As the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) continues to approve weapons sales to countries engaged in war crimes in Yemen, SA's arms industry bears a shocking similarity to its apartheid-era past.
A new investigation by South African civil society group Open Secrets has laid bare the NCACC's culture of impunity and its abject failure to uphold South African law on weapons exports.
Since 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been leading a multination coalition in a violent military campaign in Yemen.
According to Open Secrets more than 42% of South African weapons exports went to Saudi Arabia and the UAE in 2015. In 2017 and 2018, more than over a third of all South African weapons exports went to the Emiratis and the Saudis.
Over this period the Saudi-led coalition launched scores of deadly air strikes on homes, schools, hospitals, markets, mosques, weddings and funerals, killing and injuring more than 17,500 civilians, according to the Yemen Data Project.
Germany, Norway, Austria and the Netherlands have suspended weapons exports to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, citing the risk of misuse in Yemen.
The NCACC, however, has yet to do so, even though it must in terms of both domestic and international legislation. Under the National Conventional Arms Control Act of 2002, the NCACC has to ensure that weapons are not being sent to "governments that systematically violate or suppress human rights". According to the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which SA ratified in 2014, the NCACC must halt the supply of weapons if it knows they will likely be used to violate international law.
END-USER CERTIFICATES
Countries purchasing South African weapons must honour an end-user certificate and agree to not transfer the munitions to other parties without SA's permission. But Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been doing exactly that in Yemen's conflict for years and yet the NCACC continues to grant export licences for arms destined for Saudi Arabia - a serial violator of end-user agreements.
There is compelling evidence from independent experts and the UN that the mortars used in a 2018 attack on a fish market and hospital in Hodeidah that killed 64 civilians - and which was deemed a war crime - originated from Rheinmetall Denel Munition (RDM). RDM is a joint venture between German arms company Rheinmetall Waffe Munition, which holds a 51% stake, and South African state-owned arms company Denel, with a 49% holding.
This raises questions about whether German companies are using their South African subsidiaries to bypass German prohibitions on weapons sales to states involved in the war in Yemen.
South African weapons companies are also transferring entire munitions factories to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The Al-Kharj military facility in Riyadh was established in collaboration with RDM - and the deal was approved by the NCACC.
"South African companies risk assisting Saudi Arabia to establish factories that are capable of creating internationally banned cluster munitions. Saudi Arabia is not a signatory to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and has previously used cluster munitions in Yemen," says former diplomat and independent international relations strategist Zeenat Adam, who has been documenting SA's possible complicity in Yemeni war crimes for several years.
On March 3 2021, the Special Investigating Unit briefed parliament's standing committee on public accounts on its investigation into Denel's alleged sending of data packs for South African missiles to Saudi Arabia Military Industries and its joint-venture partner, Barij Dynamics, in the UAE, containing information to produce the missiles. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE are parties to the ATT.
OF NO CONCERN
The NCACC's most critical function is to assess applications for export permits for weapons.
Jackson Mthembu was chair of the NCACC until his death in January. In August 2020, Open Secrets asked him what criteria the committee used to evaluate applications and he confirmed that these included UN Security Council resolutions and arms embargoes; human and political rights; regional dynamics, with emphasis on conflict prevention and the risk of diversion.
He also said the NCACC relied on the department of international relations & co-operation (Dirco), the State Security Agency (SSA) and Defence Intelligence (DI) for information.
Asked if the NCACC had investigated evidence of South African weapons being used in Yemen, Mthembu's response was a stunning display of the NCACC's profound indifference to the human rights of Yemeni civilians.
RDM's possible involvement in the Hodeidah attack "is of no concern to the NCACC" because information on the incident hadn't been directed to SA's UN mission in New York, Mthembu wrote, and the cost of exploring these "insufficient/unsupported claims" meant an investigation was not feasible.
With the South African government being a co-owner of RDM, the war crime at Hodeidah is very much a concern of the NCACC
With the South African government being a co-owner of RDM, the war crime at Hodeidah is very much a concern of the NCACC. And the claims against RDM were hardly insufficient or unsupported.
The UN panel of experts on Yemen reviewed video and photographic evidence from Hodeidah and concluded that "the mortar used for that attack had characteristics of those produced either by Rheinmetall in Germany or by its South African subsidiary, Rheinmetall Denel Munition ."
Mthembu's comment that the NCACC relied almost exclusively on Dirco, the SSA and DI to flag concerns contradicts a June 25 statement by Cyril Xaba, chair of the parliamentary portfolio committee on defence and military veterans. Xaba told parliament that the NCACC relies almost entirely on public reporting and media coverage for information.
As Open Secrets point out, UN reports as well as those from Yemeni and international NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have exhaustively analysed the devastation in Yemen and the role of the Saudi-led coalition there. These publications constitute publicly available information. Why, then, is it being disregarded by the NCACC?
"This ... makes a mockery of the legal and institutional frameworks ... established to ensure South Africa does not contribute to conflict and human rights violations," said Open Secrets researcher Michael Marchant at the report's online launch.
In 1993, Nelson Mandela promised that human rights would be the "light that guides our foreign affairs". However, the NCACC's arming of countries committing war crimes in Yemen indicates that unprincipled and predatory politics guide our international affairs.
• Dadoo is a South African writer. A version of this piece first appeared on The New Arab
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