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Wednesday, 29 May, 2002, 10:34 GMT 11:34 UK
The 'trainer' jet the UK loves to hawk
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The UK-made military "trainers" were flown by the occupying Indonesians during their operations to suppress the East Timorese independence movement. Some locals said they carried out bombing runs. Despite Indonesia's poor human rights record, more than 40 Hawks were supplied to the country during the 1980s and 90s - with 16 more on order when the world's attention became concentrated on the plight of East Timor in 1999. Hammering the Hawk Such sales attracted criticism and even activism. In 1996, one Indonesia-bound Hawk was wrecked by three hammer-wielding women who infiltrated a BAE Systems plant. The raiders were acquitted for causing £1.5m of damage when a jury deemed they had used "reasonable force to prevent a crime".
When ministers did finally call a halt to deliveries in 1999 - amid an upsurge of violence in East Timor - three of the jets were already en-route to the Far East and, embarrassingly, could not be legally recalled. Less than a year later, the UK stopped supplying spare parts for Zimbabwe's fleet of Hawks. The aircraft had been sold to Robert Mugabe's regime in the mid-1980s - just after his forces had killed as many as 20,000 opponents in Matabeleland. Flown in anger While the political violence which led up to recent presidential election did not rely on jet aircraft, Mugabe's Hawks have seen action during Zimbabwe's involvement in the calamitous war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Though the aircraft is indeed used by many air forces to give novice pilots a taste of what it is like to fly a more sophisticated fighter at near-supersonic speeds, the Hawk is not without military bite of its own. Just add talons A military training aircraft by necessity has to have combat capabilities, says Nick Cook, aerospace consultant at Jane's Defence Weekly. "Right from the outset the Hawk is rigged to become a ground-attack aircraft. There really isn't much adaptation required," he told BBC News Online.
"India would be mad to pitch them against Pakistan in a battle environment. They would be quickly brought down by Pakistan's air defences," says Mr Cook. However, the relatively primitive Hawk is ideally suited to attacking lightly armed (or more worryingly, unarmed) opponents in low-intensity disputes, "at a fraction of the cost of major front line aircraft types" according to its makers. The Indian deal is a lifeline for BAE Systems' Hawk, according to Mr Cook. Though other orders are "trickling in", the future of the aging model is not exactly rosy. Flying into history? The design has been updated several times, beefing up its attack capabilities, but the latest Hawks are still caught somewhere between the technology of the 1970s and that of today. The aircraft could go out of production in just a few years. There are already foreign competitors keen to take BAE Systems' business if its deal with India runs aground. The Russians have shown a great interest in the "trainer" market.
South Africa recently shrugged off economic worries to proceed with the purchase of 12 Hawks - to add the the dozen bought a few years before. Ministers said the new planes were badly needed to halt the nation's military decline. Opposition politicians countered this argument saying the money would better be spent doubling the police force, providing a basic income for 4.5m destitute citizens, saving 53,000 babies born to HIV-positive mothers and doubling Aids spending in the provinces - with cash left over. |
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