John Aglionby, Jakarta – The foreign office minister John Battle yesterday defended the resumption of British arms sales to Indonesia in spite of the rapidly escalating social unrest, a divided military and warnings from other countries.
He urged the world to dispel its long-held view of Indonesia as an unstable, military-controlled state and to welcome the emerging democracy into the international fold.
Mr Battle said after two days of talks with Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid and government officials in Jakarta that it was time to get rid of outdated and antiquated views on Indonesia.
"It is not commonly understood internationally that there is a new president elected, that there are new ministers, that there's a programme of reform, and my view is that the government needs to be underpinned in that programme of reform," he said.
In such circumstances, and in the light of Indonesia's withdrawal from East Timor, he said, there was no reason to reimpose the European Union arms embargo against Jakarta.
"The situation in East Timor has changed massively," he said, referring to circumstances four months ago, when the embargo was imposed. "The TNI [Indonesian military] are not in East Timor, thankfully, and the situation is different. What we're talking about now is a new government that has to cope with the legacy of what went on there."
However, he stressed that there would be "no free flow through of arms and no questions asked tomorrow", because both the EU and Britain had strict codes of conduct regarding arms exports to Indonesia.
"The international community is not going to go away," he said. "It's going to watch the situation and see how the government handles it. It's going to be a case by case basis."
Britain is one of the biggest arms suppliers to Indonesia. In 1998 Britain exported arms worth 73 million Pounds to Indonesia. In order not to lose future busi ness, British diplomats and arms dealers have regularly courted Indonesian dealers and generals during the embargo period when all links were supposed to have been broken.
The Dutch foreign minister, Jozias van Aartsen, who is also in Jakarta, said that when he reports on Indonesia to the EU council of foreign ministers next Monday, "without any doubt there will be a very positive outlook".
Neither referred to the current state of the military which, after decades as the country's most powerful political force, is now deeply divided over its future role. There is speculation that some generals, particularly those threatened with prosecution over their involvement in East Timor, are plotting a coup.
It is widely accepted that barely half of the armed forces support President Abdurrahman and his reform programme.
Mr Battle met only one general in Jakarta, the mines and energy minister, Bambang Yudoyhono, who no longer has hands-on control of any troops. Mr Van Aartsen sidestepped questions about whether he trusted the military to respect the civilian government's reform programme. However, with more than a quarter of the country affected by social unrest that the military appears unable to control, Washington is still worried about the situation and refuses to lift its arms embargo until the generals are brought completely to heel. Many other western diplomatic missions in Jakarta share their concern.
One diplomat said it was "pretty irresponsible" of Mr Battle and Mr Van Aartsen to make judgments without consulting the military high command or considering many other factors.
"The place is in a mess and what is more frightening is that we don't know how bad a mess it is," he said. "The military is even more splintered than it was a year ago, access to this cabinet is worse than to the last cabinet and ministers are running scared and keeping their heads down because they don't know what the president is going to say next."