Jakarta – At the very start of his tenure, newly installed Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono has fired his first shot. He has promised that he wouldn't be asking never mind begging from America on the issue of the US arms embargo.

However, he would be clarifying issues about weapons required by Indonesia. "I will be explaining to America that we will never beg. We will only commit to conditions that are mutually acceptable.

On many occasions, the US has added clauses often referred to as prerequisite conditions. America only views human rights from political and civil aspects. They are weak on the social, economic and cultural aspects. And there are plenty of human rights violations going on in that country," said Juwono at a press conference after taking over as defence minister on Monday 25 October.

The defence minister explained that America should look at human rights overall in Indonesia. He said that the UN Charter contained five aspects that must be adhered to with regard to human rights, namely civil political, economic, social and cultural. He continued to emphasize that it was not enough to view cases involving breaches of human rights in Indonesia from the civil and political aspects only. However, he did admit that the TNI [Indonesian National Military Forces] had perpetrated some violations of human rights.

"However, it is extremely unfair to view this from just the civil and political aspects. If the five aspects of human rights I referred to earlier were looked at in a balanced way, then Indonesia's record is not too bad," Juwono emphasized.

Outgoing Defence Minister Matori Abdul Djalil did not attend the handover/takeover of office as he was ill.

[From BBC World Monitoring Service.]