Egypt unrest raises questions over German arms trade (News Feature)

By Georg Ismar Feb 6, 2011, 14:34 GMT

Berlin - Almost two weeks of political unrest have not only brought into question Egypt's political future but also exposed the violent methods with which the current administration suppresses dissidents - casting doubt on Germany's lucrative arms exports to Egypt.

On Friday, Germany announced a freeze on all military exports to Egypt, which had risen to 77.5 million euros (105 million dollars) in 2009, more than German weapons sales to any other developing country.

Exports range from munition transport vehicles, communications technology and speedboats to a recent delivery of 884 machine guns, worth almost 700,000 euros alone.

The department of the Defence Ministry responsible for export controls, BAFA, said military requests from Egypt would not be processed for the time being, and would be reviewed once the situation was clearer.

Nevertheless, development aid continued to flow to the northern African state, where President Hosny Mubarak's nearly 30-year regime is crumbling.

Likewise, 11 Egyptian officers remained enlisted in a German military training programme throughout the current unrest, with the explanation that the course aimed to instil democratic values as well as military expertise.

Development Minister Dirk Niebel insisted that German development aid flowed into specific tasks - such as the 190 million euros pledged last year to water and green energy projects. This prevented the funds from being channeled into suspicious causes, the ministry argued.

Since the two countries began cooperating on development policy in 1963, Germany has supplied Egypt with overall credits and grants of 5.5 billion euros.

Yet international leaders cast a critical eye on their spending record, as the death toll from the protests rose to more than 300, according to United Nations estimates.

Addressing the Munich Security Conference this weekend, Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that any form of cooperation had to keep human rights in mind. British premier David Cameron was critical of the hundreds of millions spent to date, without setting demands.

Despite such considerations, the Middle East remains an important German military export market.

The United Arab Emirates bought 540.7 million euros of German military goods in 2009, while sales to Saudi Arabia amounted to 167.9 million euros in the same period.

An economics ministry spokesman said that, besides Egypt, no other military export programmes were being reconsidered at present.

Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan and Russia are also keen importers of German military hardware.

The German government has pledged in its latest military export report that all sales are submitted to 'careful consideration of foreign, security and human rights policy arguments.'

In reality, the key consideration has not been democracy but stability, according to Almut Moeller, a Middle East expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the region has been viewed primarily through the prism of terrorism, Islamism and radicalism, Moeller said.

Egypt, seen as a key Western ally in the fight against these '- isms,' ranks globally among the top 10 weapons importers, with military spending of up to 2 billion euros annually in recent years.

In parliament next week, Germany's radical, and pacifist, Left Party is to demand an end to all arms exports and military cooperation in the region, as well as a critical review of how development aid has been used to date.

'Successive German governments ... have struck deals with Mubarak, (former Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine) Ben Ali and similar dictators, in the knowledge that in their countries torture occurs, elections are manipulated and the ruling caste is shamelessly enriching itself,' said the Left Party's foreign policy spokesman, Wolfgang Gehrcke.

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