There was a time when South Africa’s arms industry had all but ground to a halt. But democracy has given new life to the local arms industry and South African weapons are turning up in the Libyan civil war and in Yemen. By law, local weapons manufacturers shouldn’t be selling arms to countries “engaged in repression, aggression or terrorism”, but that doesn’t appear to deter South Africa’s “lords of war”. They are selling arms to the highest bidders, apparently in flagrant disregard of the law.
“Our legislation says that we won’t trade with countries that have a questionable human rights record or that are engaged in repression, aggression or terrorism,” says Julian Rademeyer, a senior reporter with Media24’s investigative unit. Rademeyer’s story on SA sniper rifles being used in Libya’s civil war appeared on the front page of City Press on Sunday.
“The situation here is really more about the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) which oversees the export of SA arms, and which has danced around and for all intents and purposes has ducked our questions about the sale of these sniper rifles to Libya. The NCACC is clearly avoiding the issue of the sale of arms to questionable countries,” says Rademeyer, who adds that the Media24 investigative unit repeatedly asked the NCACC to confirm the sale of the sniper rifles and to state how many were sold. Media24’s investigative unit never received a clear response from the NCACC .
Watch “South Africa's deadly arms trade with Libya” by Investigations24:
“The story of SA sniper rifles in Libya had been floating around since February this year when David Maynier raised it in Parliament. Our unit started investigating the issue, but it was impossible to get confirmation that the sale had gone through. We got a very evasive response from the department of defence, which referred us to the NCACC headed by Jeff Radebe, which was equally unhelpful,” says Rademeyer, who was tipped off about videos of the Libyan war that clearly featured locally manufactured sniper rifles.
“There are two videos, one made with a mobile phone and the other which was aired on Al Jazeera, where you can clearly see that the rifle is a Truvelo sniper rifle. Once this was established it was a matter of getting someone who could verify that the rifle was indeed made by Truvelo,” he says.
Truvelo sniper rifles are very distinctive and according to seminal military magazine, Jane’s Defense Weekly, the company’s countermeasure sniper (CMS) rifles have become world famous for their “outstanding combination of calibre, compact design and lightweight construction” which makes them ideal for any mission. Truvelo is a Midrand-based company that also manufactures hunting rifles and shotguns.
Media24’s investigation team gave the videos of the sniper rifles to a number of weapon’s experts to verify they were in fact made by Truvelo. Forensic expert and former policeman Tom Wolmarans told Rademeyer it was “highly likely” the rifles were Truvelo after identifying “seven or eight” unique attributes. Another firearms expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, verified four distinguishing marks that would indicate the origin of the rifle as Truvelo.
Despite the overwhelming evidence, when Rademeyer approached the NCACC he was stonewalled. “The NCACC released a 1,000-word statement earlier in February this year saying that the sale of arms to Libya had been compliant with the law, but which made no mention of the sale of the sniper rifles,” says Rademeyer, who adds that when he questioned the NCACC they merely referred him back to the earlier blanket statement.
While the statement makes no mention of Truvelo or its sniper rifles, it does say that the NCACC is “a responsible committee of government and one which carries out its mandate with the highest levels of diligence”. It also declares it would “like to assure everybody and the international community that South African government will continue to conduct arms transactions in a responsible manner and in doing so, will observe obligations imposed on it by both domestic and international laws.”
Despite its assurances, the NCACC has been less than responsible or diligent when it comes to reporting in Parliament. The commission, headed by Radebe, and which includes defence minister Lindiwe Sisulu, has an errant record for both annual reports and quarterly reports which by law are meant to be submitted to Parliament.
“There’s been nothing but silence from both the ministry of defence, Jeff Radebe and the NCACC on the issue of sniper rifles being sold to Libya,” says David Maynier, the DA’s shadow minister of defence. “In my view there has been a collapse in effective oversight of the NCACC and arms exports from South Africa. There is no effective scrutiny or oversight of conventional arms sales from South Africa.”
Watch Al Jazeera report which features the SA sniper rifle at the end of the clip:
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