PRESIDENT Mandela, on a state visit to Indonesia, said on Tuesday that the SA government would sell arms to Indonesia for external defensive purposes “without hesitation”, and will not put pressure on the Indonesian government over its occupation of East Timor.
Mandela acknowledged that the troubled former Portuguese colony is spoken about in “every corner of the globe” but said he will not take advantage of the two countries’ friendship to say what should be done. “But if they want to know our experience, that’s what we have done in our own country. If we had not engaged in dialogue we still would not have been free today,” Mandela said.
Indonesia annexed the former Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1976, but the United Nations considers the occupation unlawful and still considers Lisbon to be its official administrator. Mandela said SA will abide by the UN resolutions on East Timor.
When asked whether SA has plans to engage in arms trade with Indonesia, he said he “would not like to comment on questions of that nature.” However, he added that “there are some countries that were on the blacklist of the apartheid regime. Indonesia was one of them. We are not going to follow that policy.”
“If it becomes necessary for us to supply arms for external defence to Indonesia, we will do so without hesitation.”
Mandela has been criticised on several occasions since 1991 for not taking a stand against Indonesia’s human rights abuses and its illegal occupation of East Timor. However, the Suharto regime was a longtime supporter of the African National Congress and never recognised the apartheid government.
Mandela’s soft line on Suharto has been taken in some quarters as a return of old favours — he has admitted in the past that Indonesia donated large sums to the ANC. There is also the mysterious case of Allan Boesak and the $40-million bank loan, in which Mandela interceded directly with Suharto, asking him to intervene in the case of Boesak’s Foundation for Peace and Justice, which had been ripped off by an Indonesian bank controlled by Suharto relatives.