The Netherlands important supplier of Egypt’s arms

The authoritarian regime of Mubarak was armed mainly by the US. But also arms sales from the Netherlands are bigger than one would expect. The sale of armoured personnel carriers (a small kind of tanks) during the mid nineties is still one of the biggest sales in the history of Dutch arms trade.

In 1994 the Netherlands sold 599 YPR-765 and 12 M-577 tracked armoured vehicles. In 2005 a next sale of 431 YPR’s followed. The Dutch government defended this last sale by stating “that since 1994, as far as is known, Egypt used neither military equipment nor the armed forces against civilians.”

Follow-on deliverances continue as can be seen in information published by the Dutch government on arms sales. In a December 209 spreadsheet is a sale for armoured vehicle technology valued over one million euro’s (see table 2).

The deliverances are significant, not only because of their size, but also because of the potential use of this kind of weaponsystem during teh repression of popular protests. Small arms in the end do not convince really angry and desperate people. The bullets are taken as an inescapable part of the protests. That’s horrible, but the cruel reality. When armoured vehicles – in case of the Dutch ones also fitted with 25mm cannons – are deployed the military crew is invulnerable, but the protester defenceless and a easy prey.

In Cairo, until now luckily it is a different story with the army on neither side and waiting its chances. Before it was even seen on the side of the opposition: "(...) their displays of support for the protesters were conspicuous throughout the capital. In one striking example, four armoured military vehicles moved at the front of a crowd of thousands of protesters in a pitched battle against the Egyptian security police defending the Interior Ministry."

The Netherlands sold more arms to Cairo like technology to produce night vision goggles. But the sale of the armoured vehicles remains the most important, although neglected by the press. If they will be or will not deployed against the masses protesting lies in the future. Let’s hope not.

Martin Broek

Original in Dutch: http://broekstukken.blogspot.com/2011/01/nederland-belangrijke-leverancier.html
More on Dutch arms export to Egypt: http://broekstukken.blogspot.com/2011/01/wapenexporten.html

Table 1: armoured vehicles Egypt Source: Military Balance 2010, p. 248 For more information see: wiki/Modern_equipment_of_the_Egyptian_Army Note: Armoured vehicles are easy recognised by shape, tracked or wheeled and the number of wheels. Pictures can be found on the internet.
412	Reconnaissance		300
			112	Commando Scout
610	Armoured Infantry Fighting vehicle (AIFV)		220	BMP-1 (in store)
			390	YPR-765 (met 25mm)
4.160	Armoured personnel carrier (APC)
	2.600	APC (tracked) M-113A2	(500)	BTR-50/OT-62 (most in store)
	1.560	APC (wheeled)	250   250     410   650	BMP-600P
				BTR-60
				Fahd-30/TH 390 Fahd
				Walid

Table 2:  Arms sales Egypt 2008-2009
Date	equipment	Final destination	origin	value (€)
18-12-2009	Parts of YPR- and M113 APC armoured vehicles	EGYPT	Unknown	1.202.476
februari-2009	Technology  to produce night vision goggles	EGYPT	Nederland	250.000
februari-2009	Technology and services for radar and fire control equipment	EGYPT	Nederland	2.547.550
19-02-2009	Optical passive sight and assessors (temporarily or retour after repair)	EGYPT	Nederland	20.000
23-03-2009	Technology and services for radar and fire control equipment  (temporarily or retour after repair)	EGYPT	Nederland	274.000
19-10-2009	Parts of fire control radar (temporarily or retour after repair)	Egypt	Nederland	114.000
27-10-2009	Parts and software for  C3-consoles	Egypt	Nederland	4.010.932
nov-2009	Parts and assessors of fire control radar	Egypt	Nederland	295.000
13-02-2008	Technology  to produce night vision goggles	Egypt	Netherlands	50.000
31-07-2008	Parts of fire control radar	Egypt	Unknown	69.150
October 2008	Parts for C3-consoles	Egypt	Nederland	14.644.151
november-2008	Night vision camera’s	Egypt	Nederland	720.000
25-11-2008	Parts of radar fire control (permission period extended)	Egypt	Nederland	295.000
Source: several reports on Dutch exports per month, the Ministry of Economics. See: stopwapenhandel.org/(...)/overheid.html