Questionable German Tank Sale to Indonesia

Berlin has officially given the go-ahead on a rather controversial and much disputed weapons-sale.

The German government agreed to enter into the deal with Indonesia, and gave the company Rheinmetall Chart the all-clear to export 104 tanks, of the ‘Leopard 2’ variety. The new ‘Leopard 2’ model has been sought by the Indonesian government for some time now, which first approached the Netherlands regarding a possible trade. However, the Dutch parliament prevented the export due to human rights concerns.

These concerns are for good reasons. Indonesia ranked on place 100 in Transparency International’s Corruption Index and a 2012 Human Rights Watch report stated that “serious human rights concerns remain” in the country, particularly regarding Indonesia’s security forces.

Though Germany initially kept quiet on a possible arms deal when the topic was first broached during Chancellor Merkel’s visit to Indonesia in the summer of 2012, the export has now been given official approval by the Federal Safety Council, according to Spiegel-Online.

This move to export arms to Indonesia marks a recent trend that shows the German government far more willing to trade weapons with countries who are considered as having a dubious track record when it comes to human rights. Armament export to countries in the Middle East such as Bahrain, Katar, Kuwait and Saudi-Arabia have sharply risen in the last three years, from total sales worth in 2011 being estimated at 570 Million Euros to a total worth of 1.42 billion. Particular outcry came at the announcement of a deal to provide 200 ‘Leopard 2’ battle tanks to Saudi Arabia, in 2011. The reasoning behind this seems to have been Saudi Arabia’s role as a strategic counter-balance to Iranian power in the Middle East as well as its cooperation with secret services’ watch on international terrorism.

It is not, however, Germany alone that has been engaging in potentially questionable armament trading. Work carried out in 2011 by the Guardian’s Dan O’Huiggin revealed EU arms sales statistics that essentially show that Europe armed a Gaddafi-run Libya. O’Huiggin published a breakdown of the latest year of available statistics (2009) of EU military exports that reveal, amongst other things, that the EU granted export licenses for 834.5 million Euros worth of arms exports in the five years post the lifting of the arms embargo in October 2004 and the UK itself providing export licenses, over the five years, worth 119.35 million Euros.

The question should really be asked again whether these armament sales should not raise more eyebrows. However legitimate the sales or cooperative the country of receipt might be willing to be with Germany, the UK and others, it is surely not all too positive to furnish countries and states with weaponry where their track record in the recent past of human rights has not been acceptable.

Though Indonesia and the Middle East are two separate cases, the underlying morality of to whom such powerful weaponry should be exported ought to be put under review in regards to both. The case of Gaddafi highlights just how dangerous and fateful such sales can be. Whether their eventual use will be strengthening a state’s military control of its own country, allowing corrupt leaders to hold their citizens in an iron grasp, or whether these arms might lead to an unbalancing of power in a particularly tense region (such as in the Middle East), it is surely not suitable to endorse and support these countries in this way.

Of course each request for such a trade must be put under individual scrutiny. It is just as bad to not engage in business negotiations when basing these decisions on age-old national stereotypes and therefore fail to allow a potentially worthy country to feel welcome and accepted on the international scene, as is sending weapons into the wrong hands.

The sheer amoralism with which the Merkel government has approached the ‘Leopard 2’ sales is a phenomenon not unique to Germany, but exemplifies a wider worrying trend. The task of re-examining which countries and governments should be seen as ‘unsavoury’ and should therefore not receive weapon exports, however much of an ‘ally’ they might be, and with which weapon trade could be a positive move, opening new doors for friendlier ties, ought to be seen as a prerogative task.