GERMANY: ‘War on Terror’ Divides Government

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

BERLIN, Oct 2 2007 (IPS) - National policy on the ‘war on terror’ is dividing the German coalition government, with some right-wing Christian Democrat leaders urging radical measures such as the right to shoot down commercial aircraft hijacked by terrorists, and the Social Democrats vigorously rejecting such proposals.

Two ministers are the focus of the debate: minister for the interior Wolfgang Schaeuble and minister for defence Franz-Josef Jung, both members of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

“If a commercial airplane carrying civilians has been hijacked by terrorists, I would give the order to shoot it down, even if the legal framework for such a measure does not exist,” Jung told the German newsweekly Focus Sep. 15.

“I would order such an action if there is no other means to protect our civil population,” Jung said.

Schaeuble said “a terrorist attack with nuclear weapons is certain. “The question is no longer whether such an attack could be carried out by terrorists, but when,” he said in an interview with the Sunday newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sep. 16.

Jung and Schaeuble spoke in near unison. Immediately after Jung’s call for the right to shoot down hijacked commercial aircraft, Schaeuble said Germany “is right in the telescopic sights of Islamic terrorism. They want to perpetrate new attacks.”

Schaeuble is reported to have prepared a proposal to amend German Basic Law in order to remove constitutional barriers to anti-terrorist measures. But the SPD opposes such a move.

The Constitutional Court had ruled in February last year that shooting down a commercial aircraft would be against German Basic Law. The ruling came in response to an amendment of German Basic Law proposed by the Social Democratic Party (SPD, after its German name) in 2003.

The SPD was then ruling Germany in coalition with the Green Party. The CDU, now the leading member of the coalition government with the SPD, was then the major opposition party.

The SPD proposal came at the height of the debate on home security that followed the attacks on the U.S. World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on Sep. 11, 2001.

Now, the SPD is turning away from the same proposal based on the ruling by the Constitutional Court that domestic security can be guaranteed by police resources.

Electoral considerations are playing a role in the debate – both the CDU and the SPD, coalition partners in government, want to improve their electoral chances at the expense of one another for the general elections scheduled for 2009.

The SPD, rated very low in opinion polls after almost ten years in government, is using the CDU ministers’ radicalism on domestic security issues to appear a champion of civil rights.

Foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD), said Sep. 30 that the CDU has brought up the debate “to activate latent fears for small electoral profits.”

“I do not understand the garrulity of Schaeuble and Jung on such important matters,” said SPD member Jutta Limbach, former president of the Constitutional Court.

Former SPD general secretary Klaus Uwe Benneter said Jung’s proposals are “insane” and that he is “out of control.” He said “the government will not accomplish its tasks if ministers create such a venomous working atmosphere.”

The military too criticised Jung. Bernhard Gertz, president of the military union of jet fighter pilots, called on military personnel to refuse orders to shoot down commercial airplanes “as long as there is no clear law basis.”

Former minister for defence Peter Struck (SPD) said “Schaeuble’s aim is to militarise domestic security.”

Otto Schily, minister for the interior during the SPD government between 1998 and 2005, dismissed Schaeuble’s plan for a constitutional amendment. “Terrorists are criminals, and we must fight them as such, with traditional police resources,” he told the German public television network ARD.

“We should not put domestic security issues in the framework of military considerations,” Schily added.

Schaeuble’s and Jung’s statements have also provoked a schism within the CDU. A government source told IPS that Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) was not informed in advance of her ministers’ plans. “She became aware of her own party colleagues’ proposals from the press,” the source said.

Besides, military experts consider the likelihood of a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon “negligible”. The aggressiveness of the CDU members’ demands is inversely proportionate to the likelihood that terrorists would ever use a nuclear weapon or radioactive material for an attack, a military source told IPS.

The expert said the technical complexity of handling a nuclear weapon demands infrastructure that is in the hands of very few states.

“The acquisition of nuclear stuff essential for an atom bomb has also become extremely difficult,” the expert added. “Russia, which was seen in the 1990s as an easy source to access such material, has considerably strengthened its security mechanisms.”

The expert said it is relatively easier to obtain light radioactive material. “But still, the construction of a conventional bomb enriched with radioactive material is very difficult, and its destructive effect is low, compared with the investment needed.”