Foreign Office defends arms export regulations

Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:00 AM

The joint Commons committee on Strategic Export Controls- made up of members of the Defence, Foreign Affairs, International Development and Trade and Industry committees have said that 'end use' certificates, designed to ensure that British arms were not used to abuse human rights, are "not worth the paper they are written on" unless more "legal or political backbone" is committed to enforcement.

The QUAD committee highlighted particular concerns about the reported use of British weapons in the Indonesian province of Aceh in the military regime's struggle against separatists.

Responding, the Foreign Office acknowledged that it was difficult to get an accurate picture of what is happening in Aceh however, they rebutted suggestions that they had not investigated, saying: "We have investigated claims by NGOs and others of the use of military equipment in Aceh several times since last May, following the resumption of hostilities in Aceh. So far, there has been no credible evidence of British equipment being used either offensively or to breach human rights."

The Foreign Office statement also emphasized that they had raised the issue of the conflict in Aceh at the "highest levels" of the Indonesian government and are pressing for NGO and human rights observers to have access to the province.

Defending the Government's record on arms control- which began with great fanfare as an "ethical foreign policy" in the first years of the Labour government- the Foreign Office said that the Government "has made unprecedented improvements to the transparency and accountability of UK arms export controls" and said that "our annual reports on arms export controls are among the most transparent in the world."

They pledged however to look in detail at the committee's recommendation that more information on arms exports should be placed in the public domain (following QUAD's criticism that they were denied access to some arms export license documentation) but said: "there are cases where we cannot divulge information that is commercially confidential or which according to the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information it would be inappropriate to release, even to the Committee."

The report has been welcomed by those campaigning for tighter arms sales restrictions. The Campaign Against the Arms Trade in particular is reiterating its calls for an immediate embargo on British arms sales to Indonesia.

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