Time to Stop Arming the Wrong Regimes

When it returns in September, Congress will take up the Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers, a path-breaking bill that would restrict U.S. weapons exports to undemocratic regimes. During the 1990s alone, 85% of U.S. weapons exports to the Third World have gone to repressive regimes.

The issue could not be more timely; weapons makers like Lockheed Martin and Textron-Bell are in the midst of an aggressive push to make new weapons sales to Turkey, a major human rights abuser. For example, Textron-Bell (the King Cobra) and Boeing (the Apache) are both hoping to bid on Ankara’s $4-billion request for proposals for 145 new attack helicopters. Last December, reversing Clinton administration policy, the State Department signed off on Boeing and Textron’s plans to market attack helicopters to Turkey. In 1996, the State Department had denied a similar license to Textron to sell Super Cobra attack helicopters, citing Turkey’s poor human rights record.

The policy reversal was driven by commercial interests. Last November, top executives from Boeing, Textron, General Electric, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman (all major donors to the Democratic Party) wrote directly to President Clinton and urged him to clear the way for U.S. attack helicopter sales to Turkey. A month later, marketing licenses were granted.

The Clinton administration has tried to placate human rights organizations by asserting that the final export license for the attack helicopters to Turkey will not be approved unless certain conditions are met, including strict rules of engagement with regard to use of the helicopters, gains in democratization and elimination of the military state of emergency in Kurdish areas. Turkey is far from meeting these requirements. As the State Department stated in a recent human rights report, “despite some reforms . . . serious human rights abuses continued” in Turkey. The report added, “The rarity of convictions of police or other security officials for killings and torture fosters a climate of impunity.”

Turkey’s record in its own southeastern provinces and in Cyprus offers further evidence of its irresponsible conduct. The Turkish government has used U.S.-supplied weapons to wage war against its own Kurdish population in order to eliminate the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant Kurdish opposition group. In the process, Turkish armed forces, which receive 80% of their imported weaponry from the United States, have destroyed and depopulated 3,000 Kurdish villages. Just recently, Ragip Duran, an award-winning journalist, was imprisoned for the “crime” of publishing information about the Kurdish movement that was contrary to the official government view.

In Cyprus, Turkey has deployed 30,000 troops to defend the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a nation that is officially recognized only by Turkey. Despite fears that Cyprus may become a flash point for armed conflict between Greece and Turkey, Washington is moving full speed ahead with plans to sell advanced F-15 and F-16 combat aircraft to both nations.

The Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers, co-sponsored by Reps. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), will ensure that U.S. weapons are not exported to countries that are undemocratic, engage in aggression against their neighbors or abuse the human rights of their own citizens. The McKinney/Rohrabacher bill is far preferable to the rival code being promoted by Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-Conn.), which is so lame that even the nation’s largest weapons exporting firms are supporting it.

Just as last year’s historic Oslo treaty banning land mines was sparked in part by action in the U.S. Senate to stop U.S. land mine exports, passage of the arms sales code could serve as a catalyst for stricter standards on arms deals throughout the world. The European Union already has established its own code, and a commission of Nobel Peace laureates, led by former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, is pressing for a global code. Given that the U.S. and Europe control 80% of the world arms trade, movement by the U.S. to impose tighter restrictions on weapons exports is an essential first step toward establishing an international norm against arming thugs and dictators.

The time to pass a code of conduct is now, before the next big sale of U.S. arms to a repressive regime goes through.