The Netherlands intend to sell naval ship equipment and technology to
Indonesia in an arms deal that could be worth €345 million, the
government announced on Tuesday.
Last year, the Netherlands canceled a €200 million tanks sale to its
former colony after lawmakers had expressed worried about human rights
abuses there. Among them was the Labor Party’s Frans Timmermans who is
now foreign minister.
The latest deal will not involve the Dutch Government. Rather a Dutch
company has applied to sell technology for frigates that are supposed
to be build in Romania as well as Indonesia itself. Timmerman’s
department insists that the delivery meets all legal requirements for
weapons exports.
Opposition parties were taken aback nevertheless. Both the liberal
Democrats and far left Socialists accused Labor of changing his
position, something Désirée Bonis, its foreign policy spokeswoman,
denied. “Indonesia is a friendly nation and a democracy,” she said. “So
there’s nothing wrong with this.”
The previous coalition, which included the conservatives besides
Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s liberals, who are still in power, similarly
argued last year, however, that human rights in the island nation had
“marked improved,” even if there were still “internal tensions” in the
Maluku and Papua islands, majority christian provinces that once aspired
to autonomy or independence.
It wanted to sell up to one hundred German
made Leopard tanks to the country—which could hardly have been deployed
to the Moluccas or Papua given the mountainous terrain and dense
forestation there—but the anti-immigration Freedom Party, which
otherwise supported Rutte’s minority government, objected because
Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim country.
Indonesia later bought the tanks from Germany.
Source : Atlantic
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