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Legislative advocacy
The following article originally appeared in Salt of the Earth. It is posted here for private use only. It may not be reprinted in whole or in part without the permission of Salt of the Earth magazine.
Let's stop making a killing
Robert T. Hennemeyer
SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I SERVED AS U.S. ambassador to the Gambia, a small and poor West African country distinguished then by its unusual commitment to democracy and human rights. At one point during my appointment the Gambia's president asked me and my British colleague to help equip and train the country's small army. We and our governments agreed. In subsequent years, this new army joined an effort by West African states to pacify Liberia, an effort led by the huge and corrupt Nigerian army.
Armed with this newfound field experience and equipment, trained by U.S. and British military specialists, and mentored by their Nigerian military superiors, members of this new officer corps returned home, overthrew the democratically elected government, and appointed themselves the new ruling elite. They have progressively ruined the Gambia's fragile economy while ignoring any semblance of human rights ever since.
This is not a unique African (or Latin American or Asian) story, but it was one that I watched with personal dismay and distress. It didn't have to happen. Part of the reason it did was the international big business in arms sales.
SINCE THE END OF THE COLD WAR, the U.S. has been the world's leading arms trader. Although the Clinton administration has talked of developing a new policy of restraint on arms transfers, the U.S. government continues to aggressively promote arms sales abroad to further U.S. policy interests, to maintain military production capacity, and to protect profits and jobs.
There are two principal mechanisms for U.S. arms transfers: foreign military sales (government-to-government military grants and sales), $12.8 billion in 1994; and direct commercial sales that are licensed but not negotiated by the government, $25.6 billion dollars in 1994.
The introduction of a modern military entity into a developing country must be approached with great caution. Developed societies have strong, modern governmental, economic, and cultural institutions that limit the abilities of an errant military to alter existing political and social structures. These strong institutional buffers are by definition missing in developing societies. Their absence can lead to catastrophic dislocation and tragic human consequences.
THE U.S., RUSSIA, FRANCE, the United Kingdom, China, and Germany are the world's largest arms suppliers. Nations in the Middle East and Asia are the major recipients. It's worth noting that 85 percent of recent U.S. arms sales to developing countries went to governments our own State Department defined as "undemocratic."
As we have made modest reductions in defense spending at home, pressure has increased to compensate by increasing military sales abroad. Thus, U.S. arms policy becomes essentially a domestic jobs program without any particular relevance to the true defense needs of the potential customer or the long-term implications to U.S. foreign policy.
That's an approach completely at odds with Catholic thinking. The U.S. bishops stated in their 1993 reflection "The Harvest of Justice is Sown in Peace" that "neither jobs nor profits justify military spending beyond the minimum necessary for legitimate national security and international peacekeeping obligations." That same statement argues that directing scarce resources from military to human development is not only a just and compassionate policy, it is also a wise long-term investment in global peace and national security.
THE SALE OF ARMS TO DEVELOPING countries has a doubly negative effect on their populations. First, there is the danger to neighbors and domestic populations of a heavily armed and often politically ambitious military. And, second, there is the huge drain on limited resources that should rightly be devoted to development and social services. This is a situation common to most developing-world participants in the arms trade, but African countries, with their vulnerable economies, limited natural resources, and weaker political and social structures are especially victimized.
With a vulnerable single-crop economy based on peanuts, the Gambia offers few employment opportunities. Chief among those that do exist are tourism and the "reexport" trade—the transshipment of goods to neighboring countries. Security uncertainties engendered by the military coup have crippled tourism, while the military's mismanagement of the economy has brought the reexport trade to a halt. Unfortunately a simultaneous drop in the world price of peanuts has combined to intensify the already miserable situation of most Gambians.
MEANWHILE, CURRENT U.S. PROPOSALS push arms sales that limit economic development, while slashing funds for agencies that could provide a measure of real economic development assistance. Those who note the appalling paradox those proposals represent should speak out in support of those few voices in Washington attempting to slow this trade.
Among them is Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who is making a valiant effort to limit the use of land mines—those insidious killers of women and children that continue their deadly work years after their wartime "service" has ended. Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon and Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia also deserve support. They are promoting a code of conduct designed to restrict the transfer of arms to aggressive and undemocratic states that do not respect human rights.
The U.S. has to take responsibility for its part in the arms trade. "As the world's largest supplier of weapons," say the American bishops, "the United States bears great responsibility for curbing the arms trade by taking concrete actions to reduce its own predominant role in this trade. . . . Jobs at home cannot justify exporting the means of war abroad."—END
© 1997 by Claretian Publications