THERE is no question about it, Robin Cook has struck just the right note. His words come as music to the ears of all those involved in human rights issues.

What they are now waiting to find out is if his fine words are translated into real action. While they applaud his commitment to put human rights at the heart

of foreign policy, they are sufficiently worldly wise to hold

back a final seal of approval

until details of his review of weapon sales are announced later this month.

Nevertheless, they point out, if the Foreign Secretary is looking for the perfect opportunity to turn his fine statements about his determination to introduce

a new ethical approach in Britain's dealings with cruel regimes, he could hardly make a better start than by banning arms sales to Indonesia.

Indonesia has signed up to international agreements but then flaunts them and attempts to put a window dressing on its appalling human rights record . . . rights vary, they might argue, cultural rights in some countries are more important than the individual's rights. Pain is pain and grief is grief, is the simple response to that one.

The great fear is that Mr Cook will pay too much heed to those siren voices within the Foreign Office, the Department of Trade, and the Ministry of Defence - the very ones that landed the last Government in so much trouble over the Scott report. They will suggest that there is no evidence that arms sold by this country will be used for internal repression, the loss of the export orders will cost jobs in this country, and, in any case, we are legally bound by contract to complete the deals.

Mr Cook is too old a campaigner to buy that one. Or is he?

''If you accept legal difficulties as an excuse in just one case, then it will crop up time after time,'' said Richard Bunting, Amnesty International's spokesperson on Asian affairs, declared. ''As far as we are concerned it is not a proper approach when dealing with oppression on the scale being suffered in that part of the world.

''We await Mr Cook's detailed decisions with interest.''

Perhaps in this country we have become somewhat immune to the pain suffered by the people in East Timor. Their misery seems to have been with us forever. It is easy to forget that probably 200,000 died between 1975 and 1979 following the invasion by Indonesia and that since then the local population and indeed that of Indonesia itself has been savagely coerced by a military government that has no regard for human dignity.

All manifestations of opposition are crushed. Executions, disappearances, and torture are routinely carried out by the armed forces. In Jakarta a couple of years ago students were arrested and tortured merely because they had set off a few balloons advocating peace.

It has been going on so long that even the Labour Government under Harold Wilson was concerned about human rights there. People who voted for Tony Blair last time, and for that matter Robin Cook, were not even born then.

The Indonesian leaders are not normally the type of people you would care to make friends with . . . not the sort of chaps you would invite to your club for a snifter or two . . . but that country remains a major customer for the British arms trade. The MoD has therefore invited three generals, including one that can be linked directly to the invasion of East Timor, to an arms sale to be held in this country in September.

The great fear is that we will sell Hawk trainer aircraft to Indonesia in a #160m deal that will safeguard jobs in this country. There is compelling, if not conclusive, evidence that Indonesia has converted Hawks from a previous sale to fighter aircraft and used them in an attempt to blast the citizens of East Timor into submission.

What cannot be denied is that armoured vehicles supplied by this country were used by the Indonesian government to put down a student demonstration on the island of South Sulawesi last year. Three young people died and scores of others were injured. It was a clear example of how arms sales from this country were indeed used by the military government to put down internal dissent.

No wonder Labour back bencher Ann Clwyd, chairman of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group, is already beginning to express fears over the relationship of the New Labour Government with Indonesia, especially the invitation to the arms sale of the three generals.

However, even she seemed to be accepting the argument that revoking a licence granted by Ian Lang in 1996, when he was then President of the Board of Trade in the Conservative Government, could be legally difficult because of compensation terms.

Human rights organisations are beginning to smell a rat.

If Robin Cook goes down that road, then it would be nothing short of a cop-out, they declare.