Germany breaks since approximately 30 years to systematically improve its own Central principles, when it comes to arms exports. This was the harsh verdict of a study by the “Leibniz-Institut Hessische Stiftung Friedens – und konfliktforschung (HSFK / PRIF)”, commissioned by the environmental organization Greenpeace, anyway. It says: “Germany approved and exported weapons of war and armaments in war – torn and crisis countries, in countries with human rights violations and in regions of Tension.”
the fourth largest arms exporter in the world
in This case, each government protested yet again and again, Germany is pursuing a “restrictive and responsible policy on arms exports”. But the fact is, another renowned Institute, the “Stockholm international peace research Institute” (SIPRI) lists, Germany’s exports in the years from 2015 to 2019, behind the USA, Russia and France, with a share of 5.8 per cent of all the weapons in the world the 4. Place.
examples of Mexico and Yemen
In the current study of the Hessian peace researchers are now called concrete cases, in which Germany had explicitly violate the Standards that apply within the European Union for arms exports. Among these Standards, the “respect of human rights and of international humanitarian law by the country of Final destination” and the “maintenance of peace, security and stability in a Region”.
The study comes to the conclusion, against these criteria, Germany had failed repeatedly. The police in Mexico in September 2014, with the G-36 was followed, the assault rifles from the German deliveries to violence against student protests.
Also in the civil war, the country of Yemen to be used according to the study, the weapons come from Germany. The authors cite as evidence from the “German Arms” Research, in which the DW was involved.
in Addition, had been issued old stocks of the Bundeswehr and the National people’s army of the GDR in part to third countries. Third countries, the countries that are neither EU nor Nato members and these also are.
the ban has existed since 1971
Since 1971, a strict ban on the supply of arms in those countries. Actually. Because the practice is apparently different. “The study shows that we can’t talk of individual cases of failed arms export policy. It’s not about one, two, or three exports that have gone wrong,” said Greenpeace disarmament expert Alexander Lurz on Monday compared to the DW. “The whole German approval regime is rotten. The Federal government has approved in the past 30 years, systematically arms exports, which were landed in the hands of dictators and in the devastating Wars of the past and the present used to be.”
Dagdelen: “exceptions for Export.”
The reactions from the policy on the study were not long in waiting: “The exceptions provided for in the arms export guidelines to be used as a license for any export of arms”, said about the Left-outer a politician Sevim Dagdelen. The group of the Left in the Bundestag’s exports since long for a General prohibition of Arms.
From the response to a request from Dagdelen to the government is clear: Germany has exported in the first four months of the year 2020 weapons of war to the value of EUR 492 million – an increase over the previous year by a whopping 40 percent. To allied Nato countries of war are gone, therefore, weapons in the value of EUR 182 million. The much larger Rest went to States, which are members of neither the EU nor Nato. Which States are the, you do not know. Their names were officially classified.
SPD the study seriously
takes In the circles of the SPD in the Bundestag, taken with the conservative CDU of Chancellor Angela Merkel and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU of Germany in a coalition, the criticism from the current study are quite serious. Compared to the DW, it is from the SPD parliamentary group, in principle, the study encourage the view that there had been too many gaps and too great an openness in the approval practice. The competent ministries are too insensitive and slow to change something.
Since the middle of 2019, there is still a ban on the Export of small arms in the so-called third countries. The export of guns as in the past to Mexico is not possible. Necessary further steps, particularly of a legal regulation and not only guidelines were now. However, not all SPD members so.
Nouripour: “Only with a law of appeal is free.”
Also the external expert of the Greens, Omid Nouripour, underlines the need for a clear statutory requirements. Nouripour said the DW on Monday: “It is time that the export guidelines finally, a law is, so that violations of the Federal government, to which we must attend in the coalition between the CDU and the SPD to a considerable extent, can finally be complained of.”
the Federal security Council meets in secret
arms exports will be examined in Secret by a secret meeting of the “Federal security Council” and approved. To him, the key ministries and the presidency of the Federal Chancellor. A parliamentary control, there is not.
to be granted the criteria According to which permits, is often not clear. Again and again, the panel has granted to sensitive exports his blessing. A new law that clearly regulates what is allowed to be exported, to whom, and what is not, is rejected, but from the competent Ministry of the economy.
Korbinian Wagner, a spokesman for the Minister of economic Affairs, Peter Altmaier (CDU), said on Monday in Berlin, there were in force regulations, “and that is the Status Quo of the legal situation. There are currently no plans that I am aware of, for such a law.” The allegations of Greenpeace, to be systematically violated the rules, dismissed the speaker with the well-known formula: “The German government pursues a restrictive and responsible policy on arms exports.”
author: Jens Thurau
*published The article “Greenpeace: German arms exports violate systematically the principles” of Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.
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