Golfo, armamenti, Germania, rapporto potenze
– L’approvazione data dalla coalizione di governo della Germania (CDU/CSU+FDP) all’esportazione fino a 200 carri armati Leopard (valore stimato €1,8 MD) all’Arabia Saudita, nonostante le sue violazioni di diritti umani e il recente intervento militare in Bahrain per reprimere la ribellione popolare contro il clan al potere, comprova il carattere solo formale dell’appoggio dato dall’Occidente alla cosiddetta primavera araba.
o L’acquisto di 44 carri Leopard 2 rientra in uno stanziamento per la Difesa dei sauditi di €65MD, e contiene l’opzione per la fornitura fino a 200 Leopard, prodotti dal gruppo Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.
– Il governo tedesco, che non ha presentato l’accordo in pubblico, ha respinto la richiesta di parte dell’opposizione (Verdi, alcuni membri della coalizione stessa, SPD, Die Linke) di revocare la concessione all’export. Critiche alla decisione dal settimanale Stern: i diritti umani vanno bene per i discorsi della domenica, ma quando si tratta dei nostri interessi geopolitici, forniamo armi ai nostri amici più diabolici, anche se questo significa sacrificare il movimento di libertà arabo.
– Diverse leggi tedesche vietano l’export a regimi come quello arabo, definito dal capo dei Verdi tedeschi, Hans Christian Ströbele: uno dei peggiori regimi dispotici del mondo arabo e protegge altri simili regimi
– Nella pratica tutti i governi tedeschi hanno approvato in passato la vendita di armi all’Arabia Saudita;
o Ströbele: ad inizio anni Novanta venne approvata la vendita all’Arabia di 36 carri armati, valore €226mn, ma il regime saudita pagò alla fine €450mn, almeno 220 mn. di più,
o €1milione almeno è finito nelle tasche di funzionari del governo tedesco; casi di corruzione legati alla vendita di armi all’Arabia sono emersi anche in Gb e Francia.
– La Germania ha tradizionalmente fornito armi ai paesi arabi, soprattutto Arabia Saudita ed Egitto, in misura minore ad Algeria, Libia e Tunisia ( secondo il Berlin International Center for Conversion – BICC); solo Usa e GB vendono più armi nella regione; la Germania è il terzo maggior esportatore di armi.
– BERLIN – A decision by the German government to permit the export of up to 200 state-of-the-art armored tanks to Saudi Arabia, despite the Wahhabi monarchy’s human-rights record and its recent violent intervention in Bahrain to repress the popular rebellion against the local ruling family there, illustrates the rhetorical nature of Western support to the so-called Arab democratic spring.
– The German ruling coalition, formed by the Christian Democratic Union[e] (CDU) and the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP), unofficially confirmed on July 6 that it has approved the export of 200 Leopard tanks to Saudi Arabia, for an estimated value of 1.8 billion euros (US$2.6 billion).
– Anonymous official sources, quoted by numerous German news outlets, said that m.
– At the same time, the German government rejected appeals by opposition leaders, and numerous political analysts, to call off the deal on human-rights grounds.
– The government did not discuss the arms deal in public, arguing that it must remain within the purview of the Federal Security Council, the highest German body on military and foreign affairs policy. Minister of Defense Thomas de Maiziere refused to comment, saying that the council "debates are classified, and this [classified character] won’t change".
Opposition leaders, some members of the German ruling coalition, human rights groups, and numerous political analysts have condemned the transaction, calling it "a proof of cynicism made in Germany".
– The deal was revealed on July 4 by the weekly newspaper Der Spiegel. It immediately triggered a debate over the honesty of official German, and by extension, Western, support to the the popular Arab movements that started last January in Tunisia and Egypt, and which have so far brought down the despotic regimes of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak in those countries respectively.
– Many opposition leaders called the arms deal illegal, because it goes against German guidelines that forbid the export of weapons and other military equipment to regimes which violate human rights and to regions facing military crisis.
– Saudi Arabia is "one of the worse despotic regimes in the Arab world, which regularly violates human rights and represses democratic movements", said Hans Christian Stroebele, Green party member of the national parliament, or Bundestag, and member of its foreign affairs committee.
– In addition, Stroebele said, "Saudi Arabia is the protector of other similar regimes in the Arab world, and helps to obliterate democratic movements in the region, as it did in Bahrain some weeks ago." There is no question, Stroebele added, that according to German law the export of weapons to Saudi Arabia cannot be allowed.
– Several German laws ban the export of weapons to such regimes. Article 6 of the "control of weapons of war act" says that export is to be forbidden if there is a "risk that the weapons would be used in an operation to disturb peace" and if it "would violate the [German government’s] obligations according to international law".
– Another German guideline forbids the export of weapons to "regions facing military crisis" or to "despotic regimes".
– However, practically all German governments have in the past approved the export of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
"I don’t know whether there is corruption in the present case," Stroebele told Inter Press Service. "But past experiences, in Germany and in other countries, suggest that for the Saudi Arabian regime it is normal to pay illegal commissions to obtain weapons and other military equipment."
– In the early 1990s, the German government approved the export of 36 armored tanks, for an estimated value of 226 million euros, to Saudi Arabia. "At the end, the Saudi regime paid more than 450 million, that is, more than 220 million above the official price tag. At least one million euros landed in the pockets of German government officials," said Stroebele, who was member of the parliamentary commission which investigated the case.
– Cases of corruption linked to weapons exports to Saudi Arabia have also been revealed in Britain and in France.
– Opposition leaders and even some members of the ruling coalition agree with Stroebele. Andrea Nahles, general secretary of the Social Democratic Party, said that supplying state-of-the-art battle tanks to Saudi Arabia showed that the government’s pledge to pursue a value-oriented foreign policy was only "lip service to democracy and human rights".
– Klaus Ernst, leader of the Left Party, said the government’s approval of the deal illustrated its "real operating maxim: The most deadly tanks for the worst oppressors".
– Senior government officials, including president of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert and Ruprecht Polenz, chairman of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, also criticized the deal on the same grounds. Both are members of the CDU.
– Florian Guessgen, policy editor of the weekly newspaper Stern, called the Saudi Wahhabi regime "anachronistic and inhuman", and the weapons deal "a proof of German made cynicism".
– "Human rights are beautiful and good – but only for the Sunday speeches," Guessgen said, referring to rhetorical German and Western support for the Arab popular rebellions against the region’s corrupt dictators. "But when it comes down to our geopolitical interests, there is no doubt about it: We deliver weapons to our most evil friends – even at the price of sacrificing the tenderest blossoms of the Arab freedom movement."
– Germany has traditionally been a provider of military equipment to Arab countries, especially to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and to a lesser extent to Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia, according to the Berlin International Center for Conversion (BICC), a watchdog group that studies military affairs and promotes peace and development.
– Only the US and Britain supply more arms to the region. Germany is the third-largest exporter of weapons, according to the BICC.
– Reports from Saudi Arabia say the purchase of 44 Leopard 2 tanks is part of a 65 billion euro defense spend by the Gulf State and contains an option for delivery of up to 200 German tanks, the Irish Times reported. Munich company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann has produced more than 3,000 of Leopard 2 tanks, delivering them to countries from Canada to Singapore, the report said.
Nick Brown, editor in chief of Jane’s International Defense Review, cautioned that the deal was not finalized and that it could still fall through, but that if it happened it "would be a really big shift," New York Times reported.
(Inter Press Service)