2023-08-09 06:59:22
– Arms Exports: Contracts of Shame
Pauline Schneider – Political Secretary of the GSsA*
Posted today at 08:59
Four times a year, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) publishes all the amounts of arms exports from Switzerland. And four times a year, it’s a very bad surprise. However, around mid-July of this year, SECO announced the half-yearly figures for 2023, and although a new “record year” like 2022 is not in sight, the amounts remain extremely high, even higher than the years 2017, 2018 and 2019, with exports of 284.7 million francs.
But in addition to these shocking figures, it is above all a few recipient countries that have something to make us wince. This year once more, we find in this list of countries involved in the war in Yemen. In fact, a total of around 11.3 million francs were exported to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and even Bahrain, in the form of weapons of all calibers, shooting as well as handguns and firearms.
Similarly, while in May 2022 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that Hungary had violated the ban on collective expulsions to Pakistan, Qatar or Oman, countries with an autocratic regime, Switzerland all the same carried out with Hungary in 2023 contracts for a height of 5.8 million in ammunition for individual weapons, weapons of all calibers as well as tanks.
While parliament accepted the counter-project to the corrective initiative, in force since May 1, 2022, which has finally made it possible to strengthen the criteria for the export of arms at the level of the law, all these figures nevertheless remain very students. It seems clear that it is the responsibility of SECO as well as of the Federal Council to implement the criteria that have been defined, namely that from now on no export of war material should be possible in countries systematically and seriously violating the human rights, or those involved in civil wars.
A final modification brought regarding by the counter-project is that the Federal Council will no longer be the only one to decide on the easing or tightening of exports of war material, but the latter will have to go through parliament, or through an optional referendum. During the last parliamentary sessions, parliament considered several proposals to relax the law on war material, barely a year following the implementation of the counter-proposal, justifying this by the desire to send weapons in Ukraine. But Switzerland’s role lies elsewhere, and to open this breach would be dangerous: as a neutral and pacifist country, Switzerland should commit itself to strict export regulations and arms control with the aim of long-term global disarmament.
Remember that these millions in arms exports are made solely by profiting from large-scale human suffering. Instead, we need to make a greater contribution to conflict prevention and international cooperation.
*Group for a Switzerland without an army
Political secretary of the GSsA.
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