UK denies training RI police to win exports

UK denies training RI police to win exports

LONDON (Reuter): The head of the government's aid program vigorously denied allegations Wednesday by members of parliament that Britain set up a program to train Indonesian policemen in the hope of winning big export orders.

John Vereker, top civil servant at the Overseas Development Administration, insisted the government saw the 1.8 million pound (US$3 million) program as a means of introducing senior Indonesian officers to the techniques of community policing.

This, he told a parliamentary committee, was designed to have the indirect effect of making the Indonesian police more respectful of human rights.

Vereker was being questioned about a report by the National Audit Office on a range of aid projects to oil-rich Indonesia which concluded that none of them were conditional on the Indonesian purchase of British goods and services.

Indonesia is a relatively prosperous developing country with a poor human rights record, and opposition MPs and human rights groups have urged Britain to phase out aid and arms sales to it.

On Wednesday, opposition Labor Party aid spokeswoman Clare Short said: "Our whole approach to aid must be cleaned up in order to restore confidence that it is being used in the best interests of the taxpayer and of the poorest countries."

The report said the Foreign Office had at one stage intervened over the police training project, which lasted from 1980 to 1996, to urge there be no delays in implementation.

It had suggested such delays "would hardly have a favorable impact on the former Chief of Police who had moved on to become a Presidential adviser and was likely to play a crucial role in decisions of future military procurement".

Questioned about the Foreign Office intervention, Vereker insisted it had had no effect on how the program proceeded, and there was no connection between aid projects and arms sales.

"Ministers have repeatedly made it clear that there is no link of any kind," he said.

The report said that in 1984, following reports of civilian killings in Indonesia, the Home Office (interior ministry) expressed concern at the use of Britain's Bramshill Police College to train policemen from the country.

The program afterwards was gradually refocused towards training taking place in Indonesia, it said.

Vereker said the overseas aid program had been moving away from providing training in Britain in the mid 1980s and the move towards "in-country training" should be seen in this context.