TAKE ACTION: Is South Africa selling weapons to Zimbabwe?

On the 28th June an article appeared in the South African Mail and Guardian alerting us to the fact that “South Africa has been supplying Zimbabwe with weapons of war, including helicopters, revolvers and cartridges”. Among the weapons supplied to Zimbabwe by South Africa, the M&G listed:

• Armaments to the value of $237 401 (R3,3-million) were privately transferred from South Africa to Zimbabwe, according to 2004 and 2005 figures.
• The South African defence department donated Dakota aircraft engines worth millions to Zimbabwe, while Armscor transferred spares to get Zimbabwean military choppers flying again.
• Zimbabwean soldiers and flying instructors have been trained by the South African Defence Force and the South African Air Force.
• Armscor was contracted to transport the weaponry destined for Zimbabwe and carried by the An Yue Jiang from the Durban port to Harare. The deal fell through when a court order stopped the ship from offloading and it sailed away.

All private arms deals need to be approved by the government’s National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) which is guided and defined by the terms set out in the National Conventional Arms Control Act 41 of 2002. Section 15 of the Act (on page 12), sets out the guiding principles and critieria informing NCACC decisions. The following points stand out prominently:

When considering applications contemplated in section 14 the Committee must-

(c) avoid contributing to internal repression, including the systematic violation or suppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms;

(d) avoid transfers of conventional arms to governments that systematically violate or suppress human rights and fundamental freedoms;

(e) avoid transfers of conventional arms that are likely to contribute to the escalation of regional military conflicts, endanger peace by introducing destabilising military capabilities into a region or otherwise contribute to regional instability;

(g) take account of calls for reduced military expenditure in the interests of development and human security;

(k) avoid the export of conventional arms that may be used for purposes other than the legitimate defence and security needs of the government of the country of import.

The legally required Annual Reports from the NCACC since 2005 have yet to be presented to the SA parliament.

The NCACC responded to the M&G report saying it would issue a statement the following week. To date, we haven’t seen a response from the NCACC so we are still unclear what the South African justification is for supplying weapons of war to Zimbabwe, and we would like to know if the South African government is still supplying weapons to the Mugabe regime despite the fact the elections were viewed as illegitimate.

There is some confusion as to who the current Chairperson of the NCACC is: some media reports say it is January Masilela, the Defence Secretary, while others say it is Sydney Mufamadi, the Minister of Provincial and Local Government. It should be noted that Sydney Mufamadi is also Thabo Mbeki’s envoy in the Zimbabwean negotiations and according an SABC article written on the 27th June, he was in Zimbabwe at the time of the M&G arms article as part of Thabo Mbeki’s mediation team.

This post contains a variety of information which will be updated as the campaign evolves. The recent updates section highlights information that has changed. We have provided a set of jumplinks below to help you navigate to the different sections. Please read through it and take action! As always, your comments and suggestions are very welcome.

Quick links to different sections of this Action Alert:

• Why is Sokwanele asking you to support this campaign?
• Contact details
• Recent Updates
• Background information links to this action appeal
  
• News articles on South Africa’s arms trades with Zimbabwe
• Receive updates via Twitter

On the 19th June Genocide Watch issued a warning that stated:

Zimbabwe’s run-off Presidential elections on 27 June will take place in an atmosphere of terror.  ZANU-PF militias, the Zimbabwe army and police, and ZANU-PF mobs have pushed Zimbabwe to Stage 6, the Preparation stage immediately preceding political mass murder.

This horrific warning of potential mass murder was reiterated by Genocide Watch on the 4 July:

Genocide Watch reiterates its Politicide Watch for Zimbabwe, which authoritative sources inside Zimbabwe have affirmed as true.

We believe that efforts must be made to prevent the regime from carrying out violence aginst the people of Zimbabwe, and this includes preventing the regime from accumulating weapons which can be used against a peaceful population.

Name: Mufamadi, Sydney
Job title: NCACC chair
Email 1: claude@dplg.gov.za
Telephone 1: +27 12 334-0673
Telephone 2: +27 12 326-4478

Name: Masilela, January Boy
Job title: Secretary for Defence
Email 1: secdef@mil.za
Telephone 1: (012) 355 6220
Telephone 2: (012) 355 6219
Fax Number: (012) 347 7445
Website address: http://www.dod.mil.za

Mail and Guardian
Email 1: newsdesk@mg.co.za
Email 2: editoronline@mg.co.za
Email 3: subsdesk@mg.co.za
Telephone 1: +27 (0)11 250 7300
Telephone 2: +27 (0)21 425 9028
Fax Number: +27 (0)11 250 7503
Website address: http://www.mg.co.za

Additional contacts:

You can also visit our Action Contact Database and select SA Arms Trade to Zimbabwe from the current action initiative options available. We have pulled a selection of relevant contacts together under this filter option. If you would like to widen your emails to include other groups of people, use these a starting point. (NB: South Africa’s arms companies are Armscor and Denel).

Please be careful to note that some of the contacts are people who will support us, and others are people who need to be nudged to do the right thing. Make sure you send the right kind of message to the right people!

People can also search the database country looking for South Africa for a much wider list of contacts. Our database allows you to generate lists of email addresses, based on your selections, to copy and paste into your email package to send.

Changes made to this action as it evolves will be summarised here.

• The National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC)
• National Conventional Arms Control Act 41 of 2002
• The Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, No 15 of 1998
• Armscor – Armaments Corporation of South Africa
• Export Controls South Africa – “Regulation of Armaments Production and Transfer”
• Five SADC leaders receive Zimbabwe arms petition [from IANSA]

South Africa has also sold arms to other governments besides Zimbabwe who have questionable human rights and/or democratic records and/or internal conflicts. Arms have been sold to Iraq, Rwanda, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, India and China, Mozambique and Angola amongst others. [Link]

In the South African Media

• SA-Zim arms deal probe (28 June 2008)
• Zim running guns for Africa (28 June 2008)
• Committee to comment on Zimbabwe arms report (27 June2008)
• SA arms flow to Zimbabwe (27 June 2008)
• Civil bodies petition against arms for Zim (6 June2008)

… if you find any more relevant media links please add them to comments so we can include them in this list

If you have a Twitter account (it is free to set one up ) then you can register your mobile phone details with your account, link up with our Sokwanele account on Twitter, and subscribe to receive our short updates on your mobile phone. We will send out short updates on this action in addition to using our blog.

This entry was posted by Sokwanele2 on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 5:31 pm. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.