SECRET UK EYES A
deployed with the Royal Brunei Armed Forces
Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF). A large procurement project, commercially favourable to the UK, is nearing the final stages of negotiation. Within this are projected sales of Hawk Jet aircraft, offshore patrol vessels and the strong prospect of a C2 system for maritime patrol aircraft. The UK also continues to enjoy the use of comprehensive training facilities in the country, including the British Army's only jungle warfare school, which is used extensively by all 3 Services.
10. Following ministerial approval of DPF status for Indonesia in 1989, ABRI have been keen to strengthen Defence links with the UK. Significant efforts were made in 1990 to respond to Indonesian requests for British military expertise and assistance. ABRI openly reject previous Soviet links and declare themselves more comfortable with the UK scale and philosophy rather than US procedures and doctrine, to which the military hierarchy has become accustomed. Consequently, the UK is in an excellent position to influence future development, a process successfully underway and which is set to continue into 1992.
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
11.
Some of the most significant political changes in Sub Saharan Africa in the last year have resulted from the ending, in Africa, as elsewhere, of competition between the superpowers, the collapse of communism, and the emergence of pluralist political parties in many previous one party states. A positive effect of these developments was the facilitating of the end of the wars in Angola and Ethiopia. The consequent rise in expectations has been unmatched, however, by the realities which exist in many African states, and has resulted in civil unrest in Zaire, Zambia, Togo, Ivory Coast, Benin, Cameroon Cote D'Ivoire and Mauritania, for example. This has had an impact on UK Defence planning, and during the period Services Assisted Evacuation (SAE) plans were refined for Sudan, Ethiopia, Zambia, Zaire, Sierra Leone and Somalia. In the event, the only deployment was a small British Army team to Ethiopia and Zaire, and no SAE was required. A further reality is that many African states have become dependent upon foreign aid, and with other priorities for the finite amount of world aid appearing in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, it could be that some African nations will no longer be recipients or at best receive less. This, linked to the poor state of many African nations' economies and their inadequate infrastructure, will make economic recovery extremely difficult.
12.
The outstanding political change, which will have dramatic and far reaching consequences for the region, is the current political initiative in South Africa. The reforms set in train already have
have established a programme destined to provide South Africa with a democratic, non-racial government in the future. There will be temporary set-backs but the resolve and aspirations to fulfil that programme seem irreversible.
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C-4
SECRET UK EYES A
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