§ 19. Mr. BattleTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Indonesian Government on the sentencing practices following the massacre in Santa Cruz, East Timor.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydTogether with our European Community partners we made a dérche to the Indonesian Government in June. Representations were made following the meeting of aid donors in July and subsequently by Ministers, most recently during the visit of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State to Jakarta.
§ Mr. BattleI welcome the Minister's response and the representations, but would it not be better for the Government to go further and stop their current practice of providing scholarships to train military personnel from Indonesia in British military colleges and also to close the defence sales organisation that has just opened in Indonesia?
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydI would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman would recognise that the best way to influence human rights policy in Indonesia is by staying in there and maintaining our trade, and by discussing with them the matters on which we disagree, especially bearing in mind the fact that in the first six months of this year we had £170 million of trade with Indonesia, which is double last year's amount.
§ Mr. Anthony CoombsDoes my hon. Friend agree that since the massacre in Dili in November 1991 the reaction of the Indonesian Government in seeking to bring the perpetrators to justice has been totally inadequate? Does he also agree that if the East Timor problem is to be resolved in the long term it is crucial that East Timor's representatives are given the opportunity to sit at the negotiating table with representatives of Indonesia and third parties, such as Britain as the president of the Community, and the Portuguese, so as to resolve their differences?
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydWe made clear our abhorrence of the East Timor massacre. There was an inquiry by Dr. Wako, the representative of the United Nations Secretary-General, and an inquiry by the Indonesian Government followed by prosecutions and sentences of members of the security forces. That was unprecedented in Indonesia. My hon. Friend asks about the issue between Portugal and Indonesia over East Timor. We believe that 1011 the way forward is discussion between those two countries under the auspices of the United Nations Secretary-General.