According to the Africa Aerospace & Defence newsletter, the AAD 2006 “… is Africa’s showcase event for general and commercial aviation, aerospace and military land, sea and air technology and services.” However, anti-war groups argue that the AAD 2006 will exhibit the largest and greatest in machinery designed for only one purpose - the killing of human beings. This is the harsh truth behind arms expos; they supply arms for countries to go to war.

In Africa, a continent that has been devastated by civil wars, a continent where military weapons have brought nothing but misery and destruction, the last thing one would expect is a weapons fair. Dubbed “Africa Aerospace & Defence 2006”, AAD 2006 is the largest weapons exhibition that has ever been organised in this continent.

As if referring to a flea market, the AAD 2006 websites states that: “Air Force Base Ysterplaat [Cape Town, South Africa], against the backdrop of Table Mountain, will provide the setting for the only exposition of its sort in Africa and will feature more than 400 exhibitors from at least 25 countries.”

The AAD website further informs readers that by taking part in this affair, “trade visitors and the media have the unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor, experiencing and participating in the renaissance of the African aerospace and defence industry.” We are expected to believe that the same military weapons that have perpetuated civil wars in the DRC, Uganda and Liberia are in actual fact what constitute the African renaissance. This would be funny if this were not a matter of life and death.

Commenting on the exhibition, the Ceasefire and Umzabalazo we Jubilee campaigns wrote: “These arms companies will exhibit the largest and greatest in machinery designed for only one purpose, the killing of human beings. Husband, fathers, son, daughter and infants will all die because of this machinery. This is the harsh truth behind arms expos; they supply arms for countries to go to war with other countries and against their own citizens.”

The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition claims that: “Many of the arms companies ‘exhibiting’ at the weapons fair are allegedly involved in dealing weapons through third party front companies with extremely poor human rights records, like America, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Angola, Eritrea, Sudan and Nigeria. This method involves direct purchases by the foreign aid recipient from a government weapons manufacturer contractor, without directly government involvement in the process. Others are involved in further impoverishing poor countries like Malawi who have no need for military equipment but who are forced by the World Bank into taking out loans to buy weapons in exchange for aid.”

According to the Small Arms Survey 2006, “Applying the doctrinal distinctions outlined…to 166 countries (all countries with a population over 400 000 that have military) permits global estimation of the number of firearms controlled by the state-sponsored armed forces of the world. Combined with formally declared military inventories, this analysis concludes that the world harbours at least 200 million official military firearms. When distributed to compensate for a statistical margin of error (plus or minus 25 percent), the range of global military firearms appears to be between 150 million and 250 million. The estimating used here for People’s War militaries are conservative, which suggest that actual global totals are more likely to be closer to the upper parameter.”

Addressing specifically the issue of small arms, the Global Policy Forum (www.globalpolicy.org) states that: “Small arms and light weapons fuel civil wars and other conflicts, causing harm to millions of people, particularly in Africa. These small weapons are only part of a larger trade that includes heavier and more lethal weaponry, but light arms are often especially baneful because they are cheap, easy to transport and can be handled by ill-trained rebel soldiers and even children. Recent UN reports show how these weapons are illicitly exported, transported with connivance of government officials in many countries and smuggled into war zones.”

To fully understand what the AAD 2006 means for ordinary Africans, one has to take into consideration the role of small arms in African civil wars. As the Global Policy Forum points out, small weapons are a part of a larger trade, like the AAD 2006.

The Small Arms Survey 2006 (SAS 2006) reports that the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) depended on small arms to keep the civil war going in Northern Uganda for the past 20 years. As a result, this led to high levels of armament among the civilian population in the region, levels exacerbated by government and military policies of arming sections of society against the LRA and other armed groups.

“The LRA’s primary weapons are Kalashnikov derivatives, and most commonly, the Chinese Type 56 assault rifle. However, the Ugandan military uses a number of weapons, and the same types are also used by the LRA. The most numerous after the Chinese Type 56 are Polish and Romanian AKM assault rifles and AK-47 assault rifles from the former Soviet Union. Some observers claim that NATO weapons, such as the Belgian FN FAL and the German G3, are also in service with some rebels, having formerly been in the arsenals of the Ugandan and Sudanese governments.” (SAS 2006)

Even with perfect case studies, such as Uganda, which illustrate that in the world today, military firearms serve one purpose and that is to terrorise and kill innocent civilians, AAD 2006 is unconvinced. The AAD 2006 newsletter claims that: “The conventional and terrorist threats to security together with increased demands for peace-support operations is prompting many African countries to revisit their defence requirement and to re-evaluate their investments in research and development and procurements.”

However, the Cape Town Anti-War Coalition points out that most of the companies who are exhibiting weapons are “responsible for the deaths of millions of civilians across Africa and the Middle Eats.” For example, Truvelo, one of the companies exhibiting weapons at the fair is “manufacturing a new assault rifle. This company is expert in manufacturing sniper guns.” Eurocipter, another exhibitor, makes 14 different military helicopters, including the “Tiger” which they supply to Israel, among other repressive regimes.

The sad reality is that the manufacturing of arms (instead of building homes for the homeless and feeding the hungry for instance) is not likely to change for a very long time. The projections by the Small Arms Survey 2006 show a world obsessed with military firearms. The SAS 2005 predicts that:

- The world’s militaries procure around 50 million small arms and light weapons over a 50-year period, or around 1 million units annually.
- Not all of this acquisition is of new stocks.
-Global production of military small arms and light weapons over a 50-year period range between 36 and 46 million weapons and averages 0.7 – 0.9 million annually.
- Production is not constant but cyclical and responds to the demands of the world’s wealthier states.
- The world’s poorer states often rely on surplus stocks displayed by wealthy state procurement programmes.
- This trade and transfer of surplus stocks to militaries across the globe could number up to 14 million units over a 50-year period.
- Some of the world’s largest procurers will launch major procurement programmes in the next 10 – 15 years.
- Global military production periodically peaks and id projected to do so in the coming 20 years as wealthy states modernise their small arms.
- Unless measures are taken to remove weapons from circulation, this peak is likely to displace yet more surplus stock to the world’s poorer states.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The history and the present life of the San, indigenous people of the southern Africa, is a sad story of a people who after surviving genocide at the hands of other African ethnic groups and European colonialists had to endure slavery and oppression, while in the process losing their land, language, culture, and traditional way of life.

In Botswana, where there is a population of about 60,000 San people, the government refuses to recognise the San as indigenous, claiming that every Motswana is indigenous in Botswana. This self-serving argument is presented to anyone who argues that historical and archaeological evidence has proved that the San people have lived and hunted in the southern Africa for over 35,000 years.

There is no official recognition of the San people as a distinct ethnic group in Botswana, and they are excluded in the country’s house of chiefs (1). A name used to refer to the San is “Basarwa” - a demeaning word suggesting servitude. They are among the poorest, totally marginalised and landless. Title deeds and the 1968 Tribal Land Act which aimed to regulate land allocation and rights (2) left the San people with no land to call their own.

In the name of development - meaning game lodges and safari companies which results in tourists and profits for the wealthy few, the San people have been, since 1997, subjected to forced removal from The Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The game reserve was set up in 1961 while Botswana was still a British Protectorate. The idea was to put all that belonged in the bush in a game reserve; you will remember that the colonialists referred to the San as “Bushmen”.

Before 1997, there were about 3,000 San people who lived in the 52,000 square km reserve (3) and in total there were six villages (4), but today there are only about 500 San people who still live in the reserve (5). A reason given by the government for the removal of the San people is that the game reserve is not for humans rather to preserve wildlife; furthermore, the government claims that it has become too expensive to bring basic services for the San people living in the reserve, hence it is moving them to a better site 60 km away from the reserve.

When the government came up with the idea to remove the San people in 1997, it stressed the point that those who were being removed would be given a “new and modern life”, replete with better clinics, schools, financial assistance for businesses, farm plots and livestock.

The real reason behind the removal of the San people is to create a tourism industry in that country while diversifying the country’s economy at the same time. The International Monetary Fund made it clear to the Botswana government that it must pursue the diversification of its economy and move away from dependence on diamond revenues, continued government spending and expansion of the civil service (6). Diamonds account for three quarters of Botswana export earnings, one third of its GDP and 50 percent of government revenues (7). This is generated by Debswana - a company jointly owned by the government and De Beers, and is the world’s biggest uncut diamond producer in value terms.

Survival International believes that the main reason for the government to remove the San people is that the game reserve which they once considered barren houses one of the world’s richest diamond fields. And according to the United Nations news agency, IRIN, test drilling has already taken place at Gope - a location within the reserve. Clifford Maribe, assistant director of the research and information division in the Government Foreign Affairs Ministry, has been quoted as saying: “The government has made no secret that there is general exploration for minerals throughout the country, including Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). However, at this point in time, nothing other than the Gope deposit has been found in the CKGR” (8).

Moreover, according to the Survival International, the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank, has given credibility to the exploration by providing Kalahari Diamonds (part owned by Billiton - an Anglo-Australian multinational) with $ 2-million.

In their struggle to exist, the San’s traditional knowledge is also under threat. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of South Africa (CSIR) patented in 1997 a plant that the San used to eat to ward off hunger and thirst on long hunting trips. According to tradition, the San did not eat while hunting and the plant helped suppress appetite. The CSIR then licensed the UK- based Phytopharm, which in turn licensed the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to develop the Hoodia cactus into a “miracle slimming drug”. It is reported that Pfizer hopes to have the “dieter’s dream” treatment in pill form by 2007. As for the San, royalties are coming their way; the mainstream media is quick to point out.

Perhaps the most revealing story of the day-to-day struggle of the San people in Botswana is an extract below, taken from a story by Saikuta, a storyteller from old Xade district that used to be in the game reserve.

“Just before the time of the year you call Christmas I went hunting and shot a gemsbok. The same day the Game Warden came around, took my hunting license, and said: don’t you see that this has expired a long time ago? And I said: but you know I can’t read. Never mind, this one is expired. So where is the animal? So I go with the Game Warden, show him the animal, and he takes it all, skin, bones, meat, horn. He takes it to feed his own family. He tells me that this time he will not fine me.

Every time I see him I ask for my new license. Take it easy, this is not the time for hunting. And I say: But this is the time when we San people go hunting. This is when the game is around. Nonsense, old man, you must wait until I tell you. This is the government game, and we decide when you are allowed to hunt.

Many, many days passed and we nearly died from hunger. My son was nearly dying from hunger. I know well enough, he belongs to the government. The government owns all of us, and we own nothing. So it was difficult for me to make this decision: should I leave the government’s son to die, or should I shoot one of the government’s elands. Which of the two had to die? So I went hunting. I shot an eland, butchered it, and went home, but the Game Warden was already there waiting for me: You shot an eland, now you must go to jail. They took me and the eland to Ghanzi district, and once we were there they started to sell the meat. And I asked: is it the meat of the eland that I shot that you are now selling? You are not allowed to sell game meat, that much I know. Now you watch yourself or you will stay in jail for so long that no one will recognize you when you come out.

So I was silent.

Then I came before the magistrate, and I told him the story as I have told you now. You are too old to hunt. You are supposed to live from the mealie meal that the government gives you, the magistrate told me. But I never received any mealie meal. Yes, your name is in the book. Go home and wait, and you will get a bag every month; the magistrate told me. Then he gave me six months suspended sentence. Now it is May, and the mealie meal has been distributed five times already, but my name is not in the book.

So now I again am faced with the same dilemma. Who should die, the eland or the son of the government.” (9)

* This article was first published on
Reprinted with kind permission of the author.

* Please send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa -
to [email protected]

References:
1.United Nations news agency, IRIN.
2.The Inconvenient Indigenous, by Sidsel Saugestad
3.UN news agency, IRIN
4.The Inconvenient Indigenous, by Sidsel Saugestad
5.African Eye News Service
6.Business Day 25/11/99
7.Financial Times
8.UN news agency, IRIN
9.The Inconvenient Indigenous, by Sidsel Saugestad