A32News - The government and the Indonesian military refused to blame for the disappearance of the wreck of the Dutch and British war, which sank in the Java Sea in 1942.
Indonesia reacted after, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom protested against Indonesia because of the disappearance of shipwrecks sunk Jepada in the Java Sea during World War II.
The government and the Indonesian Navy, as reported by Deutsche Welle, refusing to blame for the disappearance of six British and Dutch shipwrecks in the Java Sea.
"The Dutch government can not blame the Indonesian government because they never asked us to protect their ships," said Bambang Budi Utomo, Head of the National Archaeology Center at the Ministry of Education and Culture.
"Because there is no agreement or announcement when the ships were lost, so it's not our responsibility," he added.
AL Republic of Indonesia stated, ship wrecks of World War II belonged to the Dutch and the British are not supposed to be disturbed, but not the responsibility of Indonesia to protect it.
"AL Indonesia can not monitor all areas all the time," said a spokesman for the Indonesian Navy, Gig Jonias Sipasulta Mozes, the news agency Agence France-Presse.
"If they ask why ships were lost, I would ask back, why they did not keep its ships ?," said Sipasulta.
The Dutch government had previously demanded answers from Indonesia for the loss of ship wrecks their war, among other things Hr Ms De Ruyter whose length is 170 meters.
The ships were sunk in 1942 in the great sea battle in the Java Sea between Japan and the Allied naval forces, consisting of the Netherlands, the UK, the US, and Australia.
Around 1,200 Dutch troops and administrative staff were killed at that time. Amateur divers still see the ship wrecks that was 15 years ago.
Netherlands next year intends to make the 72-year commemoration of the event and set up a national monument.
However it turns out, a team of international expedition sent to the location of the sinking of the ships did not find the bodies of the carcass, only there are signs that the ship never sank in that location.
Besides the Netherlands, the UK also questioned the disappearance of carcasses warships belonging to them and demanded an investigation to find out what happens.
Bambang Budi Utomo said Indonesia did not have the resources to conduct surveillance and patrol permanently because archipelagic a very wide area.
Analysts estimate that the wreck had been looted and stripped down to be sold as scrap metal.
"Looting is really happening on a large scale, not only on the wrecks of World War II, but also the ancient ship wrecks," said Veronique DeGroot, an archaeologist who now lives in Jakarta.
"Penjarahannya been going on for years, until the carcasses of large ships can disappear," he said.
The wreck of the war and war graves are protected by international law that prohibits pollution and the location of the wreck of the war.
