By Lewis Crofts - 13th May 2004
Europe’s restrictions on arms exports are misfiring and undermining world security, according to research by human-rights pressure group Amnesty International (AI).
A week after Brussels showed resilience in the face of pressure to lift an arms embargo against China, AI claims the EU’s arms policy is leading to the spread of weapons, technology and related components to disreputable countries.
The AI report catalogues a host of incidences where European firms and governments have aided the flow of arms to political reprobates such as Angola, Liberia, Turkmenistan and Yemen.
Now the EU family has swollen to 25, Europe has gone up the rankings in world armaments manufacturing.
But many of the newcomers have shady track records.
Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland and the Czech Republic are all accused of either diverting weapons and components to rogue states or actively flogging off Soviet-era armaments.
A classic case cited by the report involves four anti-aircraft missiles that went ‘missing’ in 2002 from a train travelling from Skarzysko-Kamienna to Gdansk in Poland.
Even the mainstream producers in France, Germany, Sweden and the UK are subject to criticism.
One German technology company is discovered to have supplied surveillance equipment to Turkmenistan – a government known to use such methods for political repression.
In August 2000, Italian police arrested an arms dealer near Milan selling arms to a rebel group in Sierra Leone.
The Italian Supreme Court failed to prosecute him, however.
The report lists dozens of incidences of malpractice in arms trade and occasionally drops in names of some of the larger manufacturers in Europe such as Werner and Koch in Germany, New Lachaussee in Belgium and Manurhin in France.
Furthermore, the level of secrecy surrounding arms trade and information transfers between governments casts further uncertainty over where the goods actually end up, claims AI.
The pressure group believes Europe’s arms policy is seriously dysfunctional and is prompting Brussels to overhaul its system as it promised last year.
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