US Arms Sales:

Giving Green Light to Atrocities and Abuses in Bahrain

Rasa - The glaring absence of human rights from Washington’s new arms sales to Bahrain will only embolden further violations in Bahrain where the regime flouts the rights of its own people in the name of security, and violates International Humanitarian Law in the ongoing crackdown fuelled on large part by US arms transfers.

News ID: 432297

Date: 09 September 2017 - 23:34

RNA - Here, the Al Khalifa regime has been using counter terrorism as an excuse to ruthlessly crush and persecute critics, peaceful dissidents and human rights defenders. Even as protesters are killed, detained and tortured, the Trump administration has approved a multi-billion-dollar arms deals with Bahrain. This brazen disregard for human rights and humanitarian law will only serve to further embolden the regime in Manama in its pursuit of “security” and “legitimacy” at the expense of people’s basic rights:

The US State Department has just approved $3.8 billion in weapons sales to Bahrain. The Pentagon confirmed the approval and the State Department has notified Congress, who held up a similar sale last year over Bahrain’s many human rights problems. The $3.8 billion sale is almost entirely going to Lockheed Martin, who will be providing 19 F-16V fighter jets, along with substantial upgrades to the nation’s existing fleet of F-16s. Raytheon will be selling 221 anti-tank missiles and weapons to go with it.

Sales to Bahrain were supposed to be suspended, “until they resolved tensions with Qatar.” In the end, however, Congress signed off through normal channels. Funny how State Department officials insist that the US is continuing to discuss human rights issues with Bahrain, and is encouraging reform. That historically has never really been the case, as the US has largely turned a blind eye to Bahrain’s abuse of its Shiite population, viewing it as a cost of getting to host a major naval base there.

This is a country where even the US government accepts that serious human rights abuses and atrocities are taking place, yet it is still pushing arms to the regime. It is not that hard to know what atrocities and abuses these arms may fuel, or who they will be used against. All the US needs to do is go through various reports by human rights organizations that openly condemn rights abuses in Bahrain. The US will no doubt tell the world how rigorous and robust its system supposedly is, but it is actively arming and supporting one of the most brutal dictatorships in the Persian Gulf.

Nor is that all. If the US government and its European allies want to promote human rights and democracy then they must stop selling arms to the Al Khalifa and other repressive regimes in the Persian Gulf. They also face particular criticism over their sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia, which is leading a dirty war against Yemen in alliance with other Persian Gulf Araba states, excluding Qatar.

Worse still, the United Nations is yet to scrutinise arms exports, much less say it likely that American and European weapons have been used to violate International Law. The Bahraini regime, and to a greater extent, the Saudis stand accused of bombing civilian objects like international hospitals, as well as schools, wedding parties and food factories in Yemen. So far, over 14,000 people have been killed in Saudi air strikes backed by the US and the UK.

All in all, US arms trade provides the destructive hardware used in human rights abuses, atrocities and conflicts across the Middle East. It undermines democracy and development, contributing to the poverty and suffering of millions. A new report by War on Want, Banking on Bloodshed, has just exposed, for the first time, the extent to which the main American and European banks are also funding this violent trade. They are using money to fund companies that sell arms used against civilians in wars and pro-democracy protests across the region, including the conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. They are financing an industry that sells arms to regimes committing human rights abuses such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Money from Western banks is also being used to fund companies that produce pernicious weapons like depleted uranium and cluster bombs. Guess what? No one in the West even bothers to impose sanctions on these banks!

It is high time for the United Nations to call for regulation of arms sales and banking sector in the West. The world body should call on the US government and its European allies to ensure that all manufacturers and banks are made to publish the full details of their holdings and services to the global arms trade. The UN must introduce regulation which prevents Western governments and banks from supporting the arms trade to repressive allies in the Persian Gulf.

To this end, UN member states must work together to hammer out a binding international treaty to end unregulated conventional arms sales - a pact that a powerful US lobby is urging Washington to reject. Arms control campaigners and human rights advocates say one person every minute dies worldwide as a result of armed violence, and that a treaty is needed to halt the uncontrolled flow of weapons and ammunition that they argue helps fuel wars, atrocities and rights abuses.

The treaty should set standards for all transfers of any type of conventional weapon - light and heavy. It should set binding requirements for governments to review all arms contracts to ensure the munitions will not be used in human rights abuses, do not violate embargoes, and are not illegally diverted to terrorist groups. Syria, Iraq and Yemen are just a few recent examples where the world bore witness to the horrific human cost of a reckless US-led arms trade steeped in secrecy. Likewise, the treaty should leave no avenues for abusers of human rights to continue getting weapons from the West.

The UN Charter makes it clear: transferred weapons from the United States and Europe cannot and should not be used to fuel conflicts, arm terrorists or abet violations of international protocols. Without Western ammunition, the secterian guns will fall silent in the Muslim world.

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