BERLIN, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Church and peace groups have criticized Germany's rising arms sales, an increasing number of which are going to conflict-torn countries.
Germany in 2008 granted arms export permits worth $8.42 billion, a rise of 37 percent compared with 2007, according to a report by the Joint Conference Church and Development, or GKKE.
"Germany is a major player in the global arms market," Karl Juesten, head of the GKKE, said this week at the report's presentation in Berlin.
Germany's main customers in 2008 included NATO countries South Korea, the United States, Britain and Singapore. The key non-NATO member customers include Saudi-Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but also countries considered "problematic" by the GKKE such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Congo, Colombia, Rwanda and Sudan.
"If you want to counter regional arms races in the Near and Middle East, in South and Southeast Asia and in Latin America, you should not fuel them with your arms deals," Juesten said.
The German government has still not published the number and value of arms that actually left the country in 2008 -- as opposed to permits cited in the GKKE study. The experts criticized Berlin for delaying the report, which won't be published until 2010.
The biggest single permits were granted for war ship exports, for example sub part deliveries to South Korea. The German submarine business has been largely export driven: Since 1960 it has sold 117 subs to foreign countries and only 36 to the German navy.
Bernhard Moltmann of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt urged Berlin to practice restraint when granting export permits for submarines as they have become "war machines" able to strike targets on land and in the air from underwater.
The experts also pointed to the danger of small weapons from Germany, such as guns and rifles, to be resold on the black market if they are sold into "problematic countries."
Moltmann said the German Heckler & Koch G3 rifle, developed in the 1950s and long used by the German Bundeswehr and other armies around the world, is now sported by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. Bernhard Felmberg, another senior GKKE official, said German-made weapons surfaced last year in Georgia and are currently sold at black markets in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
