---------------------------------------------------------- Visit Indonesia Daily News Online HomePage: http://www.indo-news.com/ Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 ---------------------------------------------------------- Guardian [UK] Saturday July 24, 1999=20 Comment Twisting arms=20 Jeremy Hardy: Let's sell jets to Jakarta and ask the generals to play with them nicely=20 During our adventure in the Balkans, it was occasionally pointed out that the United States provided 85% of the hardware for Nato's valiant aerial crusade to overthrow the infrastructure of Yugoslavia. It was unkindly added that the United Kingdom's contribution hovered around the 3% mark; this from the nation that pioneered the jet engine and the Sopwith Camel.=20 Of course, we've made up the deficit by sending in ground troops, including such illustrious figures as General Sir Michael Jackson and plucky Wright and Fisher, the Scots Guards who murdered Peter McBride. Nato is doing all it can to combat ethnic cleansing in Kosovo; as Albanians kill and expel the Romany population, humanitarian soldiers spring from armoured vehicles and say: "Oh, must you?"=20 However, a great sea-faring nation like ours is stung by the accusation of a failure to supply aircraft. To make up for it, we are continuing our tradition of sending Hawk jets to Indonesia.=20 The regime invaded East Timor in 1975 and has held on to it by means of extreme brutality and corruption ever since. Although Jakarta has agreed to a UN-monitored vote on the territory's future, it is doing everything possible to distort the outcome. In recent months, 60-80,000 supporters of independence have been driven from their homes by Indonesian-backed paramilitaries. Hundreds have been killed or raped and thousands put in camps. Confusingly, our jets, rather than attacking the Jakarta regime, have been sold to it.=20 Being aware that it came to power rambling something about an ethical foreign policy, Her Majesty's government strictly prescribes the uses of these aeroplanes. Among the varied applications listed by the vendor comes the warning that the jets are not for use in East Timor. This must be the lamest injunction since "Video piracy is a crime - do not accept it", or "These seeds are not for cultivation". Indeed, it is reminiscent of the childlike way in which leftwing supporters of Nato's war asked it not to use depleted uranium and cluster bombs - which is like hiring a debt collector and sending him on his mission with the words, "Now, I don't want any rough stuff."=20 The Indonesian government has not had extensive military ambitions this past 25 years. It has for the most part been happy with the conquest and suppression of East Timor. The army is responsible for gross human rights abuses and disappearances in Aceh and West Papua, but holding on to East Timor and generally keeping generals in power have been its preoccupations.=20 For this I suppose we should be grateful. Some regimes launch air attacks on all kinds of people. We've been known to do Yugoslavia and Iraq in the same week -and on purpose, mind you. Conversely, Indonesia, tucked away down there out of trouble, contents itself with battering the family and the neighbours. So, if we sell them military hardware, at least we can predict its use. It will be used to abuse human rights, especially in East Timor. Try though Jakarta might to come up with other uses, temptation overwhelms it.=20 Perhaps we should offer suggestions. A British Aerospace Hawk jet might be adapted for very fast crop-spraying or delight children with the kind of performances given by our own much-loved Red Arrows Display Team. Similarly, BJ Habibie might order his troops to stop using water cannon on his domestic opponents and offer a national colonic irrigation service instead. And our Alvis tanks could be used as carnival floats, controlling crowds by means of sheer wonderment.=20 I should stress that we did not simply let the regime have the planes and then turn a blind eye. The foreign office told it again this week that it's not to fly the planes over East Timor. And I'm sure that if Jakarta responded with "Oh, go on", minister Geoff Hoon hit back with a devastating: "No - I mean it." This is important because Britain is the biggest supplier of arms to Indonesia. Since coming to power, Labour has approved at least 92 new export licences for weapons to Jakarta. The most recent batch of Hawk aircraft started being delivered in April. Now of course, this government inherited all kinds of things. It will be into its fifth term before it stops referring to the mess left by its predecessor. Although some exports to Indonesia have been banned, export licences issued by the Tories have been approved.=20 The government says that there are rules about these things; and yet when Yugoslavia was attacked, the government's supporters exclaimed that human rights required a response transcending international law. For Mr Cook to be such a stickler for the niceties of commerce is one thing; to claim as he now does that Hawk jets have never been used against the East Timorese makes a mockery of the election result of 1997.=20 His supporters say that it is Blair who is in the thrall of the arms trade, and that it is pressure from No 10 that has brought about a change in Cook's line. I'm afraid that makes me respect him even less.=20 =A0 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 26 Jul 1999 jam 11:16:00 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
