Illegal Arms Business

INDONESIA’s inconsistency in its response to the repression of the people of Myanmar by the military junta is shameful. In a number of official forums, the Indonesian government has condemned violence by the regime. However, Indonesian state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have been secretly selling arms to the same military junta.

An Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, the Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP), and the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) have recently revealed that three Indonesian SOEs have been selling weapons to the Myanmar junta through True North Co Ltd—a company owned by Htoo Htoo Shein Oo, son of Myanmar Planning and Finance Minister Win Shein. The three companies are Pindad, Penataran Angkatan Laut (PAL) Indonesia and Dirgantara Indonesia.

It is reported that the three SOEs sold weapons from 2014 until the Myanmar military seized power through a coup d’état in 2021. In a report sent to the National Commission on Human Rights on October 2, MAP and CHRO say they suspect that weapons sales by the three SOEs to True North have continued to the present.

The MAP and CHRO report is a public slap in the face for the Indonesian government. We still remember that at the 42nd ASEAN Summit in Labuan Bajo, West Nusa Tenggara in May, President Joko Widodo said that nobody should take advantage of the internal conflict in Myanmar. He also stated that the violence in Myanmar must be ended.

At the same forum, Indonesia also agreed to continued implementation of the Myanmar Crisis Five-Point Agreement, which was drawn up at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states in Jakarta in July 2021. These five points represent a peaceful solution to the conflict in Myanmar. With the revelations about the arms sales, all of Indonesia’s fine diplomatic language becomes meaningless.

Whatever the motives, the sales of arms to the Myanmar military junta is a breach of the Geneva Convention and the International Arms Trade Treaty. This convention and international treaty ban any nation from transferring arms to another nation that it is suspected—based on facts—would use these weapons for the purposes of genocide or crimes against humanity.

It is clearly naive for Indonesian officials to use the excuse that it is not certain that I have used the weapons from the three SOEs for repression or to breach human rights in Myanmar. In fact, the very opposite is probably true.

An investigation by the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar uncovered a series of human rights and violations in Myanmar over the period that the three Indonesian SOEs were supplying arms. The most serious of these was the genocide by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya in Rakhine State in 2017. The UN special rapporteur investigation also revealed that as of September, more than 4,100 Myanmar citizens have been killed since the 2021 military coup.

Indonesia has no choice but to halt the sale of weapons to the Myanmar military junta. Meanwhile, the Indonesian government must carry out an investigation to determine who benefited from the sale of these weapons. This way, Indonesia might be able to save some face before the international community.