"The world's strictest. No, Europe's strictest. No, wait ... Just take these weapons, you! ”That Norwegian authorities carry countries with weapons via exporting countries abroad is a poor solution.
(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
This is a contribution to the «Engaged utterance» column in the weekly magazine Ny Tid, in print 15.06.2012. In the column come various idealistic organizations are speaking. The participants are: ATTAC Norway, Nature and Youth, Agenda X, Skeiv Ungdom, Changemaker, One World, The Future in Our Hands, Bellona, the Joint Council for Africa, the Norwegian Society for Nature Conservation, MSF and NOAH – for animal rights.
Join the debate on the weekly magazine's Ny Tid debate pages – send your reaction to this text to debatt@nytid.no. Preferably before 1 p.m. 14 Tuesdays to get printed in the same week's edition, Friday.
Paradox. The red-green cooperation government has been described as a peace project that should be coordinated for development. But overall Norwegian arms exports continue to increase with each passing year, and we have not seen any trace of stricter control over where Norwegian weapons end up.
Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre always tries to reassure us that we have the world's strictest regulations. It matters little when it turns out that the entire regulations do not apply to the 56 countries Norway has exported war materiel to last year.
The authors Tove Lie and Øystein Mikalsen confirmed last week, in the book The Peace Nation's boundless arms trade, that Norwegian weapons were used by Israeli soldiers during the ground invasion of Gaza in 2009. The Norwegian authorities have stated that they do not sell weapons to Israel. But these weapons ended up in Israeli hands because the Norwegian-owned factory (Nammo Talley) that made these weapons is not physically located in Norway, but in the United States.
It was a strong gathering of politicians, bishops, individuals and organizations that marched in torchlight procession together against the invasion of Gaza in 2009. We did it for the innocent human lives on both sides of the conflict. But when a united parliament year after year approves the arrangement for our arms exports, it becomes difficult to believe that the parliamentary parties actually mean seriously the condemnation of such a meaningless invasion. Those we do not want to export weapons directly to, we can still supply weapons via our factories outside Norway's borders.
Excluded from rules
In addition, Norway has recently opened up for the export of munitions to the Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar by including them in the generous group of Norway's "related countries". This means that they are omitted from some of the rules. In addition to boasting the world title in export control, we also tend to be at the top of the podium in our own World Cup in human rights.
But the same human rights seem to be set aside as long as there is money to be made from selling weapons to those who violate them. Jan Egeland of Human Rights Watch also states in the book that selling weapons to the Emirates must be a "clear violation of the Norwegian export rules" and that the license must be withdrawn.
Lie and Mikalsen have documented that all 56 countries that receive munitions from Norway are defined in ways that mean that they do not have to follow all the rules in this so-called "world's most stringent" regulations that we have.
Most of them avoid a so-called end-user declaration, an agreement between the two parties on who will use the weapon that has been sold, and that it cannot be resold without the consent of the producer country. Norway does not require such a declaration because it will be perceived as a breach of trust between allies. But no NATO country cries out in mistrust when the United States demands just such an end-user declaration when they sell to us.
export controls
In itself, it is not very impressive to be one of the best in the class, when the class consists of all the worst mobs at school. It is a well-known fact that the arms industry is among the worst in the world in terms of corruption, filth and little control. But it is much worse to have to realize that we are not the best in this class once.
Japan has been producing weapons since the 1970s, but they have chosen not to export weapons. It must be called the strictest form of export control. It is interesting to see the Norwegian authorities, represented by Espen Barth Eide, who are now moderating after the book came out. Now we apparently only have "a very strict set of rules, perhaps Europe's strictest."
The strictest in the world, the strictest in Europe, it must be the same. What is absolutely certain is that it is time to clean up Norwegian arms exports. The red-green peace project has one year to go. ■
(This is an excerpt from Ny Tid's weekly magazine 15.06.2012. Read the whole thing by buying Ny Tid in newspaper retailers all over the country, or by subscribing to Ny Tid -click here. Subscribers receive previous editions free of charge as PDF.)
