Mass killings underscore urgent need to halt arms transfers to Egypt

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

Recent bloodshed underscores urgent need to halt arms transfers to Egypt

20 August 2013

All governments must suspend the transfer of weapons of the type used by Egypt’s security forces in violent dispersals and unwarranted lethal force against sit-ins and other protests, Amnesty International said today.

The organization has analysed some of the transfers to Egypt in recent years – including tens of thousands of conventional weapons worth tens of millions of dollars. Among the countries supplying weapons and ammunition of the type used during the bloodshed on 14 August are the Czech Republic, China, Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and the USA.

The supplies include military firearms, shotguns, riot control launchers and corresponding ammunition and projectiles, as well as armoured vehicles and military helicopters.

“Weapons and equipment supplied irresponsibly to Egypt by a handful of countries are being used for excessive force and unlawful killings,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

“Deliveries must be frozen until full, prompt and impartial investigations into the recent violence – and similar incidents over the past several years – have been carried out and their findings made public. How could any state continue to deliver equipment used to disperse demonstrations knowing full well the Egyptian security forces’ track record?

“No further weapons should be sent until the Egyptian authorities can demonstrate that the security forces will not use them unlawfully.”

Guns, tear gas, armoured vehicles and bulldozers were used by the Egyptian security forces – including riot police and members of the Ministry of Interior’s Special Forces – to clear encampments set up by supporters of Egypt’s ousted President Mohamed Morsi in Cairo. As of Monday, the death toll had risen to about 900 protesters and bystanders, while on Sunday Egypt’s Ministry of Interior told Amnesty International that 69 members of the security forces also lost their lives. On Monday, an additional 25 conscripts serving in the riot police died during an armed attack in restive Northern Sinai.

“Enough is enough. How many people must die as a result of the use of excessive force by the Egyptian security forces before the world wakes up and stops fuelling such violence?” said Shetty. 

“The excessive and unwarranted lethal force seen this week is part of a pattern documented by Amnesty International for years. This is why enforcement of the global Arms Trade Treaty, adopted just a few months ago, is so badly needed.”

Amnesty International’s call comes as EU Foreign Ministers are due to meet in Brussels to discuss their response to the situation in Egypt. The organization calls on all EU member states to fully implement the EU's existing Common Position on arms exports, as well as the human rights provisions of the Arms Trade Treaty – which all EU member states have signed.

The organization is also calling on world leaders to refuse the export of conventional arms when there is an overriding risk the arms would be used to facilitate serious human rights violations – the litmus test contained in the global Arms Trade Treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly on 2 April 2013. All states should sign and ratify the treaty and implement its human rights provisions without delay


Background

Firearms and ammunition

Firearms and ammunition used by the Egyptian security forces include assault rifles and machineguns – weapons which members of the public are not permitted to own in Egypt.

Pistols, shotguns, and corresponding ammunition used by security forces most likely emanate from batch deliveries of hundreds or thousands of pistols or shotguns, or from hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of cartridges delivered in a single month. Such batches are more indicative of a government order than of sales to the general public.

According to Amnesty International’s research, in recent years the following countries have transferred weapons to Egypt of the type being used in the current crackdown: 

The Czech Republic sent 15,062 pistols to Egypt in May 2013. This appears to be part of a contract for 50,000 pistols announced that month by the Czech company CZ to equip the Egyptian police. Whether the remaining 34,438 pistols have been delivered is not known. The Czech Republic also exported a total of more than 3,500 pistols to Egypt in two shipments in February and July last year.

The USA reported exports of 1,524 military rifles and machineguns to Egypt between January 2011 and June 2013. In January 2012 the USA supplied Egypt with more than US$10 million worth of ‘Cartridges Not Containing a Projectile’, and sent a further US$1 million worth of ‘Parts of Cartridges’ two months later. It is likely that these shipments of components were made into ammunition in Egypt.

The USA also exported 2,050 pump-action shotguns in large batches to Egypt during 2011-2012. In July last year it delivered cartridges for rifles and pistols worth US$169,479.

Turkey reported an export of 14,406 pistols to Egypt in 2010. The following year, it reportedly made several transfers of shotgun cartridges worth a total of US$336,047.

From October 2011 to May 2013, Italy reported exports to Egypt of shotgun cartridges in large batches, worth a total of €562,231. It also reportedly sent 7,415 “pistols and revolvers” in April 2010 and significant exports totalling 1,607 single barrelled shotguns from 2009-11.

From 2011 to 2013, Switzerland reported exports to Egypt of small calibre ammunition (for pistols, rifles and machineguns) worth a total US$295,871.

Cyprus reported exports to Egypt between October 2011 and December 2012 of large batches of shotgun cartridges with a total value of €761,724.

According to official records in Egypt, in 2010 China supplied the country with military firearms worth $US100,831,

Germany also reported exports of 1,130 pistols or revolvers during 2009 and 2010 in sufficient batches to cause concern.

Similarly Spain reported a single export of shotgun cartridges in February 2013 worth €176,550 while South Korea reported exports of shotgun cartridges in 2012 worth US$450,965.

Armoured vehicles and other military equipment

As recently as January 2013, France supplied 47 Sherpa armoured vehicles to the Egyptian security forces, similar to the 20 vehicles it previously supplied. Many of these vehicles were seen last week being used to transport police and military personnel, and protesters pushed one off a bridge.

On 9 October 2011, several protesters were killed in Cairo when Egyptian armoured personnel carriers and cars drove recklessly and at high speed into protesters in an attempt to disperse a primarily Coptic demonstration.

Tracked armoured personnel carriers also used in the crackdown have included many NATO-standard type M-113. The Netherlands has previously delivered 105 variants of this vehicle (AIVF) while the US has supplied more than 250 of them through its massive military aid programme to Egypt.

Last week the Egyptian security forces also used a Boeing AH-64 Apache military attack helicopter to conduct surveillance over Cairo to facilitate command and control of operations, and used armoured Caterpillar D7R bulldozers to break up protests and smash through barricades. Both types of military equipment are made in the USA.

According to two research groups, TransArms USA and the International Peace Information Service, two vessels operated by the shipping company American President Lines (APL) docked in Damietta in Egypt in January this year after leaving US ports.

The research groups have obtained six bills of lading – documents used in the transport of goods by sea – for the ships. According to those documents, the cargo included parts and components for tactical and support vehicles, military Humvees (HMMWVs), armoured vehicles and tanks, helicopters and aircraft of various type, military electronic equipment and radars, various types of missiles, and various types of hazardous chemicals.

According to US State Department statistics, in 2011 the US government authorized more than US$100 million worth of arms sales to Egypt. This included some 73,000 items – worth in excess of US$1.7 million – listed as “toxic agents”, the category which includes tear gas. The USA shipped a similar amount of toxic agents to Egypt in 2010.

EU arms export licences granted in 2011 show that France exported €26.5 million of electronic components to Egypt, €25 million of arms-production equipment, €23 million of military aircraft and €21 million of bombs, rockets and missiles. Spain authorized the sale of €78.5 million of military aircraft and Germany gave permits for €57.3 million of military ground vehicles, €9 million of electronic equipment and €6 million of naval vessels.

 

*Photo by FAYEZ NURELDINE, courtesy of AFP

Turkish warships to escort aid vessels to Gaza?

REUTERS
Turkish warships will escort aid vessels to Gaza

9 September 2011

CAIRO (Reuters) - Turkey said on Thursday it would escort aid ships to Gaza and would not allow a repetition of last year's Israeli raid that killed nine Turks, setting the stage for a potential naval confrontation with its former ally.

Raising the stakes in Turkey's row with Israel over its refusal to apologise for the killings, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Al Jazeera television that Turkey had taken steps to stop Israel from unilaterally exploiting natural resources in the Mediterranean.

"Turkish warships, in the first place, are authorised to protect our ships that carry humanitarian aid to Gaza," Erdogan said in the interview, broadcast by Al Jazeera with an Arabic translation.

"From now on, we will not let these ships be attacked by Israel, as what happened with the Freedom Flotilla," Erdogan said.

Referring to Erdogan's comments, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said: "This is a statement well-worth not commenting on."

Relations between Turkey and Israel, two close US allies in the region, have soured since Israeli forces boarded the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara aid ship in May 2010.

Ankara downgraded ties and vowed to boost naval patrols in the eastern Mediterranean in the escalating row. Israel says it acted legally against ships that tried to breach its blockade on the Palestinian enclave which is ruled by the Islamist Hamas group.

Israel has said it will enforce the blockade, which it says is needed to prevent arms smuggling to Hamas.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said earlier on Thursday that Israel and Turkey will eventually mend fences rather than become foes, describing their unprecedented dispute over Gaza as "spilled milk".

Noting that an inquiry commissioned by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had vindicated the blockade, Barak predicted that wider Middle East upheaval would help bring Israel back together with its Muslim ex-ally.

"Ultimately this wave will pass. We recognise reality. They recognise reality," Barak told Israel Radio. "We are the two countries that are most important to the West in the region... I am certain that we can overcome these [disagreements]."

But Erdogan appeared to raise the heat, saying NATO member Turkey has taken steps to patrol the Mediterranean, and vowed to stop the Jewish state from exploiting natural resources in the area.

"You know that Israel has begun to declare that it has the right to act in exclusive economic areas in the Mediterranean," Erdogan said, apparently in reference to Israeli plans to exploit offshore gas reserves found in areas that are also claimed by Lebanon.

"You will see that it will not be the owner of this right, because Turkey, as a guarantor of the Turkish republic of north Cyprus, has taken steps in the area, and it will be decisive and holding fast to the right to monitor international waters in the east Mediterranean," he said.

Turkey says oil deals granted by the Greek Cypriot government, which represents the island in the European Union, are illegal as the borders of Cyprus remain undetermined while Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots pursue reunification talks.

Turkey's plan to flex its naval muscles may fuel Western unease about Turkey's reliability as a NATO partner and its penchant for actions designed to court popularity in the Muslim world.

Asked whether Israel might yet say sorry for the seizure of the Turkish vessel, Barak said: "Look, it's spilled milk. It's not important right now."

In addition to an apology, NATO-member Turkey has demanded that Israel end the Gaza blockade. Israel says the closure is needed to keep arms from reaching Palestinian fighters by sea.

"A normalisation or improvement in Turkey-Israel relationships shouldn't be expected unless they apologise, pay a compensation and lift an embargo on Gaza," Erdogan said on Thursday.

Activists vow to keep up Gaza trips despite Israel

NICOSIA, July 1 (Reuters) - Pro-Palestinian activists vowed on Wednesday to continue to defy an Israeli navy blockade around Gaza, a day after Israel seized their boat and detained 21 people taking aid to the territory.

Israel boarded a small ferry carrying activists to Gaza on Tuesday, intercepting the vessel in Gaza's Israeli-controlled coastal waters. Those detained included an Irish peace laureate, a former member of the U.S. Congress and charity workers from Bahrain.

The activists, called the Free Gaza Movement, first started sending aid directly into Gaza in August 2008, but had been intercepted by the Israeli navy on two previous occasions.

The group would continue regardless of interceptions, said spokeswoman Greta Berlin.

"We are definitely going to go (back) even if we have to paddle across," she told journalists in Cyprus.

The activists had set off from Cyprus with humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza, a territory ruled by Hamas Islamists. Israel tightened controls over Gaza, a sliver of territory of 1.5 million people, after Hamas took control there in 2007.

International calls for an end to the blockade have mounted after a 22 day Israeli offensive last December and January deepened hardship in the territory. Israel launched the military operation with the declared aim of ending cross-border rocket attacks.

Activists said they would continue to try to get aid directly to Gaza for as long as Israeli restrictions were in place. Israel says it is allowing aid to get through.

The International Committee of the Red Cross this week said stringent restrictions imposed by Israel are crippling reconstruction efforts.

"It is absolutely appalling how our small ships and a rag-tag band of activists has become the international conscience of what is happening there," said activist Ramzi Kyzia. "We are going to go, again and again."

(Writing by Michele Kambas, editing by Richard Balmforth)

http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSL1271412

Israeli navy seizes aid ship

Workers World
Viva Palestina USA to defy blockade of Gaza
By John Parker

Published Jul 1, 2009

June 30–Today units of the Israeli navy blockading Gaza attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the Spirit of Humanity, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries. The passengers and crew, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, are being forcibly dragged toward Israel. The boat is carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza with an international delegation that set sail from Cyprus.

McKinney was a 2008 presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket. She is also one of the main participants in another heroic campaign, along with New York City Council member Charles Barron and British MP George Galloway, sending medical supplies to Gaza.

Viva Palestina USA will leave July 4 from New York City, with hundreds of people taking a convoy of trucks through Egypt to the border of Gaza to deliver much-needed medical supplies to the besieged people of Gaza.

This is the second trip initiated by Galloway — the first was launched in February from Europe — and is being done in cooperation with Ron Kovic, the anti-war activist, veteran and author. This is the first trip organized by Viva Palestina USA.

The national office of Viva Palestina USA is in Chicago, but organizing from the ground up is being enthusiastically initiated from many areas and sectors – from anti-war organizations to human rights and social justice organizations and activists, to local mosques and other religious groups, including anti-Zionist Jewish organizations.

These organizations and individuals are determined to have their voices heard in opposition to U.S.-Israeli aggression, especially since the latest war crimes escalated by Israel against Gaza last year.

According to Palestinian officials and human rights groups, that one-sided war by Israel — funded and armed by the United States — killed at least 1,440 Palestinians, 900 of whom were civilians, including 431 children. It is estimated that 20 percent of children in Gaza suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of witnessing Israel’s violence.

Half of Gaza’s hospitals were destroyed, exacerbating the medical emergency for many civilians wounded in the attacks. None of this horror even takes into account the many people yet to fall victim to leukemia and other illnesses resulting from the 75 tons of depleted uranium left by Israel during its illegal war. (AlJazeera.net, June 27)

Concrete solidarity with Palestinian people

This is why the effort by Viva Palestina, along with the call for an international boycott against Israel and actions to close down Israeli embassies, is receiving wide support.

“There’s a new atmosphere in the U.S. over Palestine,” stated Galloway on the homepage of the Viva Palestina Web site, “The phenomenal response to this tour demonstrates that.” (vivapalestina.org)

Judy Greenspan from the International Action Center (IAC) will be traveling from Oakland, Calif., as part of the delegation and says she is determined to help build solidarity. “I am honored to be part of the Viva Palestina convoy to Gaza. As a long-time anti-Zionist Jewish activist, I embrace Viva Palestina as a critical part of the international solidarity movement worldwide,” said Greenspan.

According to national organizers, Viva Palestina USA has raised several million dollars to fund this material aid effort, and in the beginning of July, hundreds of Palestine solidarity activists will drive in a convoy of trucks and other vehicles to deliver this humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

Along with Cynthia McKinney and Charles Barron, who will be at a send-off event at the House of Lords Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., on July 3, Ron Kovic —whose Vietnam War experience was portrayed by Tom Cruise in the film “Born on the Fourth of July”—is a major participant in Viva Palestina USA. Not only was Kovic born on the date the convoy is leaving, but he is also deeply committed to justice.

Addressing the participants of the convoy in a statement, Kovic said: “I want all of you to know how much I admire everyone involved and committed to this most extraordinary and historic mission. What you do ... is of great importance, the inspiring words that you speak, the crucial funds that you raise will literally be saving lives, comforting the afflicted, and giving hope to those who have suffered for far too long.

“You will be representing your country, ... not with rockets and bombs, helicopter gun ships, and weapons of war, but with love, compassion, and a sincere respect for the lives and dignity of all human beings. That is what Viva Palestina USA is about and that is why we must do all we can ... in the days to come to make this courageous and extraordinary journey to Gaza a reality.”

June 6 was the 42nd anniversary of the Israeli seizure of Gaza from the Palestinian people. Yet, like the U.S. attempts at re-colonizing Iraq, none of Israel’s U.S.-supplied weapons of mass destruction has been capable of destroying the Palestinian people’s will to continue fighting the illegal occupation.

It is this spirit of resistance that will continue to inspire many more Spirit of Humanity trips and Viva Palestina convoys loaded with medical supplies and various other forms of international solidarity with the people of Palestine.

Parker is an organizer with the International Action Center in Los Angeles and is part of the Viva Palestina USA delegation.


http://www.workers.org/2009/world/gaza_0709/

Israel expels Gaza aid ship crew

ALJAZEERA.NET
Friday, February 06, 2009

Israel has expelled 10 activists and journalists after detaining them for hours and seizing their cargo ship that was trying to deliver aid to Gaza.

Al Jazeera's Salam Khoder, who was among the group, said she and some of the others on board were beaten by Israeli forces before being taken to a police station and interrogated.

Minutes after being escorted across the Israeli border to southern Lebanon on Friday, Khoder reported on her capture.

"At about 11pm last night... the Israeli ship intercepted the ship, fired at the ship and more than 30 soldiers came on to the boat and started beating the passengers," she said.

"They blinded our eyes, bounded our hands, kept us in uncomfortable conditions for one hour ... they also told us not to communicate with each other in Arabic."

She added that the whereabouts of some of the 18 people who were on board the ship was unknown.

The Al-Ikhwa was carrying 60 tonnes of medical supplies, food, books and toys to Gaza, where a more than year-long Israeli blockade along with its devastating offensive last month have left residents struggling to get basic necessities.

Israeli denial

Israel denied using violence in the operation and said it had warned the ship on Wednesday night against entering Gaza's coastal waters.

"During today's [Thursday] morning hours, the cargo ship changed its bearing, and began heading towards the Gaza Strip ... disregarding all warnings made," the Israeli military said.

The Al-Ikhwa, which originally set sail from Cyprus, left the Lebanese port city of Tripoli on Tuesday.

Maan Bashour, an aid co-ordinator for the group End the Blockade of Gaza, told Al Jazeera that the ship "was searched in Cyprus and in Lebanon".

"And we were very eager to let it be searched by Lebanese and Cypriot authorities in order that there be no reason for the Israelis to prevent it from going to Gaza."

Foud Siniora, Lebanon's prime minister, condemned the attack on Al-Ikhwa, emphasising that it was on a humanitarian mission to Gaza.

"It is no surprise for Israel to perpetrate such an action as it has been accustomed to ignoring all international resolutions and values," he said in Beirut.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/02/20092611429906394.html

Israeli Navy Rams Aid Boat

EPT, Greece
Dec. 30, 2008

Cruiser "Dignity" carrying international activists and aid for Gaza was rammed by an Israeli naval ship off the Gaza Strip. Activists from the "Free Gaza" movement claimed that the Israelis demanded the vessel return to Cyprus, although it did not have enough fuel. The captain of the

Israeli ship told Dignity's captain that he had been involved in terrorism. Finally, the aid boat docked Tuesday in the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre.

Hundreds of Palestinians and Lebanese had gathered to welcome it.

Free Gaza is a U.S.-based organization which has sent regular shuttles of aid to Gaza from Cyprus since August.

"It was like ramming a Mini (car) with a truck," Eleni Theocharous, a Cypriot lawmaker on board the boat, told Reuters.

Cyprus state radio said the Cypriot government would seek explanations from Israel over the incident. The vessel was carrying medical aid donated by Cyprus and there were at least three Cypriots on board, including the parliamentarian. A CNN reporter on board said the boat ran no risk of sinking.

In Greece SYN (Coalition of the Radical Left) stressed in its statement: "We vehemently condemn Israel's new act of war in international waters against Dignity, which carried humanitarian aid to Gaza, a region suffering from a huge humanitarian crisis due to the Israeli bombings. We urge the Greek administration and the EU to step up measures against Israel's raids."

http://news.ert.gr/en/world/news/17249-embolisan-to-ploio-dignity.htm