of British foreign policy
> that usually remain hidden have been exposed to public scrutiny. This concerns
> the activities of a government body that enjoys virtual anonymity despite its
> official status—the Export Credit Guarantee Department (ECGD).
>
> The ECGD, an agency of the DTI, has a remit to assist British companies win
> overseas contracts. It guarantees to refund money to any UK bank lending funds
> to a government or company for a contract with British firms in cases of
> default. The ECGD also subsidises the interest rate charged by the banks. This
> largesse is funded out of UK tax revenues.
>
> Last week, it was revealed that the ECGD had approved guarantees of £130 million
> for Hawk jets bought by Indonesia over the last year and granted £630,000 in
> guarantees for the completion of a project to supply electricity to central
> Java.
>
> As the government official responsible, Stephen Byers was obliged to defend this
> publicly. Amidst reports that he had overruled concerns expressed by civil
> servants, Byers wrote to the Guardian portraying the decision as one motivated
> by concern for the Javanese poor.
>
> “I am surprised at your hostile reaction to my decision to provide export credit
> guarantee cover for the completion of a project to supply electricity to central
> Java, and thus help some of the poorest people of Indonesia," he wrote. "Without
> my agreement a sub-station which was already completed would have remained
> isolated from the power grid and effectively useless. As a result of the project
> going ahead, it is estimated some 8 million people who suffer due to no or
> unreliable power supplies will benefit.”
>
> The winning of non-military contracts has become inextricably linked to, and
> dependent on, the procurement of armaments sales. The share of ECGD expenditure
> devoted to arms exports increased from less than 10 percent in 1980-91 to 27
> percent of guarantees for capital goods and projects underwritten by the agency
> between 1990-91 and 1996-97. In 1993-94 this peaked at 48 percent.
>
> In the five years leading up to the war against Iraq in 1990-91, the ECGD
> provided more than £50 million of support for the export of military equipment
> to Saddam Hussein. This did not prevent Britain from then claiming that its role
> in the Gulf War was to stop the new “Hitler” and protect world peace.
>
> By the end of last week, a new row broke out between Byers' junior minister Kim
> Howells and Labour backbencher Ann Clwyd. This centred on the sales and delivery
> of Saracen and Saladin armoured vehicles made by the British firm Alvis. There
> is evidence to show that they were used against civilians in disturbances in
> Jakarta in 1996 and more recently were deployed on the streets in East Timor.
> Last year, Ms Clwyd had called on ministers at the DTI to release the details of
> the contracts. This was blocked by Mr Howells, who utilised John Major's “open
> government” code to justify censorship on the grounds of commercial
> confidentiality.
>
> Ms Clwyd pointed out that some of the information was already accessible in
> Defence Manufacturers Association reports and defence journals. She stated, “In
> this regard, it would appear that ‘commercial confidentiality' is being used to
> withhold information from the public and MPs not because this information ‘could
> be expected to harm the competitive position of that company', but to protect
> the company, and possibly ministers, from embarrassment.”
>
> This interpretation was given further credence by Kim Howell's subsequent
> announcement that he had lost his official papers on Indonesia when the sealed
> mailbag containing them disappeared en route from his constituency in Wales to
> Westminster.
>
> Britain not only supplies Indonesia with an arsenal of weapons but also provides
> expert military know-how. On Sunday September 19, the Observer newspaper led
> with an article that the UK and US had played a critical role in training the
> Kopassus, the elite Indonesian armed forces units who have been orchestrating
> the murderous activities of the anti-independence militias in East Timor.
>
> Last summer, seven of their members finished a post-graduate course in defence
> studies at Hull University. While this was initiated under the former
> Conservative government, the training actually began after Labour came to power.
> In the last four years of Tory rule only one Indonesian soldier was trained in
> the UK, but under Labour £1 million has been provided to train more than 50
> members of the Indonesian military.
>
> Funding has come via the Foreign Office and the MoD through the Defence Military
> Assistance Fund. The cost of training one Indonesian navy officer at the Joint
> Service Command and Staff College and another on the International Principal
> Warfare Course at HMS Dryad came to £170,000. Both the MoD and Foreign Office
> justify this activity on the grounds that it represents “constructive
> engagement.”
>
> The level of fraternity between the two countries' governments is demonstrated
> by the fact that the training of the Kopassus members was the product of MoD
> liaison with General Prabawo, one of Indonesia's most notorious field
> commanders.
>
> Arms production is still one of the few sectors of manufacturing where Britain
> remains internationally competitive. In 1997, it accounted for 22.1 percent of
> world exports.
>
> It also provides a mechanism for projecting British imperialism's political
> power on the world stage. The ECGD is particularly used to facilitate trade with
> “high risk” clients, the term used to describe underdeveloped countries that are
> deeply in debt and so run the risk of default. Combined with military training,
> this allows Britain to exercise undue influence in the internal affairs of the
> countries concerned and develop them as client states.
>
> These revelations as a whole demonstrate that the arms trade constitutes a major
> instrument of British foreign policy. Tory governments openly celebrated the
> fact that Britain is one of the world's leading arms exporters. They openly
> flouted democratic rights to secure defence contracts with repressive regimes
> throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East. Labour's claim was that
> it would balance this burgeoning trade with “humanitarian” concerns, but the
> case of Britain's trade with Indonesia demonstrates that the two are
> incompatible.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Copyright 1998-99
> World Socialist Web Site
> All rights reserved
>
>
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