Arms and the Saudis
Was Rheinmetall’s SA subsidiary guilty of sanctions-busting and responsible for selling weapons used in attacks on civilians?
A report claiming that SA has become embroiled in war-crimes committed against civilians by Saudi Arabian-led coalition forces in the Yemeni civil war has drawn an exasperated response from SA’s troubled arms export industry.The report, by investigative nonprofit Open Secrets, notes claims that German weapons firm Rheinmetall circumvented an April 2018 ban on arms exports to Saudi Arabia by diverting the sales through its Italian and SA subsidiaries.It says SA earned R2.6bn from weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and R5.5bn from its coalition partner the United Arab Emirates (UAE) between 2014, when the war began, and 2019. About 20,000 Yemeni civilians were killed in that time.Compliance with such sales contracts, authorised under the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), can be verified by inspections of the end user to ensure they are not selling the weapons to unauthorised third parties or using the arms to commit war crimes.But defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakul...
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