Indonesia Sends Troops to Lebanon

JAKARTA -- Israel has dropped objections to Indonesia's participation in the expanded UN force in Lebanon and Jakarta will send up to 1,000 troops, Indonesia's Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono said Friday, September 1.

"We are going to carry this out based on the (mandate) from the United Nations ... with the deployment under the UN flags. Automatically, Israel's objection does not apply," Sudarsono told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He said "some officials" from Jakarta had been in contact with their Israeli counterparts through third parties and received clear signs that Israel had accepted Indonesia's troops, when asked if Israel had given the go-ahead.

An Israeli foreign ministry official confirmed that Tel Aviv now had no objections to Indonesia's participation.

"Indonesia has a moderate stance on everything relating to the Middle East peace process. We have no real objection concerning Indonesia," the source told AFP speaking on condition of anonymity.

"It's a country which has always had informal relations with Israel," despite the lack of diplomatic ties, he added.

Israel had said it would not accept troops from countries with which it has no diplomatic relations -- such as Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation -- being deployed on its border to police the ceasefire with Hizbullah.

Sudarsono said a 12-member advance party from Indonesia was due to leave for Lebanon "within a few days", while the contingent was expected to be on the ground within a month.

Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said on Tuesday that Israeli objections should not pose any problem for Muslim participation because the troops would be based in Lebanon, not Israel.

Under UN Security Council resolution 1701, the UN is seeking to raise 13,000 troops to join 2,000 peacekeepers in monitoring a truce between Israel and the Lebanese resistance movement Hizbullah in southern Lebanon.

EU foreign ministers last month pledged up to 7,000 troops for the so-called UNIFIL II force. Long before the 33-day war had ended, the OIC said it would seek to bolster a "Blue Helmet" force in Lebanon.

Turkish government spokesman Cemil Cicek said on August 29 that his country has decided to send troops to join the enforced UN force in Lebanon.

Malaysia has offered 1,000 troops, while Brunei has said it is ready to take part and Pakistan is considering a Lebanese request. Regional heavyweight Egypt has refused to commit troops.

Donor Pledges

Meanwhile, donor countries meeting in Stockholm on Thursday, August 31, pledged 940 million dollars in aid to help reconstruction efforts in Lebanon.

"An amount exceeding 900 million dollars was pledged at the Stockholm conference," Swedish Foreign Minister Jan Eliasson told delegates, later updating the sum to 940 million dollars (732 million Euros).

"This conference has met its objectives by a wide margin," he added.

The amount was nearly double the 500 million dollars that had been expected from the more than 50 countries and organizations attending the emergency conference in Sweden.

The funds raised at the Stockholm meeting will go to short-term needs, from shelter for those who lost their homes in Israel's bloody air-strikes, Reuters reported.

Lebanese officials said an immediate priority was the building of 10,000 prefabricated homes for some of the 1 million people displaced by the destruction. Another was the removal of unexploded ordnance, including thousands of cluster bombs.

Lebanon also plans to earmark $52 million for further work on clearing an oil slick that has spread along its coast since the bombing of the Jiyyeh power station last month.

According to UN and Lebanese estimates, Israeli strikes on the plant's fuel storage tanks spilled 10,000 to 15,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil into the Mediterranean Sea.

Lebanon hopes to hold a bigger conference later this year to raise money for longer-term reconstruction.

"We believe that this a very important accomplishment ... This will pave the way for further efforts," Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told a news conference.

A Swedish Foreign Ministry official said the donated sum included $175 million of US funds, part of an aid package unveiled by President George W. Bush last week.

Sizeable donations also came from the European Commission, France and Italy. Conference host Sweden promised $20 million.

With earlier commitments, more than $1.2 billion are available for recovery and reconstruction.

The closing statement also urged Israel to heed a call from United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to lift its six-week-old sea and air blockade of Lebanon and for UN Resolution 1701 be fulfilled.

Stockholm will play host to a smaller gathering on Friday to discuss humanitarian needs in the Palestinian territories.

Hizbullah has launched a wide-scale reconstruction campaign from day one after the end of the war on August 14 with its chief Hassan Nasrallah pledging to rebuild homes destroyed during the war.