South Africa’s vaunted arms control legislation is not preventing local companies from selling weapons to countries with appalling human rights records, and to governments involved in some of the world’s nastier conflicts.
The latest report of the national conventional arms control committee, which must approve all South African arms exports, shows that exports increased by 20% to R3,1-billion in 2003. They were helped by sales to countries with poor human rights records including Swaziland, Côte d’Ivoire, the Philippines, Colombia, Guinea, Algeria, Nepal, China and Pakistan.
The National Conventional Arms Control Act of 2002 requires the government to consider the human rights and security situation in recipient countries before approving weapons sales. The report, which the Mail & Guardian struggled to obtain despite it being a public document, shows that:
- Swaziland bought about R3-million-worth of ”communication equipment and public order vehicles”. The sale of riot control vehicles was approved despite the fact that the Swazi government has been widely accused of violently suppressing dissent.
- Colombia — wracked by a brutal civil war between government forces, leftist guerrillas, drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitaries — bought R171,1-million-worth of ”sensitive major significant equipment”. This would include tanks and artillery that can cause ”severe casualties and/or major damage and destruction”.
Also sold to Colombia was about R78,9-million of ”sensitive significant equipment” — small arms and ammunition — and R6,5-million of non-lethal equipment in the category that includes riot control products and demining gear. Services and other non-lethal equipment make up the balance of the R266,5-million total.
Amnesty International and other human rights groups have persistently complained that the Colombian army collaborates with paramilitary groups guilty of murder, torture and intimidation of civilians.