[Firestarter]

Arms sales to Indonesia

More than 60,000 people were slaughtered in the first 3 months of the invasion. In the 20 years since Indonesia illegally invaded East Timor, at least 200,000 people have died. According to Gabriel Defert, the real figure is closer to 300,000.

On arrival in Indonesia, Robin Cook gave one of the world's most vicious dictatorships a “deal on human rights”. At the time, Suharto’s Indonesia were conducting “Operation Finish Them Off in East Timor”, with British arms whose delivery he refused to stop.
Indonesia's special forces, Kopassus, patrol East Timor in civilian dress in unmarked vehicles, armed with Heckler and Koch automatic weapons from British Aerospace. Their marksmen train on simulators used by the SAS and their death squads train in British equipment. Indonesian military officers and pilots are trained in Britain.

(...)

John Pilger – Hidden agendas (1998): https://archive.org/details/fp_Hidden_Ag...ohn_Pilger
(http://archive.is/xpNbq)

Two days before the brutal invasion of East Timor President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger gave the green light for the invasion at a state dinner with President Suharto in Jakarta.
Since Suharto was brought into power of Indonesia in 1965, the US has been the biggest arms supplier of Indonesia, particularly after the invasion of East Timor in 1975.

US arms sales to Indonesia more than quadrupled from $12 million in 1974 to $65 million in 1975, while US military aid to Jakarta more than doubled from $17 million in 1974 to $40 million in 1976.
In 1977, Congressional hearings confirmed that major US weapons systems were sold during this period (some used in East Timor), including: 16 Rockwell OV-10 "Bronco" counterinsurgency aircraft, 3 Lockheed C-130 transport aircraft, 36 Cadillac-Gage V-150 "Commando" armoured cars, S-61 helicopters, patrol craft, M-16 rifles, pistols, mortars, machine guns, recoilless rifles, ammunition, and extensive communications equipment.

During the 1977 House International Relations Committee hearing, the State Department's Deputy Legal Advisor George H. Aldrich testified that "roughly 90%" of Indonesia's weapons during the 1975 invasion of East Timor came from the United States.
A high-ranking Indonesian general bluntly pointed out: "Of course there were US weapons used [during the attack on East Timor]. These are the only weapons that we have”.



During the last 2 years of the Ford Administration US arms sales to Indonesia levelled off at $10 to $12 million annually.
In the 4 years that Jimmy Carter was US president (hypocritically on a platform of human rights), arms sales to Suharto skyrocketed to nearly $60 million per year, of which $112 million in 1978.
In May 1978, Vice President Walter Mondale sold Indonesia 16 A-4 "Skyhawk" attack planes, which is capable of spraying weapons fire and explosives over wide areas. Besides the "Skyhawks also a batch of 16 Bell UH-1H "Huey" helicopters were sold to the ruthless dictatorial regime of Suharto.

The Reagan administration maintained a steady weapons flow to Jakarta, of more than $40 million per year in arms sales during its first 4 years in office. In 1986, the Reagan administration approved a record more than $300 million in weapons sales to Suharto. This was the year that the US sold Indonesia its first batch of 12 F-16 fighter planes.
Arms sales to Indonesia dropped during the Bush Administration, to a still impressive $28 million annually.

The Clinton Administration was pushing Indonesia to buy more F-16’s. The total F-16 package, would be worth roughly $200 million (but I don’t know if the sale went through). If the sale of 9 to 11 F-16s went ahead as planned, the Clinton Administration will have approved roughly $270 million in arms sales to Indonesia in just over 4 years, over $67 million per year. This represents the highest US sales since the second Reagan term or the early Carter period.
In the second term of Bill Clinton as US president, the US has announced steps to “ensure” that sold arms to Indonesia won’t be used for internal repression.

There are several ways in which the US taxpayers have paid for arms sales to Indonesia in the 1990s.
The US Export-Import Bank offered guaranteed loans; including the "dual use" new program, which was intensive lobbied by the Aerospace Industries Association. In late 1995, Indonesia received a $22 million loan guarantee from the ExIm Bank to refurbish 7 of its U.S.-origin C-130 and L-100 transport aircraft.
The Pentagon during the Clinton administration created the $15 billion arms export loan guarantee fund.
Another form of indirect subsidy for arms exports is the practice of providing "offsets": steering business to the purchasing country (Indonesia). In May 1996, Indonesia's state minister of Research and Technology B.J. Habibie told to expect at least a 30% offset for the F-16 sale.

According to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, from 1992 to 1994, Indonesia received 53% of its weapons imports from the United States.
The US, wasn’t the only country supplying the brutal Suharto regime with weapons. Since the mid-1980s, Indonesia has relied almost entirely on the US and Western European countries, particularly the UK, France, Netherlands and Germany for imported armaments (an estimated 91 to 100% of its imported weapons).


In the 1980s and 1990s the Dutch Hollandse Signaal Apparaten (daughter of the French Thompson-CSF) was the biggest arms and military services suppliers to ABRI (armed forces) from the Netherlands. During this period most sales of Dutch arms were to the Indonesian navy. The Netherlands supplied 9 major surface vessels and is pushing to sell more naval equipment.
In the period 1988-92, the Netherlands was the largest arms exporter to Indonesia after the US, according to the SIPRI.
A leaked report showed that in the period 1990-1995, Indonesia was the twelfth largest recipient of Dutch arms outside NATO, with a total value of $17.7 million: http://stopwapenhandel.org/sites/stopwap...esia_0.pdf
(http://web.archive.org/web/2019052514085...esia_0.pdf)


For more on the Pentagon support for Suharto and General Prabowo, and the inevitable Trump link: https://www.lawfulpath.com/forum/viewtop...f=7&t=1191