South Africa's National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), which oversees arms exports, is to meet on Thursday to decide whether existing export contracts to the US and UK should be cancelled after the unilateral invasion of Iraq by forces led by the two countries.

This follows pressure from anti-war lobby groups accusing South Africa of hypocrisy for denouncing war on one hand and, on the other, supplying military equipment to the belligerents through Denel, the state-owned arms manufacturer.

Pretoria Metal Pressings (PMP), a division of Denel, signed a R225 million five-year contract to supply the UK defence forces with almost 10 000 tons of brass components for small- and medium-calibre military ammunition in September 2001.

The deal with RO Defence, a unit of BAE Systems, was heralded as one of the key industrial offset projects flowing from South Africa's purchase of Hawk fighter-trainer aircraft and the Gripen jet fighter from BAE Systems and Saab.

Somchem, also a Denel division near Cape Town, has had a running contract since 2000 to provide advanced artillery shell propellants to Royal Ordnance, the main equipment supplier to Britain's armed forces. The value of this contract has been estimated at more than R1 billion.

In January Denel's Eloptro division announced that the UK ministry of defence had ordered 100 LH40C hand-held laser rangefinders, following on an earlier order for 226 of the LH40Cs. The value of the order was not given.

While the equipment is classified as "non-lethal", laser rangefinders are essential elements of modern artillery systems.

Both the US and the UK fall under categories A, B, and C of the NCACC, which implies that they qualify to buy sensitive equipment such as armoured vehicles, all assault rifles, machine guns, pistols and related small arms and ammunition.

Minister of education Kader Asmal, who also heads the NCACC, said on Thursday that none of the exports to the two countries by Denel contravened the committee's guiding principles and criteria.

The criteria stated that the committee "must avoid transfers of conventional arms that are likely to contribute to the escalation of regional conflicts, endanger peace by introducing destabilising military capabilities into a region or otherwise contribute to regional instability", Asmal said.

Analysts and political commentators said that, "depending on which side of the ideological fence you sit on", Asmal could be "entirely right, or entirely wrong" in this assessment.

But some believed it did not sit well with the government's opposition to the invasion.

However, the National Conventional Arms Control Act, ironically gazetted by the government on Thursday after being approved by President Thabo Mbeki, says the NCACC has to "take into account the inherent right of individual and collective self-defence of all sovereign countries in terms of the UN charter" - something the US and UK could claim they were doing.

In any event, the government's statements on the invasion have been relatively muted in comparison with those of others. The statements have concentrated more on calling for a return to multilateral negotiations under the banner of the UN than on condemning the US and UK outright.

Asmal said South Africa had maintained "normal arms trade relations with both the UK and the US for many years. There has been no noticeable increase in the type or quantity of the orders placed on the South African defence-related industries that can be attributed to the increased tension in Iraq."

He listed these contracts as involving the supply of small arms ammunition components to Royal Ordnance as well as 40mm infantry ammunition to the defence ministry.

"The NCACC will decide at its meeting on Thursday whether to stop the execution of any existing contracts concerning the US and Britain," Asmal said.

Denel said its arms sales were closely monitored by NCACC and judged according to its own protocols, UN arms embargoes and South Africa's foreign policy imperatives. Denel was not involved in making any of the committee's decisions.

It said it had "not supplied any equipment to the US marines, nor to any other units or divisions of the US armed forces".

Its Eloptro division had been given the go-ahead by NCACC to provide "development technology for a project initiated by a private defence company in the US that wishes to compete in a future tender process for non-lethal, eye-safe, laser-guided sighting systems.

Its PMP division had a running contract with the UK's Royal Ordnance to provide "some component parts for small- and medium-calibre ammunition.

"PMP does not have a direct contract with the UK armed forces, nor do we supply any lethal ammunition to those forces."

Somchem had had a contract since 2000 with Royal Ordnance for artillery propellants, "which likewise is a project that is in a development stage", Denel said.

Denel stated "for the record" that it had no contracts with Iraq, which was subject to "extremely tight arms embargoes administered by the UN, and as such (Denel) would not be in a position to contemplate such support even if it was requested".

With acknowledgements to Lynda Loxton, Khulu Phasiwe and the Business Report.