LETTER: Time to challenge Dirco’s claim on arms sales
Department claims SA is known globally for having one of the most stringent processes when selling arms to other countries
15 May 2023 - 18:13
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It is time to challenge the department of international relations & co-operation’s false insistence that “SA is known globally for having one of the most stringent processes when selling arms to other countries”.
The National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) was established after Armscor was caught red-handed in 1994 while exporting 10,000 AK-47s, 15,000 G3 rifles and over 1-million rounds of ammunition to Yemen. Then, as now, Yemen was being torn apart by civil war and subject to a UN arms embargo.
The NCAC Act of 2002 stipulates, inter alia, that SA will not export weapons to countries that abuse human rights or to regions in conflict. Disgracefully, those provisions have never been applied, and postapartheid SA has gone from one arms deal scandal to numerous others. These include exports to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (both countries notorious for human rights abuses) and have been identified as used during the present Yemen humanitarian catastrophe.
In 2016 Rheinmetall-Denel Munition (RDM) designed and installed a $240m ammunition factory in Saudi Arabia, and even prevailed on then president Jacob Zuma to open that factory with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. SA again became complicit in Saudi/UAE war crimes in Yemen.
Six flights of Turkish A400M airfreighters in April/May 2020 uplifted RDM cargoes from Cape Town in violation of the NCAC Act, plus the then applicable Covid-19 aviation restrictions. It is suspected that those RDM munitions were used in Libya just three weeks later. The late Jackson Mthembu, then chair of the NCACC, promised a thorough investigation. Of course, it never happened.
To evade German arms embargoes RDM’s German parent company, Rheinmetall, deliberately locates much of its production in countries where the rule of law is weak, such as SA. Arms exports to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey are all embargoed by Germany. Over 80% of RDM’s production is for export.
RDM repeatedly boasts about its exports of Nato-grade munitions. SA is not a member of Nato, yet RDM produces Nato-grade munitions in violation of German arms regulations. An explosion at RDM in 2018 killed eight workers. Following public hearings, the department of employment & labour recommended that RDM be prosecuted for criminal negligence and homicide.
No action has yet been taken against RDM, confirming that in SA the rule of law is weak, even non-existent. Given significant air, land and water contamination, it is also untenable to locate an ammunition factory in a residential area because of the environmental, safety and health risks.
Yet RDM in Somerset West has substantially expanded its production since the war erupted in Ukraine. There are allegations of 155mm artillery shells being exported to Rheinmetall in Germany and/or to other Nato countries for onward supply to Ukraine. If our government professes non-alignment, supplies of armaments to either Russia or Nato countries, or any other countries that abuse human rights and/or regions in conflict, should be totally prohibited.
Back in 1994 Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Anglican church called for a total prohibition on arms exports. It’s now belatedly time for SA to apply that wisdom instead of deluding ourselves that killing foreigners for profit is a lucrative business.
Terry Crawford-Browne
Via email
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
LETTER: Time to challenge Dirco’s claim on arms sales
Department claims SA is known globally for having one of the most stringent processes when selling arms to other countries
It is time to challenge the department of international relations & co-operation’s false insistence that “SA is known globally for having one of the most stringent processes when selling arms to other countries”.
The National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) was established after Armscor was caught red-handed in 1994 while exporting 10,000 AK-47s, 15,000 G3 rifles and over 1-million rounds of ammunition to Yemen. Then, as now, Yemen was being torn apart by civil war and subject to a UN arms embargo.
The NCAC Act of 2002 stipulates, inter alia, that SA will not export weapons to countries that abuse human rights or to regions in conflict. Disgracefully, those provisions have never been applied, and postapartheid SA has gone from one arms deal scandal to numerous others. These include exports to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (both countries notorious for human rights abuses) and have been identified as used during the present Yemen humanitarian catastrophe.
In 2016 Rheinmetall-Denel Munition (RDM) designed and installed a $240m ammunition factory in Saudi Arabia, and even prevailed on then president Jacob Zuma to open that factory with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. SA again became complicit in Saudi/UAE war crimes in Yemen.
Six flights of Turkish A400M airfreighters in April/May 2020 uplifted RDM cargoes from Cape Town in violation of the NCAC Act, plus the then applicable Covid-19 aviation restrictions. It is suspected that those RDM munitions were used in Libya just three weeks later. The late Jackson Mthembu, then chair of the NCACC, promised a thorough investigation. Of course, it never happened.
To evade German arms embargoes RDM’s German parent company, Rheinmetall, deliberately locates much of its production in countries where the rule of law is weak, such as SA. Arms exports to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey are all embargoed by Germany. Over 80% of RDM’s production is for export.
RDM repeatedly boasts about its exports of Nato-grade munitions. SA is not a member of Nato, yet RDM produces Nato-grade munitions in violation of German arms regulations. An explosion at RDM in 2018 killed eight workers. Following public hearings, the department of employment & labour recommended that RDM be prosecuted for criminal negligence and homicide.
No action has yet been taken against RDM, confirming that in SA the rule of law is weak, even non-existent. Given significant air, land and water contamination, it is also untenable to locate an ammunition factory in a residential area because of the environmental, safety and health risks.
Yet RDM in Somerset West has substantially expanded its production since the war erupted in Ukraine. There are allegations of 155mm artillery shells being exported to Rheinmetall in Germany and/or to other Nato countries for onward supply to Ukraine. If our government professes non-alignment, supplies of armaments to either Russia or Nato countries, or any other countries that abuse human rights and/or regions in conflict, should be totally prohibited.
Back in 1994 Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Anglican church called for a total prohibition on arms exports. It’s now belatedly time for SA to apply that wisdom instead of deluding ourselves that killing foreigners for profit is a lucrative business.
Terry Crawford-Browne
Via email
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
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