Jakarta – TNI [Indonesian National Military Forces] Commander Gen Endriartono Sutarto has expressed hope that the government will place a high priority on the TNI budget. Attention to this was urgently required to overcome the security problems in the country such as separatism in Nanggroe Aceh Darusslam.

He said that Indonesia needed to acquire unmanned aerial vehicles to locate the whereabouts of GAM [Free Aceh Movement] rebels. "If we had these, we could resolve the problem more effectively," he said, after the opening of the Defence Expo yesterday (24 November). Of course he wanted to see some "political will" from the government to provide sufficient funds and not just scrape through like they were at the moment.

He explained that the threats to security being faced by the country needed the best equipment and methods to eliminate them in a hurry. But in coming to a decision, consideration needed to be given to avoiding casualties in the community. The commander added that modernization of its weaponry was part of developing the professionalism of TNI. Professionalism, when not backed up by adequate weaponry, was not possible. Ironically, TNI did understand that there were limits to the funding they could get. "So sometimes, we get a bit perplexed," he said.

The TNI chief believed that it was cheaper to manufacture weapons in Indonesia's own industries than procuring them overseas. He said though that if it became more expensive to produce them domestically, then that was a problem Indonesia itself acknowledged that in principle all countries relied on each other for the procurement of military equipment.

"It would be really good if America lifted its embargo. The biggest proportion of our equipment comes from the US. But we cannot keep asking them if it means that our nationalism becomes the casualty". TNI strongly believed that the government needed to rejuvenate its military equipment. This was most important because crimes were being committed at sea and on land and they needed to be acted against. He cited that in the issue of illegal logging, the navy was unable to make a dent in it because its ships were obsolescent. "We need rejuvenation," he said.

[From BBC World Monitoring Service.]