UK arms to Suharto

The UK and US welcomed the Suharto takeover and gave him considerable support throughout his thirty-two years in power. Despite full knowledge of Suharto’s mass murder of 1965-66 the UK moved quickly to cancel its arms embargo against Indonesia. In 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor and occupied it until 1999, at the cost of over 200,000 lives. Despite this in the following years, the UK sold Indonesia Hawk ground-attack aircraft, in 1978, 1981, 1982, and 1983.