The National Conventional Arms Control Committee has not filed records of decisions in 2021 despite being ordered to do so by the High Court
- The National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) has failed to fulfill its regulatory role.
- It suffers from weak governance and lack of transparency.
- The NCACC has consistently failed to comply with court orders to produce records of its decisions regarding arms sales involved in the Yemen conflict.
The National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) was established to ensure accountability in all matters related to conventional weapons. Yet it continues to approve arms sales in armed conflicts that involve war crimes and other human rights violations. This is not only inconsistent with South Africa's foreign policy (and possibly the Constitution), but it also violates South Africa's obligations under international law.
Furthermore, the NCACC continues to delay producing records of its decision-making to the courts.
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One would have thought that the “weapons-money machine” that unleashed unspeakable violence in South Africa and its neighboring countries during apartheid would have led a new democratic government to dismantle the military industrial complex responsible for decades of suffering.
In 1995, South Africa established the NCACC to ensure transparent, legitimate and effective controls on arms exports. In September 1994, media reports emerged of a weapons-related dispute.
report on “Weight Defeat” It was suggested that state-owned Armscor had sold a large consignment of weapons (including 10,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 15,000 G3 assault rifles and one million rounds of ammunition) to Yemen, a country in the grip of a devastating armed conflict.
The Cameroon Commission of Inquiry investigated these arms sales and found that “hundreds, perhaps thousands” of people had been killed or injured by South African weapons. Armscor's weapons were used around the world from Angola to Mozambique, Chad, Israel, Rwanda and Iran.
There was an understanding that South Africa's status as a regional power should be tempered by its wider international obligations.
There was optimism in 1995 that the establishment of the NCACC under Nelson Mandela's administration would ensure that the Wazan debacle and the old secret military arrangement would never be repeated.
That optimism was short-lived. In the 30 years since the NCACC was established, export permits have routinely been granted to countries accused of war crimes and other human rights violations.
yemen conflict
The specter of the Gaza debacle has recently surfaced in the form of Yemen. On 3 June 2021, Open Secrets along with the Southern African Litigation Center (SALC) applied for an order to review and quash NCACC decisions authorizing arms sales to Saudi Arabia or the UAE and to compel the NCACC to produce records according to which export permits were granted.
Key documents included the NCACC meeting minutes, recommendations of the Screening Committee, input from the National Conventional Arms Control Inspectorate, a one-page summary document provided to the NCACC by the Directorate of Conventional Arms Control (DCAC), which forms the basis of the NCACC's final deliberations on contract permits and contract permit applications.
The reason for the application was the NCACC's decision to ignore the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, characterized by indiscriminate bombing campaign And mass killings.
The NCACC report shows that South African arms companies have continuously supplied arms to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, including vehicles, mortars and ammunition, before and since the start of the Yemen conflict.
Forensic investigators Bellingcat found that the 2018 attack on the fishing port of Hodeidah, which later targeted survivors and first responders, was likely caused by mortar bombs manufactured by South African firm Rheinmetall Denel Munitions (RDM). This conclusion was confirmed by the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen in 2019.
Between 2015 and 2018, South Africa approved arms exports worth R1.3 billion to Saudi Arabia and R3.2 billion to the United Arab Emirates.
lack of transparency
The NCACC has yet to file full records of how these permits were granted, despite being ordered to do so by the High Court, three months after Open Secrets and SALC first launched their review applications in 2021.
The delay in producing records of its own decisions for almost five years has benefited only those arms companies that were granted permits.
The NCACC is failing in its duty to ensure that weapons produced by RDMs do not become a resource for war crimes and other human rights violations. Gross failure of the Committee in discharging its duty with respect to National Conventional Arms Control Act (The Act) is a breach of South Africa's international obligations and constitutional imperatives which the Act entails.
South Africa is also a party to this arms trade treaty (ATT), which prohibits the export of weapons to a state that it knows “will be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, serious violations of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, attacks against civilian objects … or other war crimes defined by international conventions to which it is a party”.
A year before Open Secrets and SALC approached the courts, SA's Permanent Representative to the UN, Jerry Matjila, told the Security Council that South Africa was concerned by the “alarming number of deaths so far, over 100,000 as a result of this war (in Yemen)”.
But five years later, the NCACC remains unconvinced by the evidence put before the court that it knowingly allowed the country to commit war crimes and other human rights violations in Yemen.
Who is accountable?
The NCACC includes the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation and the Deputy Minister as members, and it requires input from the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) when authorizing permits. Yet its decisions run contrary to the international human rights stance adopted by its representative members in DIRCO.
Thirty years ago, the Cameron Commission stated that when “States knowingly or recklessly sell arms to repressive or aggressive regimes, they bear some degree of culpability for the use of their weapons.”
Today, in the face of that culpability, the NCACC has refused to present to the High Court a complete record that would explain its reasons for authorizing arms sales to the kind of regimes it once condemned.
Ntokozo Dladla is a lawyer reveal the secret.
The views expressed are not necessarily those of GroundUp.