As the controversial arms deal continues to get
murkier, we asked the DA's defence
spokesman, David Maynier:
Does South Africa abide by proper moral protocols in deciding who to trade arms
with?
When former president Nelson Mandela announced that "human rights will be the
light that guides our foreign affairs" we made a clear break with our foreign
policy past.
To give effect to the principle that human rights should be the foundation of
our foreign policy, we passed a law to regulate the sale of conventional arms.
In the preamble to that law, we say that our country "is a responsible member of
the international community and will not trade in conventional arms with states
engaged in repression, aggression and terrorism".
The law says members of the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC)
must take into account whether there is a risk of, for example, contributing to
the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms and the escalation of
regional conflicts before authorising the sale of any conventional arms.
The real problem is in the implementation of the law, because it now emerges
that we are dealing with some of the most repressive regimes in the world. We
sold conventional arms to Libya, Syria and Venezuela.
We are attempting to sell conventional arms to Syria and Zimbabwe.
We sold military support equipment to Iran and we demonstrated military support
equipment in North Korea.
Do you believe the notoriously corrupt international arms industry is, or is
still, corrupting South African office-bearers or officials?
Yes. And there is no doubt in my mind that if BAE is in fact prosecuted in
Britain, clear evidence of corruption of decision-makers and officials will
emerge in South Africa.
Just this week senior officials involved in procurement in the Department of
Defence conceded that they had other business interests.
Do you trust other countries' governments to blow the whistle on any corrupt
dealings with South Africa?
We cannot rely on that. One suspects that in many cases the "corrupting" is done
while other countries turn a blind eye to what is going on.
Does the public have a right to know who we trade arms with?
In the preamble to the law regulating conventional arms sales, we say "it is
vitally important to ensure accountability in all matters concerning
conventional arms".
There can be no accountability without transparency. And so the NCACC is
required to make public annual reports on the sale of conventional weapons.
These include the name of the importing country, category of weapon, type of
weapon, number of weapons and contract value.
The new chairman of the NCACC, Jeff Radebe, to his credit released the 2008/09
annual reports on conventional arms sales to the public. And yesterday in
Parliament he undertook to make quarterly reports available to the public.
But some of his predecessors were serial defaulters in this respect: no annual
reports were released for 2004/05, 2005/06 or 2006/07.
Is there not a case for some deals to remain confidential?
There may be a case for not making public technical details of particular
weapons systems. But the public have the right to know who we trade conventional
arms with.
Do we need such state-of-the-art planes? Could we not get by with "Tata bakkies"
of the international cargo plane market?
There is no doubt that the air force does require a heavy lift capability,
particularly in respect of peacekeeping operations in Africa.
What we need to do is to first establish whether that capability can be
outsourced and, if it cannot be outsourced, then we have to look for more
affordable alternatives to the Airbus A400M.
We cannot be in a situation where ordinary taxpayers are going to have to fork
out nearly R6 billion for each Airbus A400M aircraft.
Do politicians order shiny new weapons partly to service their egos?
I'm not sure about their egos, but there are politicians who appear to have
ordered shiny new arms to service their bank accounts. The public have a right
to know.Related Articles
With acknowledgements to
Cape Argus.
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