TAPOL is bitterly disappointed that the Government's proclaimed ethical foreign policy was today killed off in its infancy with Robin Cook's refusal to revoke the 1996 licences for export to Indonesia of Hawk aircraft, armoured vehicles and water cannon in his announcement of new arms trade criteria. The export of the equipment will go ahead despite well-documented evidence supplied by this organisation that British equipment has in the past been used for internal repression, in breach of assurances given by the Indonesian Government.
The Foreign Secretary should explain what he means by saying it is not practical to backdate the new criteria to apply to licences granted by the previous Government. TAPOL has been advised that it is legally possible for him to revoke the licences.
Today's announcement will be greeted with particular despair in East Timor, which Indonesia has brutally and illegally occupied since 1975. Since any equipment at the disposal of the Indonesian Government might in future be used against the people of East Timor, there should be a complete embargo on arms sales to Indonesia.
The Foreign Secretary made his priorities clear by opening today's statement with a commitment to a strong defence industry. Speaking in London in June, Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, Co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, called on the Government to "to consider the dreadful consequences of this so-called "defence industry". Please, I beg you, restrict still further the conditions under which such trade is permitted. Do not sustain any longer a conflict which without these sales could never have been pursued in the first place, nor for so very long."
In a letter to Robin Cook, Co-Nobel Peace Laureate, Jose Ramos-Horta, the external representative of the East Timorese resistance movement, called for a freeze on arms sales to Indonesia and stated: "It would send the wrong message for your government that has promised a moral and ethical Foreign Policy to continue with policies of, and to honour existing contracts agreed to by, the previous government" [Editor's footnote 2].
"Indonesia was the litmus test of the Government's commitment to human rights, which it has failed miserably. Cook's recipe for an ethical foreign policy comprises nothing more than hot air and empty words. The Government is clearly breaching its commitment not to allow the export of arms that might be used for internal repression or external aggression.". said Carmel Budiardjo of TAPOL.
Supporters of TAPOL, Campaign Against Arms Trade and the World Development Movement will demonstrate outside Downing Street tomorrow, Tuesday, 29 July from 12 noon onwards in protest against the today's announcement. At approximately 1 pm, a letter to the Prime Minister signed by the three organisations [Editor's footnote 2] will be handed in at 10 Downing Street by Ann Clwyd MP and Jeremy Corbyn MP.