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source: the times(london) 150999


Britain pays for Indonesia's jets


By Tom Baldwin & Roland Watson


A TOTAL of £130 million of public money has been used within the past year to help the Indonesian Government to buy Hawk fighters from Britain.

The revelation that taxpayers have been helping to finance the sales to the regime accused of widespread atrocities in East Timor comes despite the Government's insistence that it was powerless to stop them. It also serves to deepen the embarrassment faced by Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, over the Government's about-turn at the weekend in blocking the deal.

The disclosure that a loan from the export guarantee reserve fund had been used to help the Indonesians sparked a furious reaction last night among left-wing Labour MPs, who had criticised the arms sales even before the use of the aircraft over East Timor. Mr Cook was also forced to confirm that a Hawk flew over Dili, the East Timor capital, on July 16, in what human rights activists said was a show of intimidation.

The Department of Trade and Industry's Export Credits Guarantee Department yesterday confirmed it had underwritten the payments to British Aerospace after the Indonesian economy ran into trouble last year. The money was used to help the Jakarta Government to reschedule its payments on two separate contracts for Hawk jets between September and March.

At the weekend the Government finally suspended the export licences for the sale of jets to Indonesia. Yesterday officials suggested there could be real problems in getting the Indonesians to pay back the money. A spokesman for the ECGD said: "They have not said to us anything about the payments since the decision was taken at the weekend but we fully expect them to honour the agreement."

The decision to suspend the arms export licences was taken in the face of opposition from the Ministry of Defence. A departmental war with the Foreign Office and the DTI was averted only after the intervention of Downing Street.

Mr Cook is understood to have considered revoking the licences when he launched the ethical dimension to his foreign policy after the last election. It is understood that at the time ministers were warned that the contracts agreed by the last Government meant that Britain would have faced legal sanctions if the licences had been revoked.

Ann Clwyd, a Labour member of the Commons International Development Committee who recently visited East Timor, criticised the use of public money as irresponsible. "It was clear for some time that Indonesia was a human rights abuser. When we came into government we made clear that there would be an ethical dimension to our foreign policy, yet we continued to supply arms. There seems to have been a lack of joined-up thinking."

The Government announced at the weekend that it was following President Clinton's lead in suspending arms exports to Indonesia as part of the international pressure on Jakarta to admit outside peacekeepers in East Timor. Nine Hawks built by British Aerospace were waiting to be delivered. Since the 1980s Britain has supplied more than 40 Hawks to Indonesia after undertakings they would not be used in internal repression.

New York: Britain asked the UN Security Council to authorise a multinational force with a far-reaching mandate to restore peace in East Timor, and Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General, said the first contingents could arrive by the weekend (James Bone writes). Amid reports that refugees were being dumped from ships into the sea, Britain and the United States urged other council members to approve the proposal so that deployment of an Australian-led force could begin today.


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