Army chooses German tanks over Dutch
Bagus BT Saragih, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | National | Mon, July 02 2012, 8:31 PM
Leopard 2: (Courtesy of Kraus-Maffei Wegman)
The Indonesian
Army has decided to procure up to 100 refurbished Leopard 2A6 main battle tanks
(MBT) worth US$280 million from Germany
and ruled out previous plan to buy similar tanks from the Netherlands,
Deputy Defense Minister Lt. Gen. (ret) Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin said on Monday.
“We chose Germany because
we can have certainties in terms of time of procurement and volume to meet our
needs,” Sjafrie told a press conference at his office. “We have stopped the
ongoing processes with the Netherlands
to let us focus on the procurement from Germany.”
The government
would use foreign loans for the procurement, he added.
The Dutch
government previously had issues with its parliament in the procurement plan,
mainly considering alleged rampant human rights abuses in Indonesia.
The first 15
MBTs are expected to arrive in Indonesia
in October. The remainders would gradually arrive until the middle of 2014,
Sjafrie said.
The Indonesian
Army said it needed to modernize its weapons systems with MBTs because it only
had light tanks such as the British-made Scorpion and French-made AMX13, which
weighed 8 and 14 tons respectively. The Leopard 2A6 MBT each weighs well over
60 tons. (nvn)
