Australia seeks weapons joint venture with Indonesia
Australia seeks weapons joint venture with Indonesia
SYDNEY (AFP): Australia may embark on a joint venture partnership producing weapons with the Indonesian government, Defense Minister Robert Ray said yesterday.
The proposal, which has been the subject of talks with Jakarta, is for the joint production of arms and weapons in arrangements similar to those previously undertaken with New Zealand and proposed with Malaysia, Ray said.
His announcement follows Canberra's recent controversial decision to invite Indonesia to participate in a major Australian military exercise.
It also coincides with mounting pressure here for a tougher stance by Canberra against alleged human rights abuses by Indonesian troops in East Timor and with a decision by the U.S. Congress last month to ban small arms sales to Indonesia.
Ray said: "The proposal we've discussed with Indonesia is that arms and weapons platforms are so expensive that we may go into joint production - the same as we've proposed to do with Malaysia and have done so with New Zealand over the years."
However, no specific proposals for weapons production with Indonesia had yet been put forward, he said in an interview for ABC television during a ceremony in Queensland to farewell an Australian army medical team leaving for Rwanda.
Indonesia has in recent years become the focal point of Australia's thrust into Asia, with increasingly warm bilateral links and friendship between the two government and their leaders Indonesian President Soeharto and Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating.
Asked about the U.S. Congress ban on arms sales to Indonesia, Ray said: "The U.S. attitude is that they would like to see some changes in Indonesian approaches.
Kangaroo '95
"We do see changes in Indonesia, we see an improving not a declining human rights record."
Foreign Minister Gareth Evans has said the U.S. ban on arms sales will achieve nothing.
Canberra has been criticized by the East Timorese community for inviting Indonesian military participation in a multi- national defense exercise Kangaroo '95, in which 15,000 troops will take part along with naval and air forces.
Indonesia has previously had observer status for the three- yearly Kangaroo exercises held in the Northern Territory, home to many East Timorese refugees who are against the integration of their territory, a former Portuguese colony, into Indonesia in 1976.
Among Canberra's critics, Australia's Roman Catholic Primate, Cardinal Edward Clancy, has condemned as "half-hearted" and "soft" its attitude to Indonesian human rights abuses in East Timor.
Opposition defense spokesman Peter Reith called on the government yesterday to "come clean" with its proposals.