DISARMAMENT: U.S. Considers Arms Sale To Turkey, Despite Criticism

By Haider Rizvi Reprint | | Print |

Haider Rizvi

Washington, Feb 29 1996 (IPS) - The United States appears to be willing to sell Turkey significant military equipment, despite opposition from human rights groups and reports that the Turkish army has used U.S. military supplies against civilian Kurdish targets.

The U.S. government is considering Turkey’s request to purchase 10 AH-IW Super Cobra attack helicopters from the Texas-based arms manufacturing company Bell-Textron, at a value of 135 million dollars, knowledgeable sources confirm.

Turkey, a country widely regarded as a gross human rights violator, claims that it needs the Cobras to match the military power of its rival, Greece. Human rights activists assert, however, that the Turkish army has used Cobras to crush insurgency in Kurd areas in the southeast.

Over the past three years, the Turkish Army has used U.S.- supplied fighter bombers and helicopters to attack civilian villages, according to Human Rights Watch. The U.S.-based human rights group estimates that the decade-old war between the central government and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has resulted in more than 19,000 deaths and the displacement of about two million people from their native areas.

Human rights agencies criticised Turkey last year for using its current stock of Cobras to attack Kurdish villages in an effort to eradicate separatist rebels.

“We have a lot of evidence that these helicopters have been used in human rights violations in Turkey,” says Christine Haen, an Amnesty International spokeswoman.

Human rights activists further question the motivations of the United States and the value it places on democracy. They point to U.S. insistence on bringing to trial South Africa’s state-owned Armament Corporation on the grounds that during apartheid rule in 1991, it had broken U.S. arms control laws.

The government of President Nelson Mandela may be forced to answer for crimes committed by the company, which in evaded weapons bans designed to weaken white rule.

“The U.S. government must shun its policy of double standards and hypocrisy,” said Lora Lumpe, editor of Arms Control Monitor, a newsletter of the Federation of American Scientists that tracks the U.S. arms industry sales. “It must stop this sale (of helicopters) because it is fully aware of the killing of innocent civilians by the Turkish Army”

The proposed sale “will escalate a dangerous arms race and exacerbate relations between Turkey and its neighbors,” added Lumpe.

Supporters of the sale, on the other hand, argue that selling Cobras to Turkey would strengthen the U.S. position in the politically volatile region of West Asia and give the United States an edge against its European competitors.

The United States has long granted Turkey a special place in its geo-political considerations. Arms researchers ranked Turkey the largest weapons importer in the world last year, with Washington providing about 80 percent of its defence equipment. Over the past decade, the U.S. Congress has approved some 4.3 billion dollars in military aid to Turkey, making it Washington’s third largest military client after Israel and Egypt, according to U.S. arms industry watchers.

The recent decision to review Turkey’s April 1995 application represents a shift in position for the Bill Clinton Administration. Having initially been swayed by arguments from human rights groups, the Administration is now resuming the United States’ historical policy stance. The shift comes as a result of severe pressure from the Republican Congress and others to make a decision in the next two weeks.

“Turkey is a key NATO ally that occupies a position of geo- strategic interest to the United States and serves as an example of secular democracy to the Islamic world,” saqd Republican Senator Strom Thurmond and three others in a letter to President Clinton a few months ago.

A letter written by the Cobra manufacturers to Joan Spero, Under- Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs says, “We as a nation and a company depend on export sales, and European manufacturers are hoping to supplant the United States as a major aviation supplier in the region.

And according to one State Department official, “It’s the only Western-looking democracy in an area where democracy is rare.”