Jakarta – A member of Commission I which oversees foreign affairs at the House of Representatives, Muhammad Nadjib, said that Indonesia might decline to ratify the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) during the two-week Final United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, which began on Monday local time at the UN Headquarters in New York, if several articles in the treaty remained unchanged.
"Speaking as the representative of the Indonesian House of Representatives, I warn the countries' leaders and delegations, that the House will not ratify the Arms Trade Treaty if several articles to which the Indonesian delegation have voiced their objections remain unchanged," said Nadjib in a written statement in Jakarta, Tuesday, as quoted by Antara news agency.
Citing an example, he said one article in the treaty stipulated that an arms-supplier country had a right to unilaterally assess human rights violations allegedly occurring in a potential buyer-country. It was one of several articles the Indonesian delegation had voiced their objections to, he added.
"This article is deemed subjective and is directed at furthering the political interests of developed countries. Moreover, it has been widely known that they exercise double standards on human rights," said Nadjib.
He said the treaty also included an article on sanctions such as ammunition embargoes and other trade controls that supplier-countries could apply at any time if they suspected human right violations in the buyer-countries.
"This could paralyze our very expensive primary weapons defense system [Alutsista] that we have bought," said Nadjib.
He also urged the Indonesian delegation to push national delegations to include the rights of countries to protect their territories and citizens in the articles of the treaty.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday that there should be a comprehensive instrument to standardize the international conventional-arms trade. He said such arms trade control was very important and urgent.
In his speech at the conference in New York Ban urged representatives from 193 UN member countries to complete their work by March 28. (ebf)