---------------------------------------------------------- Visit Indonesia Daily News Online HomePage: http://www.indo-news.com/ Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 -0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 Free Email @KotakPos.com visit: http://my.kotakpos.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------- Precedence: bulk TAPOL Urgent Action, 6 January 2000 EMBARGO ON ARMS SALES AND MILITARY TIES WITH INDONESIA MUST BE EXTENDED BEYOND 17 JANUARY The European Union embargo on arms sales and military ties with Indonesia expires on 17 January. During the week beginning 10 January, the Council of Ministers will have to decide whether to extend the embargo. The exact date of that decision is not yet known. Please do all you can to press for an extension beyond 17 January. In early September last year, the Australian Government and the Clinton Administration announced that they were cutting all military ties with Indonesia and placing embargos on all military supplies to the Indonesian armed forces, the TNI. Shortly after, the European Union introduced a four-month embargo on all military sales to Indonesia and suspended military co-operation, effective from 16 September. At last, the world's main suppliers of military equipment to Indonesia had conceded it was necessary to halt arms sales, after having ignored demands for an embargo for so many years. They acted at a time when it was no longer possible to ignore the barbaric behaviour of the Indonesian armed forces. They acted in response to the horrific atrocities and scorched earth policy that was laying waste to East Timor and uprooting almost the entire population in an operation orchestrated by senior Indonesian officers and conducted by their militia agents, taking revenge against the people of East Timor for courageously voting to sever links with Indonesia. Since then, Indonesia has relinquished its claim to East Timor, which is now under a transitional UN administration. The arms industry is clearly hoping that this will signal the all-clear for a resumption of arms sales to Indonesia on 17 January. In a statement to the Dutch Parliament's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs on 5 November, CNRT's Vice-President José Ramos-Horta called for the extension of the embargo: 'An embargo is necessary until TNI becomes subordinated to democratic control', he said. On 15 December, the European Parliament passed a resolution recognising that the resumption of arms exports and military cooperation will send a signal to the Indonesian armed forces that they have been rehabilitated and will legitimise the repression they continue to practice in the internal governance of Indonesia. The resolution asked the Council of Ministers to extend the embargo. The European Commission has also indicated it will support the move for an extension when it is debated with the Council of Ministers Also in December, a secret assessment by the Australian Defence Intelligence Organisation, revealed in the Melbourne Age, stated that an extension of the embargo would impact most heavily on the operational side of TNI and its ability to oversee internal repression. According to the Age, defence, intelligence and diplomatic sources concluded that the EU must continue the embargo. The Indonesian armed forces is still a repressive force which continues to exert a harmful influence on the Indonesian political system, even though the country is now governed by a democratically elected government. At this very moment, the armed forces leadership is challenging the elected government by seeking to impose martial law in several regions. It is also questioning the constitutional position of the country's elected head of state as supreme commander of the armed forces. In the last two weeks, the army has been criticised for stoking up the communal violence in the Maluku islands by taking sides in bloody clashes between Muslims and Christians, which have resulted in over 1,100 deaths since the beginning of 1999. British-made Saladin armoured vehicles are being used on the streets of the provincial capital, Ambon, to fire on local people. On 26 December, when a Christian church in central Ambon was burnt down, people were said to be dancing on the top of the vehicles. This act of arson sparked renewed clashes and hundreds more deaths. In response, former Foreign Office minister Tony Lloyd, who had been in East Timor to observe the August 30 ballot, said on BBC radio that the EU arms embargo must be extended. Countries which have for many years supported the TNI by providing military training and education and supplying it with arms of all types should be urged to continue the arms embargo and the severance of military ties for the following reasons: · The TNI remains a repressive force and a real threat to the democratic future of Indonesia, as their current menacing posture demonstrates; · The Indonesian army continues to perpetrate human rights violations and acts of repression in Aceh and West Papua, posing a constant threat to the efforts of the people in these two territories to assert their democratic right to a referendum on their future ties with Indonesia; · Members of the security forces have still not been made accountable for the thousands of human rights abuses they have perpetrated in Aceh and West Papua; · With the help of British-made equipment, the army the army has been accused of be taking sides and intensifying the lethal conflict in the Maluku islands; · The TNI has still failed to disarm and disband all the militia forces who are terrorising up to 170,000 East Timorese refugees still trapped in West Timor and obstructing efforts by UN agencies to repatriate them to East Timor; · The Indonesian authorities and the TNI in particular are implacably opposed to cooperating with an international commission of inquiry set up by the UN to investigate crimes against humanity perpetrated in East Timor, and are determined to prevent at all costs the creation of an international tribunal to try members of the TNI for crimes against humanity; · The Indonesian army is bent on maintaining its territorial command structure in all parts of the Indonesian Republic, having taken upon itself the role of preserving Indonesia as a unitary state, if necessary by force. The territorial command structure assures the army a presence at all levels of society, down to the village, and represents a constant threat to unfettered political activity. · The special crack troop command of the army, Kopassus, has not been disbanded. · The army's all-powerful intelligence agency, BAIS which spies on the population on the lookout for 'undesirable' political activities, has not been disbanded. · Although the new government has departed from past practice by appointing a civilian as its Minister of Defence, the Department of Defence is as heavily militarised as ever. The other heavily militarised department, the Interior Department, continues to be headed by a retired general. · Although the Indonesian police force has been formally separated from the Indonesian armed forces, it still falls under the Department of Defence which means that it cannot be regarded as a civilianised force. Until all these matters have been satisfactorily addressed, there can be no justification for the arms embargo to be lifted or for military ties with the Indonesian armed forces to be resumed. ACTION NEEDED 1. If you are in the European Union, please fax a letter your Foreign Minister urging him or her to press for the arms embargo and suspension of military cooperation to be continued for the reasons stated above. In the case of the UK, send your fax to Robin Cook on 0207 839 2417. 2. Please fax a similar letter to one or more of the following: Your Member of Parliament. In the case of the UK, you can obtain the fax number by ringing his or her office through the House of Commons switchboard on 0207 219 3000 The current President of the EU, Portugal. Send the fax to Jaime Gama, Foreign Minister of Portugal: 00 3511 394 6035 The other members of the EU Troika (i.e. the immediate past and future Presidents). Mrs Tarja Halonen, Foreign Minister of Finland: 00 358 9 629 840; and Mr Hubert Vedrene, Foreign Minister of France: 00 33 1 4 317 4218 6 January 2000 ************************************************** Paul Barber TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign, 25 Plovers Way, Alton Hampshire GU34 2JJ Tel/Fax: 1420 80153 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Internet: www.gn.apc.org/tapol Defending victims of oppression in Indonesia, East Timor, West Papua and Aceh, 1973-1999 ************************************************** ---------- SiaR WEBSITE: http://apchr.murdoch.edu.au/minihub/siarlist/maillist.html ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 10 Jan 2000 jam 07:09:15 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
