Dutch surplus arms to Jordan

The Dutch government should reconsider its arms export policy to Jordan seen the recent scandals and developments in the region. It should also provide more detailed information on its surplus sales in general, so a more elaborate opinion can be formed by MPs and civil society.

Over the past years a constant flow of information has been published by the international media on Western arms in the hands of IS and other terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. The most remarkable recent example was a story investigated by the New York Times and Al Jazeera on a large volume of arms and ammunition sent by the CIA to Jordan for Syrian fighters. The weapons were stolen by Jordanian intelligence operatives and sold to arms merchants on the black market.

At a subsequent NYT-blog it was stated that: “Sceptics of American efforts to arm anti-government rebels in Syria have long worried that weapons could be diverted to opposing forces or terrorists. But they did not expect diversion by members of Jordan’s vaunted intelligence service, which was working with the United States to train the rebels. Revelations, by The Times and Al Jazeera, of just such theft have shown how even a supposedly stalwart ally can undermine American interests and aid its enemies.” Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights Watch, Executive Director, Middle East and North Africa Division sighed in a tweet: “Seen this movie a 1000 times.”

The theft surfaced because the officers bragged about it and showed iPhones, SUV's and other luxuries bought with the illegal earnings. Even after it became known to the Jordan government it was not ended directly, but only a few months ago when the US and Saudi Arabia started to complain about the dangerous malversations.

Jordan is seen as an island of stability in the region and strongly connected to the West. Even its Muslim Brothers are only a moderate nuisance. But others argue stability is not a guarantee. Corruption in the elites is one of the more prominent political issues. Even more so because revenues of the fraud are not drippling down. Ludo de Brabander argues in his last book 'Oorlog zonder grenzen' that loyalty is also low because of the Jordanian government support for US policies in the region. He cites polls to underline his position, like the one of the PewResearchCenter in Washington D.C. It fits into the following worry “Jordan's deepening involvement in Syria—including reports that it is permitting Israeli drone flights over its territory and welcoming deployments of U.S. troops—could feed protests, too.” The hesitance to participate in the war with its neighbours was large for this reason .

Jordan is a close ally for the Netherlands. In the past years it received large quantities of surplus arms (see table above). Then Minister of Foreign Affairs, the current European Union commissioner Frans Timmermans, was quite relaxed on the sale, because of the air warfare aspect of most of the delivered arms, such as the Cheetah. He said: “I do not worry too much about the offensive capabilities of this weapon system.” Ignoring the fact that the weapon is also armed with anti-tank (AT) rounds and that weapons seem to be creatively used in the wars in Syria and Iraq; AT weapons of a wide variety are used (for a list of weapons used by Syrian fighters see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_equipment_used_by_Syrian_opposition_forces.) And to get rid of this laconically attitude a youtube video shows the weapon being used against ground targets.



The Dutch government voiced some concerns on Jordan in connection with the sale of military equipment like trucks, air defence and fighter aircraft. The government wrote in a series of letters (see table above) that the Human Rights situation is better as in most countries of the region, but situation of prisoners isn't good, rights of Palestine refugees are violated as is the freedom of press, opinion and gathering. The death penalty was introduced in December 2014 after a moratorium of eight years and 113 people are now on death row. But these facts were not decisive in granting the export license.

The Jordanian armed forces are not connected to those violations. And despite the regional problems and the influx of large quantities of refugees Jordan is relatively stable and part of the coalition against ISIS. The probability the trucks will be used against the population are minimal (thus not zero, MB). The F-16's and armoured vehicles can not be used against the population, according to the government in The Hague.

This denies the use of fighter aircraft in quelling large civil uprisings, like in the Palestine Territories and Kurdistan. Recently fighter aircraft have been used in the War in Yemen committing war crimes (Jordan participated with F-16's in the Saudi-led mission) . It also shows that nothing is learned from the recent Dutch ill-informed sales to countries in the region using Dutch armoured vehicles against civilians in streets of Cairo and Bahrain. Armoured vehicles are the weapon of choice in this kind of situations.

More specific information should be published to the Parliament in the future, such as which types are exported, with what kind of primary and secondary armaments aboard. YPR is a very vague description of a wide ranging family of armoured vehicles. Are they equipped with machine guns, small or middles seized cannons? This kind of information is essential to have an balanced opinion on the sales.

But seen the situation in the region and the wide dispersed sympathy for Islamist groups and antipathy for the sitting powers in the intelligence, security and military circles the diversion or illegal sale of armaments can not be excluded and sales of today will boomerang tomorrow. They already do. The Jordanian air force is pampered and equipped at the expense of other services, like intelligence. Herewith the loyalty will also erode and thus stability in the country based largely on the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate (GID).

Sales add fuel to the chain of conflicts in the Near and Middle East. The report of the New York Times and Al Jazeera give a kind of peep review of what may lay ahead of us. No time for lacony on the side of the Dutch government when it wants to sell its obsolete weapons abroad.

Written for Stop Wapenhandel

figures for action

“Developing nations from 2011 to 2014 received 62% of the value of all international arms deliveries.” It is a text from the annual report 'Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2007-2014,' published December 2015. The newest edition of this annual report appeared almost against expectation. The previous issue was published in 2012; annual was hardly accurate any more.

The report is written by Catherine A. Theohary for the Congressional Research Service (CRS). She replaces Richard F. Grimmett, who has been the author for such a long time that the report had become known as the Grimmett-report. The rebirth of the report with a new author was launched with a media strategy. It was a week after publication before it became really public. This gave the New York Times the possibility to write an exclusive article which was cited in papers all over the world. The US$ 10 billion growth to US$ 36 billion annual US arms exports made headlines. Russian sales declined slightly from US$ 10,3 to US$ 10,2 billion. Remarkable is also the position of Sweden as number three with US$ 5,5 billion of exports. Giorgio Beretta, an Italian anti-arms trade activist tweeted that four EU-countries are among the prominent arms sellers at the Middle East bazaar: France, UK, Germany, and Italy.

The Korean press site Chosun Ilbo cited the fact that South-Korea, with imports valued at US$ 7.8, was the largest arms buyer world wide in 2014. Not something to be proud of, as activists from four continents made clear in October last year at an arms fair in Seoul.

For me the search engine of Adobe reader goes directly on digging for 'Netherlands'. The catch? In 2014 the Netherlands took the ninth position on 'arms transfer agreement,' with a value of US$ 900 million. This predicts high results for the next year on arms exports. The Netherlands takes already the eleventh position (2007-2014) considering world wide arms exports. The report underlines already familiar knowledge based on a variety of sources.

Another report also published in December is less noticed by the press. The World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers - often abbreviated as WMEAT-report  - of the US State Department is one the most handy overviews on military expenditures, troop levels, arms sales and imports worldwide etc. But with figures on the years 2002-2012 it crawls behind other sources. The Stockholm International Peace and Research Institute (SIPRI) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), publisher of the Military Balance, gave military expenditure figures for 2014 already. Both can be consulted on the internet and are the source for a wiki lemma on military expenditure. The most used source of arms trade figures is SIPRI, an organisation with a wide range of different sources and easy-to-use spreadsheets. The European Union will probably publish its 2014 figures in March 2016. The 2013 figures were published March 2015. This is rather late, as Stop Wapenhandel pointed out in a press statement last year. Officially figures are due to be publish as late as December of the year following the year it provides figures for. The EU figures are easy to organise and search with the EU export browser on the website of the European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT). In the blink of an eye you can see that our friends in Riyadh are the second most important destination of arms from human rights friendly EU.

WMEAT lags far behind with 2012 figures in December 2015. It contains the statement that arms exports are reducing the state deficit, because the ratio between in- and export are largely in favour of exports: US$ 102 billion annually (a remarkably high figure in comparison with other sources) versus US$ 4 billion. What WMEAT does not observe is that the US debt has reached a level of US$ 20 trillion – more than 100 percent of the US BBP – which is mainly due to warmongering and military acquisitions. The US would not even meet the criteria for entering the EU with this performance. WMEAT gives noteworthy figures for the period 2002-2012: the US was responsible for three quarters of all arms trade, the European Union for a tenth, Russia for a twentieth and China for less than 2 percent. However remarkable press will not take note of three year old figures.

The only press publications on WMEAT has been one by a South Korea website writing on the number 1 position of neighbour Japan as arms importer. Japan's military is still vividly remembered in Korea for it's decennia of military occupation. A week later – more importantly - the Chinese People's Daily published a Op-ed ending with the text: “The 'peaceful nation' is just a temporary cover. Once it is set off by some international affair or other excuse, the Japanese government will abandon the banner of peace and show its true colours. The whole world, therefore, should stay alert to Japan’s intentions.” China has been another victim of Japanese imperial forces, but is currently involved in a strive for influence in the region with the US (and Japan, seen as the US biggest aircraft carrier in the region). Figures can be used for several purposes, beating the drums in conflict is obviously one of them. All the more reason to use this kind of figures to advocate arms reductions.

For precise fact on Dutch arms trade, it is best to use the website of Stop Wapenhandel. This organisation used its counter report to the official Dutch annual arms export report and monthly overviews of export permissions and transit to highlight that Dutch arms export reached its all time high in 2014, and also painted the full picture of the negative effects of many of these sales. Because as a writer in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote 'Peace on earth? Not until the U.S. stops selling arms and making war.' This is the core point. One can read EU where it writes US. Or the Netherlands, Belgium, Flanders, Italy, France, UK, any country or region exporting arms. Arms export policy and controls exist on paper. But a strict implementation is something yet to be seen; economic and foreign policy interest play a more important role. It seems to be sensible in the framework of the struggle for peace to concentrate more on our own governments than on blaming far away countries supported by our governments with military and economic support. More actual information – on 2015 e.g. - would be helpful in these efforts.

Martin Broek 13/01/2016
written for Stop Wapenhandel

Wapens en vrede op aarde

Op Eerste Kerstdag wordt het jaarrapport 'Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2007-2014,' gebruikt voor een artikel in de Int. New York Times. In die jaaruitgave is flink de klad gekomen. De voorlaatste uitgave stamde al weer uit 2012.

Het rapport is geschreven door Catherine A. Theohary voor de onderzoeksafdeling van het Amerikaanse congres (CRS). Ze vervangt daarmee Richard F. Grimmett, die sinds mensenheugenis als auteur op het coverblad van de jaarlijkse publicatie stond. In wandelgangen werd over het Grimmett-rapport gesproken. Er was dit jaar sprake van een mediastrategie bij de lancering. Het rapport werd pas een week na publicatie openbaar. Dat gaf de New York Times de gelegenheid een stuk te schrijven dat vervolgens werd overgenomen door kranten wereldwijd. De enorme groei van de Amerikaanse wapenexporten met 10 miljard dollar naar 36 miljard dollar waren dan ook nieuwswaardig. De Russische verkopen daalden licht van 10,3 naar 10,2 miljard. Opvallend is ook de positie van Zweden als nummer drie met 5,5 miljard aan verkopen. Een Italiaans anti-wapenhandel activist twitterde dat vier EU-landen bij de belangrijkste verkopers naar het Midden-Oosten zitten: Frankrijk, VK, Duitsland, en Italië.

De Koreaanse site Chosunilbo citeerde dat Zuid-Korea met 7.8 miljard aan contracten de grootste wapenimporteur was in 2014. Dat is niet iets om trots op te zijn, maakten activisten uit vier continenten in oktober bij een wapenbeurs in Seoel duidelijk.

Wat mij betreft gaat de zoekmachine vrijwel onmiddellijk op 'Netherlands'. En ja hoor in 2014 scoorde Nederland, met een negende plek, hoog als het ging om het sluiten van contracten. Het ging om een waarde van 900 miljoen dollar. Dat voorspelt hoge ogen bij wapenleveranties in de jaren erna. Nu al staat Nederland (2007-2014) als exporteur op een elfde plek. Het rapport onderstreept daarmee een al bekend beeld.

Minder opgemerkt werd een ander Amerikaans rapport dat in december werd uitgegeven. Het zogenaamde WMEAT rapport van het State Department. WMEAT staat voor World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers. Het is een van de handigste overzichten op het gebied van militaire bestedingen, troepensterkte, etc. Maar het loopt met cijfers voor de jaren 2002-2012 hopeloos achter op andere bronnen. The Stockholm International Peace and Reasearch Institute (SIPRI) en the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) publicist van de Military Balance geven de militaire bestedingen over 2014. Beide zijn te raadplegen op het internet en dienen als bron voor wiki voor de militaire uitgaven. Voor wapenexportcijfers gaat vrijwel de hele wereld naar SIPRI dat een scala aan verschillende cijfers goed vindbaar op de site plaatst. De Europese Unie komt vermoedelijk in maart 2016 met de Europese wapenexportcijfers voor 2014. Afgelopen maart kwamen die voor 2013. Ze zijn makkelijk te vinden in de EU export browser van het Europese Netwerk tegen de Wapenhandel (ENAAT). Je ziet in een oogwenk dat onze vrienden in Riyadh nummer twee bestemming zijn voor de mensenrechtenvriendelijke EU.

WMEAT komt daar dus ruimschoots achteraan kakken met cijfers voor 2012 in december 2015. Dan kan je wel stellen dat wapenexporten goed zijn voor het terugdringen van de staatsschuld. Dit aangezien de verhouding in- en export ruimschoots uitvalt in het voordeel van het tweede, $102 miljard per jaar (overigens een opvallend hoog bedrag) versus $4 miljard. Het is wel een opmerking waarin iets wringt. De teller staat op twintig biljoen schuld – meer dan 100 % van het BBP – en is vooral ontstaan door oorlogsvoering en militaire aankopen. De VS zouden met deze staat van dienst de EU niet inkomen. WMEAT komt ook met opvallende cijfers dat in de periode 2002-2012 de VS ruim driekwart van de wapenhandel voor haar rekening nam, de EU ongeveer een tiende, Rusland een twintigste en China minder dan een 2%, maar daar gaat de pers drie jaar later niet meer voor zitten.

Voor precieze gegevens rond Nederlandse wapenexporten kan je niet om de site van Stop Wapenhandel heen. Deze organisatie liet in een tegenrapport bij het jaarlijkse wapenexportrapport van de overheid en de maandoverzichten van vergunningen voor exporten en doorvoer niet alleen weten dat de Nederlandse wapenhandel in 2014 een all time high bereikte, maar ook waar de schoen wringt. Want zoals een schrijver het in de Pittsburgh Post-Gazette formuleerde 'Vrede op aarde? Niet totdat de VS stopt met wapenhandel en oorlogvoeren.' Om die harde werkelijkheid gaat het uiteindelijk. VS kan je vervangen door EU, Nederland, België, Vlaanderen of welk land of regio met een eigen wapenexportbeleid dan ook. Wapenexportbeleid en -controle zijn er niet voor niets. Maar van strikt toepassen is geen sprake; economische en machtspolitieke argumenten hebben nog steeds de overhand. Het lijkt dan ook zinnig in het kader van de strijd voor vrede nog wat vaker de pijlen op de Regering te richten dan landen elders te beschuldigen die kunnen doen wat ze doen door onze militaire en economische steun. Wat informatie over 2015 zou daarbij helpen.

Martin Broek

Geschreven voor Konfrontatie

Tom Enders, CEO: 'Als je meer wilt weten over Saudi-Arabië moet je bij British Aerospace zijn.'

Aandeelhoudersvergadering Airbus, 27 mei 2015, Amsterdam: De jaarlijkse aandeelhoudersvergadering van Airbus in Amsterdam is een wonderlijk evenement van grijze mannen met dassen, zoals Manfred Bischoff – een van de oprichters van Airbus Defence – en Jean Claude Trichet - president van de Europese Centrale Bank van 2003 tot 2011. Deze dure mannen hebben eigenlijk geen enkele rol tijdens de aandeelhoudersvergadering. Ze doen de hele middag niets, behalve luisteren naar informatie die ze al kennen. Het zijn bestuurders van Airbus, en binnenkort krijgen ze gezelschap van de Spaanse Ms. Martinez, die de tweede vrouw wordt in een bestuur van elf.

Het is ook een wonderlijk evenement omdat het handelt over zestig miljard dollar per jaar en een complete vloot aan raketten, vliegtuigen en helikopters. En over wereldleider worden op het gebied van satellietlancering in de komende tien jaar. Het M400A transportvliegtuig is nooit ver weg tijdens de vergadering, als gevolg van de crash kortgeleden tijdens een testvlucht in de buurt van Sevilla. Vier bemanningsleden kwamen om en twee raakten ernstig gewond. Waarom het vliegtuig is gecrashed is nog niet duidelijk. Airbus heeft een idee maar wacht nog op informatie van de Spaanse overheid. Zal het invloed hebben op de resultaten van Airbus Defence and Space, vraagt een aandeelhouder (11% van de totale Airbus winst komt uit dit deel van het bedrijf). We verwachten voorlopig van niet, is het antwoord.

Het andere grote onderwerp is de ondertekening van een Memorandum of Intent door de ministers van Duitsland, Frankrijk en Italië en Airbus, Dassault en Finmeccanica, om mogelijkheden te onderzoeken voor de ontwikkeling van een Europese Multi Attitude Long Endurance (MALE) drone. 'Alweer een studie' verzucht CEO Tom Enders. 'Maar dat is wat ze willen.' 'Wordt dit programma financieel ondersteund door de regeringen?' een Duitse aandeelhouder voor de veertig vredesdemonstranten die buiten staan. 'Zonder overheidssteun geen defensiemarkt' antwoord Enders.

Zoals verwacht krijg ik geen antwoord op mijn vraag over het gebruik van het Eurofighter Typhoon gevechtsvliegtuig in Jemen. Volgens de Britse pers gebruiken de Saudi's de Eurofighters bij het bombarderen van Jemen. 'Zijn de Saudi's tevreden met de prestaties van het vliegtuig?' is mijn vraag. 'We geven geen operationele informatie over onze klanten,' antwoord Airbus CEO Enders. 'Is de Eurofighter aangepast voor het afwerpen van CBU-105 bommen?' vraag ik, want resten van deze clustermunitie zijn gevonden in Jemen. Enders antwoord: 'Zover ik weet zijn de Eurofighters hier niet geschikt voor gemaakt, want het gebruik van clustermunitie is verboden in de landen waar de Eurofighter wordt gebouwd.' Maar als ik meer wil weten: 'ga naar British Aerospace, zij zijn voor Saoedi Arabië verantwoordelijk.' Dus hoewel Airbus voor 46 percent eigenaar is van het Eurofighter consortion, schuift het de verantwoordelijkheid van zich af.


De tongue-in-cheek arrogantie van een captain of industry met 138.000 werknemers (waarvan negentig procent in de EU) toonde zich al eerder toen Enders zijn ergernis uitsprak over het feit dat hij moest vertellen over ontwikkelingen in 2014 op een vergadering in mei 2015, omdat de Nederlandse wet dat vereist. Hij zou niet mogen klagen. Dankzij diezelfde Nederlandse wet geniet zijn internationale bedrijf een erg voordelig belastingtarief.

Tijdens de stemronde werden de meeste resoluties door 98-99 procent van de kiesgerechtigden gesteund. Op onderwerpen als de aandelen en salarissen van de directie kwamen wat meer kritische stemmen. Grote oppositie bestond echter tegen de benoeming van de Spaanse Ms. Martinez tot directielid. De Spaanse regering had eerste een andere kandidaat in gedachte, maar dat bleek Belen Romana te zijn “voormalig hoofd van Spanje's ‘bad bank’ Sareb” volgens de Irish Times. Niet de handigste kandidaat, maar het vrouwelijk alternatief stuitte op weerstand. 44 Procent stemde tegen haar benoeming. Toen ze toch gekozen werd stak Tom Enders triomfantelijk zijn vuist in de lucht.


Bij het verlaten van de vergadering werd ik aangesproken door een van de andere aandeelhouders, die vroeg of de vergadering me bevallen was, gezien het feit dat ik de enige was die kritische vragen stelde over de oorlogsproductie. Ach, het zou leuk zijn geweest als er meer kritische vragenstellers waren geweest, maar voor mij was het een middag waarop ik een glimp kon opvangen van een wereld waarover ik normaal gesproken alleen lees en schrijf. De man vertelde ook dat Tom Enders vorig jaar een lang antwoord had voorbereid voor kritische aandeelhouders. De aandeelhouder sprak de hoop uit dat er volgend jaar meer kritische vragenstellers zouden zijn.

redactie en vertaling Wendela de Vries

AGM Airbus, May 27 2015, Amsterdam; Tom Enders CEO: 'If you want to know more on Saudi Arabia, go to British Aerospace.'

The annual shareholders meeting of Airbus in Amsterdam is a wondrous event of grey men with ties, such as with Manfred Bischoff – one of the founding father of Airbus Defence – en Jean Claude Trichet - president of the European Central Bank from 2003 to 2011. These very expensive men have no role during the shareholders meeting. They are doing nothing the whole afternoon, except listening to a meeting with no new information for them. Both are board members. They will be joined by the Spanish Ms. Amparo Moraleda Martinez. She is the second women in a board of eleven.

It is also a wondrous event because it is dealing with sixty billion Euro annually and a complete fleet of missiles, planes and helicopters every year. It is also dealing with becoming the world leader for satellite launching in the coming ten years and beyond.

The M400A transport plane is never far away in the meeting, due to the crash of one such a plane less than three weeks before during a test flight near Sevilla. Four crew members where killed and two severely wounded. Why the plane crashed is not yet clear. Airbus has its hypotheses but is waiting for information held by the Spanish government. Will it influence the results of Airbus Defense and Space, one of the shareholders wants to know, 11% of total Airbus revenues come from that division, 'we expect not that much,' is the answer.

The other topic raised by shareholders is the signing of a Memorandum of Intent earlier this week by the defence ministers of Germany, France and Italy and Airbus Defense and Space, Dassault Aviation and Finmeccanica, to conduct a study which has to lead to a decision on whether or not to develop a European Multi Attitude Long Endurance (MALE) drone. 'A next study,' CEO Tom Enders complains. 'But they want it.' 'Is this programme supported by governments,' a German shareholder asks on behalf of one of the peace demonstrators outside. 'Without government support no defence market,' Enders replies.

As expected I got no answer to my question on the use of the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft in Yemen. British press reported that the Saudi's employed the Eurofighters in bombing raids on Yemen. 'Were the Saudi's satisfied with its performance?' was my question. 'We give no operational information on our clients,' replies Airbus CEO Enders. 'Is the EFA adapted to drop CBU-105 bombs, which are in the inventories of Saudi Arabia?' I asked, because remains of those cluster ammunition was found in Yemen. Enders replied: 'As far as I know none of the EFA's is adapted for this, because the use of cluster ammunition is forbidden in the producing countries.' He had no idea about Saudi Arabian inventories he says and if I wanted to know more 'go to British Aerospace, they are responsible for Saudi Arabia.' So although Airbus has a 46 percent ownership of the Eurofighter consortion, responsibility is swept off the table.

The tongue-in-cheek arrogance of a captain of industry employing 138.000 people (of which ninety percent in the EU) showed when Enders wondered about the fact that had to talk about developments in 2014 in a meeting in May 2015, because Dutch law makes this mandatory. Although it makes some sense he should not complain however. The same Dutch law provides him with very favourable tax laws for his international company.

During the voting session, most of the resolutions where supported with 98-99 percent of the votes. More critical votes came at issues such as for the shares and salary policy of the Airbus board of directors. Big opposition however appearded against nomination of Ms. Martinez to the board. Initially the Spanish government had an other candidate in mind, but that turned out to be “Belen Romana, former head of Spain’s ‘bad bank’ Sareb”, according to the Irish Times. Not the best candidate, but the female alternative met with resistance. 44 Percent voted against her appointment. When she was voted in, Tom Enders raised his fist in triumph. He himself also earned a next period.

When I left the meeting, one of the other shareholders asked me if I had felt well in the meeting, as I was the only one asking questions on the industry of war. Well, it would have been nice if more people would have asked critical questions, but for me it was an afternoon where I could get a glimpse of world on which I normally only read and write. I was told that last year, Tom Enders had prepared a long reply for critical shareholders. The shareholder also said that he hoped for more people with critical questions next year.

Libya needs serious arms control

Last Friday, the UN Security Council decided to leave the arms embargo against Libya unchanged, and urged the government in Tripoli to improve the monitoring of its weapons. Libya and neighbouring Egypt had asked to lift restrictions on Libyan government arms imports 'so it could better fight extremists groups.'

Earlier this month the UN Panel of Expert on Libya stated in its annual report on 2014 that the country has “an open-ended conflict with no clear dominant military party.” In the aftermath of the NATO-backed war, militias flourished and weapons became freely available from within Libya or by procurement from outside. The chairman of the Dutch Parliamentary Comity for Defence, Han ten Broeke (VVD, Liberals) said to Stop Wapenhandel that unfortunately, after Khadaffi was killed, Libya started to proliferate weapons through the whole region, but “sometime you meet the Law of the Untended Consequences.” As if some consequences could not have been foreseen. In 2014 almost three thousand individuals were killed in the Libyan fightings and four hundred thousand were displaced, out of a population of six million. Unintended or not, the havoc in all surrounding countries - Mali as a point in a case, but also Syria -, is also enormous. This is in shrill contrast to the programs to halt arms transfers and trafficking by e.g. the United Nations Support Mission in Libya and among others the German Agency for International Cooperation.

The UN-report on Libya over 2014 is the fourth publication by the Panel of Experts: “Since the outbreak of the armed conflict in 2014, the demand for weapons and above all for ammunition, has soared and all parties to the conflict have been highly active in procuring military materiel. This has significantly increased the number of investigations conducted by the Panel” it states. Those investigations are not easy, because “while the panel is aware of pending transfers of material from several Member States, no such information was provided to the Committee [to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Bernardino León], making monitoring of deliveries of materiel very challenging.” The current Libyan acquisition budget is LYD 150 million (€ 104 million). For the next period 1 billion is expected (€ 696 million). Next year will be even more demanding.

The Panel is a body established by the UN and questions the Member States directly for information. But phrases like 'refusal to supply information' and 'no response has yet been received from the United States' etc. are many in the report. This is the case e.g. in connection to a cancelled, but partial delivered, order of Caracal F Pistols to the Libyan Ministry of Interior. An Hungarian bank, a US registered broker and a UAE arms producer were involved.

The scarce information which is coming forward makes the report however very valuable. In the Caracal pistol case the end-user certificate is annexed to the report to show the deal was real. In another case the use of confidential sources based at the port of Tobruk were mentioned. Those sources confirmed the offloading of military material including small arms and light weapons (SALW) from an Egyptian vessel.

It is remarkable that despite the ongoing conflict there is still space to export weapons. The Panel reports on weapons catched at the borders with Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Niger, Chad and Sudan. Chad is worried the weapons will end in the hands of Boko Haram. Arms traffickers in Chad sell Libyan anti-tank mines at 150 US$ a piece and SA-7 manpads (shoulder fired air missiles) for 10-12.000 US$.

Some cases are described in more detail in the report. One of them is a Italian arms transport just after the start of the Libyan revolution of 2011. Smuggled Warsaw Pact weapons were confiscated by Italy back in 1994, during the war in former Yugoslavia. The weapons were stored at the island Santo Stefano and not destroyed, despite a court ruling to that effect. In May 2011, four army trucks transported cargo from the army base at the island, but a juridical investigation into the final destination of these transports was blocked after army commanders invoked 'state security.' Rumours on arms deliveries to Libyan rebels during 2011 are still corroborated by the Panel.

Another case is the loss of 23 Oberland OA-15 assault rifles (made in Germany), 70 9mm Glock handguns (made in Austria) and more than 42,000 rounds of ammunition. The weapons were meant to protect the European Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM). In February 2014 Malta asked permission for the export and an end-user certificate had been signed by the EU-delegation to Libya. The 10th of March GardaWorld shipped the weapons to Tripoli International Airport. Upon arrival the Libyan customs said clearance documents were missing. EUBAM was informed about the arrival of the guns. But when GardaWorld personnel returned a week after with the requested documents, the weapons were gone. Libyan authorities did not bother for follow-up investigation.

Shipments of Milan anti-tank missiles from Libya to Syria were reported in previous reports. The missiles were produced by Airbus, but the company denied that it sold them to Libya. During the revolution of 2011 the Khadaffi regime accused Qatar of exporting the missiles to the rebels. In 2012 they were en route to Syria and found at the Letfallah II which was seized by the Lebanese authorities. “France did not disclose to which country the missiles had been originally exported” says the UN report. During the Airbus shareholder meeting Tom Enders, CEO of Airbus, was asked about it, but he responded it was the French government which had to answer. The Dutch government was never asked, because Airbus headquarters are in the Netherlands for tax evasion only, not for difficult questions on international relations.

Last year Qatar added a new chapter to its devastating policies in Libya. The emirate was accused of backing groups with weapons and funding while the heavy fighting of Operation Fajr was ongoing. When the UN Panel inquired about those strong allegations Qatar did not bother to respond. Nevertheless, Qatar still is a prominent client for Western arms.

What can be done to stop the Libyan arms market? The UN Panel has two recommendations to Member States. The first is to regulate brokering. The second is to inspect cargo to and from Libya. Life can be so easy. Another recommendation might be to cooperate when asked for information by the Panel. And to sanction those who don't, e.g. by refusing arms sales to those countries; a win-win opportunity. Another suggestion for recommendation: Pressure Member States of the EU to cooperate. One unnamed Member State called in the  for clear identification of the origins of arms flows and regretted the lack of cooperation from Member States in that regard. The Panel states itself in the report: “To date, despite the violations reported in the Panel’s three previous reports, no action has been taken against most of the violators. What is more, some have been involved in further violations.” There are many possibilities still to improve the situation. Lifting the embargo is not the way. Luckily that was not done.

Written for stopwapenhandel.org 
Dutch version Ravage-Webzine 

Shipyard Damen wants to build for Azerbaijan

Photo: Kommer Damen of Damen Shipyards talking with president Aliyev of Azerbaijan at WEF in Davos source

Dutch Damen Shipyards considers building military naval vessels for Azerbaijan, a country that is involved in an arms race with neighboring Armenia.

 

Mid Janauary, Kommer Damen CEO and owner of Damen Shipyards visited the WorldEconomic Forum in Davos to strengthen cooperation with Azerbaijan. He met the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev personally to discuss construction of military and civilian vessels and ships for unspecified government tasks, reports Trend News Agency.

In September 2014, arms fair ADEX was organised in Azeerbaijan. One observer noted: "There seem to have been a lot of shipbuilders and navy-related companies at ADEX; Dutch shipbuilder Damen was the "platinum sponsor" of the show and Chinese and Turkish shipbuilders also exhibited, suggesting they think there is naval business to be had in Azerbaijan." It seems the assumption was correct.

 
Azerbaijan borders the Caspian Sea in the turbulent Caucasus. It is currently engaged in an arms race with neighboring Armenia. The Bonn International Center for Conversion stated in a report that Armenia and Azerbaijan belong to the ten most militarized countries in the world. Armenia ranks third, a higher position than even Syria.

 
In 2013, Armenia's military expenditure reached the amount of 427 million dollars. Azerbaijan spent $ 3.4 billion in the same year on the military. In Armenia about 4 percent of the Gross National Product was spent on defense, in Azerbaijan 4.7 percent. Compared with other European countries this is significant. On top of imports Azerbaijan boosted its own arms production substantially.

Scientific research indicates that countries in a potential conflict area which buy huge amounts of weapons have a bigger chance to get at war with each other. And with Azerbaijan and Armenia, conflict is never far away; allthough there is a ceasefire since the war of 1994, throughout 2014 a total of 72 people were killed on both sides. 

Human Rights Watch states in its annual report for 2014 Human Rights Watch states that: "The Azerbaijani government’s poor record on freedom of expression, assembly, and association dramatically deteriorated during the year. This crackdown was the backdrop for the October 2013 presidential election, in which incumbent President Ilham Aliyev was re-elected for a third term with 84.5 percent of the vote.” 

At the same time the Dutch branch of Amnesty International launched a campaign for the release of two Azeri human rights activists, Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif, who were arrested last year on charges of treason and fraud. According to Amnesty, the charges were made up to silence the activists in the run-up to the first edition of the European Games next summer.  

Meanwhile, the largest arms exporter in the Netherlands, Kommer Damen, visits the Azerbaijani President in Davos to discuss military production. Not only from a human rights point of view is this irrsponsible, but also because of the tense situation in the region. Control based on the arms export regulatuons an easy task. Damen Shipyards Group is a company that operates in 18 countries and has 35 shipyards and builds complete warships in Asia, the America's, Africa and other parts of Europe. The latest of its foreign operations is the licensing of its vessel designs to Louisiana boat-builder Metal Shark Aluminum Boats. Because of this internationalisation it will be easy to circumvent the Dutch arms export guidelines. 

 
Thales Nederland, another prominent Dutch arms exporter, once said that is will not bite the hand which feeds it. For Damen, a significant part of its 'food' is provided by the Dutch government in the form of purchasing naval vessels and export support when selling them abroad. Damen for example knows very well how to use the of attractive Dutch export credit guarantees and Oret Miliev development grants. In the case of Azerbaijan, let's hope the Dutch government will warn Damen not to sell military vessels, instead of giving its support.

 
Written for Stop Wapenhandel Dutch version see Ravage Webzine

East meets West on weapons and conflict

Introduction 

The European Network Against Arms Trade started to work on arms trade to Southeast Asia in 1994, when it was campaigning, together with Indonesian activists, against arms export to Indonesia, at that time a military dictatorship.

The first publication contained a quote of François Heisbourg, at that time CEO of Matra military missile company (now MBDA). He observed that the increasing arms budgets in South East Asia showed great similarity with that of Europe at the eve of World War I.

Twenty years later, April 2014, David Pilling wrote in the Financial Times

 “Almost every Asian nation is building up its capacity in the air and on the sea. The people of the region must hope that it is a complete waste of money.”

Both quotes express the fear that the arms build-up in Asia contributes to the risk of armed conflict. In his article- 'Asia follows China into an old-fashioned arms race' – Pilling argues, like many observers do, that the trend of increasing arms budgets will gather pace in the coming years. His article was published after the release of Military Expenditure 2013 figures by the renowned Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which also highlighted the growth of Asia's military budgets.


The International Institute of Strategic Studies' (IISS) in London estimated, based on 2012 figures, that the Asian defence expenditure is exceeding that of Europe. (See e.g. The European Union As A Security Actor: View From India, Eurasia Review, August 26, 2014.) Due to the present economic crisis, the European budgets are declining, while those in Asia continue to grow. Looking in a more political way at the figures however, one notices that most big Asian spenders belong to the Western sphere of influence: Australia, Japan, Turkey and South-Korea. And as the European Union is still responsible for 16% of military spending and the US even for 37%, the big military spending is still taking place in the West, not in Asia. Based on spending figures one must conclude that Western military superiority is still unchallenged.

Moreover, a division by region instead of continent gives a more balanced view. In green, the regions with declining military budgets in 2013. However in absolute spending figures Europe and the US are still the main military spenders. We have to wait for the 2014 and beyond figures to see if this trend continues. In reaction to the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine on the one hand and the situation in Iraq/Syria on the other hand the trend might reverse into the direction of larger military budgets again. One sees this debate on the political and military level gaining speed. The fact that the UK government recently announced to spend £3.5 billion on armoured vehicles in the next three years while also warning about the dangers of “prioritising social welfare” is an example of where the debate is going. Governments are willing to sacrifice social security (the right of access to nutrition, health care and education) to military security.

 



Arms Trade
 
Growing military budgets will benefit military companies. Of the fifteen largest military companies nine are US-based and five are located in Western Europe. Russia has only one military company among the top-fifteen.

Roughly a quarter of the military budgets are spend on arms acquisitions, which makes over 400 billion US$. The rest of the budget is spend on issues such as soldiers wages (50%), fuel, buildings, repair and overhaul etc. Of the 400 billion on arms, roughly one fifth is imported and makes up the global international arms trade. SIPRI gives a value of US$ 43 billion for 2011, but due to the incompleteness of available figures it states that: “However, the true figure is likely to be higher.”


When looking into the most recent figures as provided by the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) for 2011: “The value of all arms transfer agreements worldwide (to both developed and developing nations) in 2011 was $85.3 billion. This was an extraordinary increase in arms agreements values (91.7%) over the 2010 total of $44.5 billion. This total in 2011 is by far the highest worldwide arms agreements total since 2004.” In this year 2011, the US has exported its largest amount ever for a single year in the history of the U.S. arms export program: $66.3 billion. Three quarters of the total global arms trade comes from the US. Followed by Russia with $4.8 billion in arms trade agreements in 2011. But the trend is that regional arms producersitself get a share in production of weapons. Indonesia e.g. has the policy that Indonesian firms must control at least 51 per cent of a joint defence project, and the other 49 per cent can be in the hands of its foreign counterpart (2012 Defence Industry Law). The law is part of Indonesia's strategy to provide the country with a strong defence industry by 2024. The policy is financially backed by 100 trillion rupiah ($8.25 billion) since 2010, Indonesia's defence-industry has reached this year 40 per cent of what is considered lowest essential level, according to Timbul Siahaan, the Indonesian director general for defence potential.
The so-called Grimett-report of CRS also shows that the three major arms suppliers to Asia are Russia, the US and Western Europe. 

2009 2013

2008 2012

Country

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Total

1	1	India	1867	1996	2897	3566	4524	5581	20431
2	2	China	1992	1453	943	1020	1631	1534	8573
3	4	Pakistan	1047	1210	2201	1051	962	1002	7473
4	9	UAE	749	560	605	1213	1154	2245	6524
5	3	S Korea (ROK)	1647	815	1242	1469	1039	188	6399
6	5	United States	944	973	1113	1014	1215	759	6017
7	6	Algeria	1529	1065	808	1135	877	342	5756
8	7	Singapore	1174	1522	1018	933	824	142	5613
9	11	Saudi Arabia	339	733	986	1160	866	1486	5569
10	8	Australia	405	756	1489	1585	894	303	5432
11	10	Turkey	675	733	469	642	1528	604	4651
12	13	Venezuela	743	358	208	594	691	476	3069
13	14	United Kingdom	529	389	503	355	599	438	2813
14	20	Morocco	46	39	296	1411	807	43	2640
15	16	Egypt	336	159	686	635	312	501	2628
16	15	Malaysia	508	1512	421	5	47	113	2606
17	17	Iraq	380	402	453	658	504	203	2600
18	12	Greece	516	1225	648	77	33	66	2564
19	24	Vietnam	172	62	152	1018	758	369	2531
20	25	Afghanistan	152	346	377	672	579	216	2344

Table: SIPRI database major recipients of arms 2008-2013 
 
The ranking of SIPRI shows that of the 20 major recipients of arms in the period 2008-2013, the first three were Asian, notably 1) India, 2) China and 3) Pakistan. Singapore ranked 8, Malaysia ranked 16 and Vietnam ranked 19, all three are South East Asian countries.
 
A case study: Cam Song military shipyard
 
To give some insight in the world of arms trade we will have a closer look at an example of trade between the Netherlands and Vietnam. Just 100 kilometres east from Hanoi, at Cam Song, the biggest Dutch naval shipbuilder has established a Dutch-Vietnamese wharf joint venture. As soon as the wharf was established, it started to build small vessels for the Australian navy. But more important are the plans to build four major surface vessels for the Vietnam navy, equipped with MBDA Exocet surface target missiles and 12x MBDA MICA VL surface-to-air missiles. Although often described as patrol vessels for coast guard duties, these ships have much more capabilities than just for patrols; notably when armed with these missiles these are full scale warships. Two of the ships will be build in the Netherlands, the other two in Vietnam. It is a win-win for both owners for which Vietnam will pay an estimated € 700 á 800 million. Although the price of the ships is kept secret so far, it can be deduced from the size of the ships and recent comparable sales to Morocco and Indonesia. The deal will most likely include technology transfers; no arms deal is thinkable without that nowadays. So far, no arms export license is applied for by the Netherlands seller, probably due to difficulties in providing finance for this major arms transfer. The four ships are a clear example of regional naval build-up.

The Netherlands is not the only country doing military business with Hanoi. In the autumn of 2014, the United Stated eased its arms embargo on Vietnam. The decision prompted reaction by some republican US-senators urging President Obama to rethink his decision to ease a decades-old arms embargo and instead condition US arms sales to Vietnam upon specific progress to Vietnam’s human rights record. But the message is mixed with other interests. They also want to see Vietnam beefed-up against China “In their letter to the President, the senators expressed support for U.S. efforts to help improve Vietnam’s maritime defence capabilities given China’s aggressive territorial claims.” Arms exports may be authorized in the best interests of U.S. foreign policy, national security, and human rights concerns on a case-by-case basis when in support of maritime security and domain awareness, states the Final rule. Human Rights and Power politics go hand-in-hand here.

This brings us to the issue of territorial disputes around the Paracels and Spratlys, to which these naval build-ups seem to be a response. These disputes are big issue in South East Asia, but not well-known in Europe (apart from some scholars). One can legitimately ask the question why there should be such a military build-up when diplomatic solutions can lower the tension, as is shown by the recent agreement. One can even ask if these military build-ups do not endanger more peacefull solutions such as diplomacy. Those questions are rarely asked but but to ask them might be in the interest of the people of South East Asia.

Another main Dutch arms producer, Thales Netherlands, is not only involved in the Vietnam deal, but is at the same time working with the Chinese supposed enemy. The Dutch company is supplying the radar and command, control, and communication systems for Chinese build warships to be sold to Algeria (a €21 million or US$28 million deal). On the website of renowned military publisher IHS Jane's is stated: “To mitigate concerns about possible industrial espionage in China, Thales will install sensitive components and software only after the vessels have been delivered to Algeria.” But it is undeniable that the cooperation between Thales Nederland and China Shipbuilding is strengthening the later and is profitable for both. The cooperation sands the barriers of the EU military embargo on China. Two major Dutch arms producers are supporting two parties in the same conflict on the Spratlys. Armed forces and governments on one side of the globe and arms companies on the other side stress that the military 'solution' to a conflict is the sensible way, more effective than any other, more sustainable solution. One can wonder if it is about peace and security or about profit and power.

Arms trade campaigning
 
NGO's in Europe campaigning on arms trade mostly focus on corruption in arms deals, the relation between arms trade and human rights violations and the abuse of scarce resources in the country of destination for expensive arms contracts. Most campaigners and researchers on arms trade consider South East Asia as a region for specialists. The raising military export to the region however demands more attention.

One way in getting more influence as a campaigner is just to publicize the facts. Here under a screen shot of the European Network Against Arms Trade database, based on the fairly inaccessible official annual EU reports on arms sales. Information in this database can be filtered for year, weapon type and country of origin or destination. It is a easy tool for a quick overview. In the example data have been selected on year 2012 and country of destination China.

Final remark

The arms trade is a push market, where companies work hard to get new costumers convinced of the need of the newest, most expensive technology. South East Asia is a very profitable region for European arms companies. People should worry for the peace in South East Asia, as Financial Times journalist Pillings was quoted at the beginning of this article. Arms races generally do not contribute to peace and security, on the contrary.



Martin Broek
 
Published: Stop Wapenhandel, November 2014 
Made possible with the kind support of the Trans National Institute (TNI).

Stop Wapenhandel is an independent foundation researching and campaigning against arms trade and arms production. Stop Wapenhandel is supported by gifts. Please help and donate on bank account NL.11.TRIO.0390.407.380 for Stop Wapenhandel, Amsterdam