Louise Williams, Jakarta – The Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, has strongly defended Canberra's military links with Indonesia as useful channels for urging restraint, despite revelations that Indonesian troops were involved in kidnapping and torturing democracy activists.

After meeting President B.J. Habibie and the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Mr Ali Alatas, Mr Downer said the new Government in Jakarta was committed to improving human rights and resolving the East Timor conflict. Outside the hotel where he was speaking, a group of Indonesian protesters held up photographs of missing democracy activists and urged Australia to pressure the Habibie Government.

In the last months of the Soeharto regime scores of anti-Government activists were kidnapped and detained in a secret interrogation centre near Jakarta, where they were tortured for information. The interim results of a military investigation found soldiers were linked to the disappearances. Fourteen people remain missing.

Mugiyanto [a leader of the banned People's Democratic Party - JB], who was tortured and detained at the interrogation centre for 83 days, called on Canberra for action. "So far the Australian Government has been very soft on human rights and very supportive of the Indonesian Government," he said. "We are sure the Indonesian military were involved in the disappearances because of the methods, the results of the investigation and their tools of torture."

However, Mr Downer said: "There is a difference between some particular people within the military committing human rights abuses and the whole of the military having an institutionalised policy. "Our position is that the military contact we have with the Indonesian armed forces has been a very useful vehicle for us to encourage the exercise of restraint... and our view is that by and large the military have exercised restraint."

He acknowledged the seriousness of the shooting of unarmed university students when police opened fire on a demonstration in May – now the subject of a legal action – and this week's shooting of protesters in Irian Jaya. Mr Downer said Australia was concerned about the independence protests in Irian Jaya but did not believe Indonesia would splinter under pressure from separatist movements. "We don't think there will be a break-up in Indonesia, it's a beat-up to be even talking about it," he said.

It was a "vast leap of logic" to compare independence movements in Irian Jaya with East Timor. Irian Jaya was recognised as part of Indonesia by the United Nations in 1969 despite local hopes for independence after the departure of the Dutch colonists. East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, was invaded by Indonesia in 1975, and Jakarta's sovereignty has never been recognised by the UN.

Mr Downer said Australia was encouraged by the Habibie Government's willingness to move on East Timor, but warned that the 23-year-old conflict would not be resolved quickly. "You have very passionately held views there; it is obviously a very divided place. There is no point trying to resolve the issue with a quick fix."

Mr Downer called for the East Timorese people and the Indonesian Government to talk. Australia would not seek to "micro-manage" the negotiations, but could help by continuing to provide development funds.

Australia had increased aid to Indonesia by 20 per cent in recognition of the economic crisis and the drought, he said. "It is in Australia's national interest that the Indonesian economy recovers as soon as practically possible."

[On July 9 Reuters quoted Downer as saying "...the Australian government thinks it is very important that the Indonesian military exercise the maximum of restraint [in West Papua]" adding that with the exception of the shooting of four student protesters at the Trisakti University on May 12. "...in an extraordinarily difficult environment, they (the military) did exercise restraint". On the question of East Timor, Downer said "There is no point in trying to resolve the issue of East Timor with some instant resolution because it won't create peace in East Timor," citing the negotiations that eventually led to a peace deal in Northern Ireland as an example. On July 10 the news agency Lusa quoted Downer as "praising the proposals by Habibie for East Timor" - James Balowski.]