SA in global arms trade

Edna Molewa’s assertion that SA has no trade with Israeli settlements is false. Settlement products are available at my local supermarket. Furthermore, SA’s standard rifles, the R series, are licensed variants of Israel’s standard rifle, the Galil. The Israeli armaments industry itself receives a fee for every R4, R5 or R6 Denel produces. Sure, this dates back to Israel’s cosy relationship with apartheid SA, but the ANC government has had almost 23 years to replace R series rifles. Clearly and hypocritically they couldn’t be bothered.

Furthermore, for all SA’s supposed stance on multilateral co-operation and UN compliance, prior to the non-UN-sanctioned US-led invasion of Iraq, SA sold tens of millions of rand of optical guidance systems to the US for their smart bombs and hundreds of millions of ammunition to the UK. Clearly hedging its bets, SA has simultaneously sold arms to Azerbaijan and Armenia, which are technically at war and clashed last year, resulting in hundreds of deaths. This is in violation of SA’s own National Conventional Arms Control Committee principle “to avoid transfers of conventional arms that are likely to contribute to the escalation of regional military conflicts, endanger peace by introducing destabilising military capabilities into a region or otherwise contribute to regional instability”.

Two years ago it was announced that Russia was looking at joint arms production with SA. Given the horrific carnage Russia has recently inflicted in Syria, and particularly on Aleppo, could Molewa kindly update us on the current status of SA’s military co-operation with Russia? I could cite further examples of ANC hypocrisy, but your word limit prevents me from doing so.