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| Southeast Asia |
| Indonesia-Italy: Ministers Finalise Joint Defence Deal |
| 2007-04-20 |
| Rome, 20 April (AKI) - Italy and Indonesia are finalising details of a deal to provide Indonesia with two Corvettes or enhanced fast patrol boats worth 520,000 euros, that will be jointly financed and built by the two countries. This was confirmed by the Indonesian defence minister Juwono Sudarsono, in an exclusive interview with Adnkronos International (AKI) on Friday during his three-day visit to Italy. "We want to shift the emphasis to joint production rather than just buying them directly," Sudarsono told AKI, adding that they are exploring similar deals with China, South Korea and India to meet Indonesia's defence needs. The acquisition of the vessels is part of Indonesia's National Corvette Programme to build up a fleet of 30 to 40 Corvettes in the space of 10 to 15 years to patrol the maritime areas of Indonesia, the world's largest archipelagic state. The boats will be used to patrol the sea lanes around Indonesia and conduct anti-piracy programmes in and around the Malacca Straits, which has typically been one of the most pirate-infested sea lanes in the world - and it is also one of the busiest. The National Corvette Programme was initiated five years ago and Indonesia currently has eight such vessels, four of which they purchased from the Netherlands. However this deal with the two Italian companies, the ship builder, Fincantieri to build the vessles and the aerospace and defence holding, Finmechanica, to build the combat systems on the two Corvettes, is different. According to Sudrasono, who met with Italian defence minister Arturo Parisi on Thursday, the Italian government has agreed to provide a bank guarantee for 85 percent of the costs while the remaining 15 percent will be provided by the state banks of Indonesia. On top of that there will also be a joint production with the shipyards in Surabaya in East Java with the hope of developing "a home grown maritime defence". Now the story gets interesting "Based on our assessment, we find that Italy has the best technology on the vessel side and on the command control side," said Sudorsono. "It has a good reputation and the price is right," he said, adding that there is also a political element.. There always is... "Italy is fairly independent of NATO policy especially with regards to Afghanistan and Iraq," Sudarsono told AKI, refering to the fact that Italy has withdrawn most of its troops from Iraq with the exception of some Carabinieri or paramilitary troops. "This is politically important because we want to share a vision of defence strategy including defence planning and management," he said. What is a Muslim vision of a defense strategy? (this is a rhetorical question) Following his meetings Italian defence ministry officials, Sudorsono also said that they have to exchange visits between the national defence colleges of the two countries, a programme Indonesia already has in place with India, Australia and Japan. "We want to encourage our soldiers to have a healthy sense of nationalism and not to be too inward looking," he said, adding that there will also be opportunities for Indonesian officers to gain training in humanitarian and military law at an international institute in San Remo and in La Spezia, in the coastal north-western region of Liguria. "We want our officers to be well-versed in international dimensions of conflict resolution, adhering to human rights principles as part of our democratic reform process," he said. Good luck with that. Both Italy and Indonesia have sent troops to Lebanon to be a part of the UNIFIL mission, with Italy assuming its leadership in March. Sudorsono said that Indonesia "provided the right ambience" in the UNIFIL mission because it shared the same multi-cultural and multi-ethnic traits as Lebanon. And they share the same activities: car bombs and dead Christians. |
| Posted by:mrp |