DUBLIN - Cancellation of plans to run courses at King's College, London, for 50 senior Indonesian army officers has been welcomed as a victory by British and Irish solidarity activists, David Shanks reports.
A board meeting of the Centre for Defence Studies (CDS) at King's decided on Thursday that "it would not be appropriate... in this or subsequent years" to go ahead with the Indonesian-funded series of summer courses over five years.
Ms Carmel Budiardjo, of the London-based Indonesian Human Rights Association, Tapol, said that if the CDS wanted to "encourage discussion on political change in Indonesia", as its director, Prof Lawrence Freedman, had said: "the last people they should turn to are the Indonesian army. At this very moment, they are using all the means of violence and repression at their disposal as the fraudulent Indonesian elections approach."