ROBIN Cook visited Indonesia at the end of August, just one month after agreeing to complete the sale of 16 Hawk aircraft, 50 armoured cars and water cannon, to unveil his six point plan for improving human rights.
His plan aims to limit access to British arms sales to countries with a "significant continuing record of internal repression". The plan Involves an offer of BritIsh advisors on "non-violent crowd control".
In short, the Indonesian dictatorship will have to use its water cannon, armoured cars and Hawks in a peaceful way, just as the British state does in the North of Ireland, If It wants Britain tu continue the sales of £439 million of arms every year.
In Occupied East Timor there has been an upsurge in armed activity in recent months. Shortly before the rigged Indonesian general elections on May 29 units of FALINTIL, the armed Timorese resistance, launched attacks on army and police units killing over fifty of them.
The timing of this campaign suggests It was aimed at disrupting the fake electoral process and at demoralising further the Indonesian military stationed there. It appears to have succeeded.
Meanwhile In a number of large towns the unarmed resistance which operates as a clandestine front of all East Timorese groups organised attacks on pollIng booths and was Involved in street fighting with police and army personnel.
Indonesia's army of occupation responded in Its customary way. It launched punitive raids on villages in areas of FALINTIL activity terrorisIng their Inhabitants. Many have been beaten, arrested and taken to torture centres to extract Information and false confessions. The whereabouts and fate of others abducted or arrested is unknown.
The absence of foreign journalists and Independent human rights monltors and the censorship of local media make It difficult to establish an accurate picture of the situation.
Fresh detachments from the feared Kopassus (Special Forces Command) unit headed by Presldent Suharto's son-in-law MajorGemeral Prabowo Sublanto have been rushed from indonesia.
The capture on June 25 and Still cosying up to Suharto behind the scenes? Mandela probable death in custody of David Alex, the legendary second-In-command of FALINTIL, is a blow to the resistance forces and the Maubere people as a whole.
The mllitary claim that Alex died from injurles sustained in his capture but It seems that he was elther tortured to death or murdered in some other way. He was burled under tight secrecy and his family members were not shown his body nor have military permitted exhumation and an autopsy. The state visit of Nelson Mandela to Indonesia In mid-July focused altention on international efforts to mediate on East Timor but has also deflected attention from the gross violations of human rights and tyranny of the Indonesian regime. Mandela visited Indonesia at the invitation of "Dictator Retired General" Suharto once before. In 1990 on a fund raising mission for the then recently unbanned African National Congress he called on Suharto -who promptly donated US$10 million. Mandela was rightly criticised in South Africa and in international anti-apartheid circles for soliciting money from one of the bloodiest and most corrupt of South East Asia's autocrats.
In an effort to make amends he has recently made some high profile statements on the situation in East Timor and publicly called for the release of FALINTIL leader Xanana Gusmao who Is serving a twenty year prison sentence.
While in Jakarta, Mandela sought and obtained an unprecedented private meeting with Gusmao to assure him of his personal support.
However many East Timor campaigners are sceptical of both Suharto's good faith and Mandela's good offices.
They note the close business links between Indonesia and South Africa which Inevitably involve Suharto, his family and cronies as well as the evident Interest that the South African arms industry enthusiastically supported by the ANC-led Government has shown in the Indonesian 'market'.
As the US Congress blocks arms sales and the Labour Goyernment faces pressure in Britain over its sale of Hawk aircraft, the Indonesians are looking to South Africa and Russia for their purchases.
There are rumours that the regime may agree to Gusmao's early release and exile to Europe to lessen the consistent condemnation of its occupation and brutalities In East Timor. However Gusmao himself has reportedly said that the issue at stake Is not his own freedom but the freedom of hls people and the independence of his country.