Portugal breaks own RI arms embargo: Paper
Portugal breaks own RI arms embargo: Paper
LISBON (Reuter): Portugal's government faced fresh embarrassment yesterday from a press report that it flouted its own arms embargo against Indonesia and the opposition called on Defense Minister Fernando Nogueira to quit.
The government said it was investigating a report by the right-wing weekly Independente that a defense ministry company, the General Office of Aeronautical Equipment (OGMA), serviced the engines of at least two Indonesian military helicopters.
Lisbon severed all ties with Jakarta after the former Portuguese colony of East Timor integrated with Indonesia in 1975.
The defense ministry said it had launched an urgent inquiry and Socialist opposition leader Antonio Guterres urged Prime Minister Anibal Cavaco Silva to sack Nogueira.
The latest embarrassment for OGMA comes two months after Independente revealed the firm had violated Portugal's official neutrality in the Angolan civil war by servicing Russian-built warplanes for the Angolan government air force.
Cavaco Silva refused an offer by Nogueira to resign on that occasion, but the head of OGMA resigned and President Mario Soares vetoed the reappointment of air force chief Narciso Mendes Dias for a further term.
Independente said OGMA had confirmed that it serviced the engines of at least two Indonesian military helicopters for 20 billion escudos ($125,000) in 1993 as part of work sub-contracted from engine manufacturers Turbomeca in France.
But OGMA issued a statement saying it had not been aware of who the helicopter engines belonged to at the time.
"(OGMA) received two Turmo engines on April 6, 1993 whose commercial documentation sent by Turbomeca contained no reference to the user (Indonesian armed forces)," it said.
The reported servicing of Indonesian military helicopter engines occurred just 18 months after a Dili incident in which more than 50 East Timorese died in a violent demonstration.
Guterres urged Cavaco Silva yesterday to sack his defense minister "to save the cause of Timor and Portuguese diplomacy".
"If he (Cavaco Silva) doesn't act immediately, no Portuguese ambassador or foreign minister will have any credibility," Guterres told reporters.