Dutch warship sales to Indonesia violate EU code

Dutch warship sales to Indonesia violate EU code

Agence France-Presse / Brussels

Recent Dutch warship sales to Indonesia violate the European
Union's code of conduct on exporting arms, Raul Romeva, the
European Parliament's rapporteur on military exports, said on
Thursday.

"These projects clearly violate the code of conduct on arms
exports, which prohibits arms supplies to unstable regions,
countries in conflict and countries in which respect for human
rights is disregarded," he said.

According to a statement from the Greens group in parliament,
of which Romeva is a member, the Dutch government has authorized
a national shipyard to build two small corvette warships for the
Indonesian navy.

The project comes on top of an earlier order for two
corvettes, and is valued at up to 800 million euros (US$980
million). Another Dutch company is also modernizing a military
vessel previously delivered to Indonesia.

"In the Aceh conflict in 2003 similar ships were used by the
Indonesian authorities during coastal assaults. That issue has
not been solved yet and Indonesia is meanwhile ravaged by
internal conflicts," Romeva said.

Rebels in Aceh, Indonesia's westernmost province, have been
fighting for independence for three decades. The conflict has
left more than 12,000 dead.

"It is shocking that so soon after the devastating tsunami an
EU member state would encourage Indonesia to spend hundreds of
millions of euros on new warships," Romeva said, referring to the
December 26 quake-triggered disaster that killed nearly 300,000
people across the Indian Ocean.

He said other EU states are also supplying military equipment
to Indonesia, which is a former Dutch colony.