German Greenpeace Study: Saudi-led Aggression Violated EU Criteria for Arms Export On A Large Scale
Germany is said to have regularly violated arms export guidelines since 1990. This was the result of a study by the Leibniz Institute Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research (HSFK), which Greenpeace commissioned. Accordingly, deliveries of war weapons and other armaments to crisis and war zones were regularly approved. This applies to so-called third countries, i.e. countries that do not belong to the EU or NATO or are not treated as equal.
“German weapons appear systematically in war zones and in the hands of dictators,” said Greenpeace disarmament expert Alexander Lurz. There is an urgent need for a strict arms export law that prohibits exports to third countries and ends this deliberate, systematic erosion of the export guidelines. “In September 2014, for example, the police in Mexico used G-36 assault rifles from German deliveries to forcefully violate student protests and shot numerous students,” says the HSFK study.
Saudi Arabia in particular violated international humanitarian law in the proxy war in Yemen. “The weapons of war and other armaments that are used in this war also come from Germany.”
The study is based on eight European Union criteria that must be taken into account when approving arms exports. These include “respect for human rights and international humanitarian law by the country of final destination” and “maintaining peace, security and stability in a region”. According to the investigation, Germany violated all eight criteria “on a large scale”.
The federal government’s political principles for the export of war weapons and other armaments from 1971 indicate that exports to third countries are handled restrictively.
However, an export is possible if “in individual cases, special foreign or security policy interests of the Federal Republic of Germany speak in favor of an exception to be granted, taking into account the interests of the alliance”. According to the investigation, up to 60 percent of German weapons and armaments have repeatedly been sent to third countries in the past ten years.
Source: leportale