Nicholas Gilby and Richie Andrew – The Government says "our position on human rights is clear and unequivocal", and that it "does not want to see British-built military equipment contribute to human rights abuses or fuel conflict overseas".

Our investigations can now expose how vacuous such statements are. Prior to August 2002, the Indonesian Government agreed not to use UK-supplied equipment in the Indonesian province of Aceh, and to inform the UK in advance if it planned to do so. These conditions were set down because of the war in Aceh, and the appalling human rights situation there, largely brought about by Indonesian Army (TNI) violence.

We recently discovered that after the Indonesians in August 2002 told the FCO they would use UK-made APCs in Aceh for casualty removal, the FCO used this opportunity to agree to TNI using any UK-equipment without any advance notification. Jack Straw wrote to the Quadripartite Committee to tell them about the vehicles for casualty removal but not the changed conditions (discovered after questioning by Jeremy Corbyn in Parliament 10 months later).

The context is crucial. The level of violence in Aceh in 2002 had increased to a horrific level from that seen in 2000 and 2001. In the FCO's own words (Annual Human Rights Report 2002 – covering July 2001 to July 2002) it says (page 32) "In Aceh there was a rise in the level of violence following the expiry of the Humanitarian Pause in January 2001 and the majority of casualties have been civilians".

Reporting from [the British human rights organisation] Tapol corroborates the conclusion. For example, in April/May 2002 Tapol reported that the daily death toll in 2001 was 10 per day, mostly non-combatants, calling 2001 "a very bleak year". In September 2002 TAPOL reported that in 2002 the death toll, mostly civilians, was around 15 a day. In December Tapol said that the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) had increased 50% in 2002 from 2001, strongly suggesting the level of violence increased in 2002.

To give you an idea what life in Aceh is like under TNI, the latest Human Rights Watch Report Aceh Under Martial Law on page 24 gives a typical (not sexed-up) example: "He was a small child, a boy and he went to the market to buy fish for his mother. The TNI stopped him, checking him because he was buying fish. A soldier said to him Where did you get this fish from? The boy replied, No, I am going to give it to my mother. I want to go home. The TNI were accusing him and threatening him. He was threatened with a gun.

The soldier said, You surely want to give this fish to GAM [the separatists]. After that the boy was really frightened. His answers were not so clear, he was really panicked. So the soldiers took him and threw him into the military truck. The seven soldiers, the others stayed in the market. The seven soldiers were wearing TNI camouflage uniforms. After that his body turned up on the side of the road. I saw the body. There was a bullet wound in his forehead. Just one. The back of his head was all destroyed, and his body was full of red marks, red torture marks."

The FCO decision to relax the conditions on the use of UK equipment in Aceh in August 2002, while human rights abuses were rampant and escalating gave a green light for war crimes to TNI. At the same time during 2002 the Government tripled the number of licences issued for arms to Indonesia (182 from 54 in 2001) as well as the value by more than double (41 million Pounds from 15.5 million Pounds in 2001).

The TNI got the message! Subsequently, Scorpion tanks, Hawk aircraft and Saracen armoured personnel carriers joined the war in Aceh in 2003. In January this year the Guardian reported that "local television has shown heavy machine guns mounted on Scorpions firing at alleged separatist positions on several occasions since they were deployed to the restive north Sumatran province in June."

The FCO say none of this matters because they have assurances from TNI that the weapons will not be used "offensively" or "in breach of human rights".

Human Rights Watch says "known human rights abusers have played significant roles in the preparation and conduct of the war in Aceh". Sjafie Sjamsoeddin, described by UN investigator James Dunn as "implicated as one of the key military officers responsible for the development of the TNI strategy that led to serious crimes against humanity in East Timor," commanded a unit that used Scorpions against protesters in 1998. Last May he said he had no problem in breaching the assurances "For us, we have already paid so there is no problem. We use fighters [Hawks] to defend our sovereignty".

The FCO's assurances come from an institution that committed crimes against humanity just five years ago, and has deployed some of those criminals to Aceh. One commander has used UK equipment to abuse human rights previously.

CAAT and Tapol recently challenged the Government to explain its actions. The explanation given for relaxing the assurances is to "bring practice in line" with the EU criteria. It was unnecessary – operative paragraph 2 of the criteria explicitly state member states can have more restrictive national policies if they want to.

At the Quadripartite Committee recently Straw defended arms to Indonesia by saying "the security forces have a legitimate right to adequate protection whilst carrying out their duties, as long as they operate in accordance with international human rights standards and humanitarian law." As Human Rights Watch have documented for the past few years, that is precisely the opposite of what TNI do in Aceh. Straw also said "we are not turning a blind eye to anything".

But conveniently TNI have closed Aceh to the world, meaning their operations can be conducted without oversight, guaranteeing the FCO can maintain its "see no evil, hear no evil" line. In another sense the Government is not turning a blind eye. It knows full well what it is doing as the evidence shows the FCO s "position on human rights is clear and unequivocal".