Two years ago, the Australian government supported a major military equipment sales exhibition in Canberra. AIDEX '89 drew hundreds of clients to view and assess military and military-related equipment. With AIDEX '91 scheduled for November, CRAIG CORMICK asks whether what's good for this branch of Australian industry is really good for us all.
A pistol is in the hand of a soldier in a Third World country. The soldier spins the chamber. He doesn't pause to admire the quality of the weapon as he presses the muzzle into the cheek of a kneeling peasant. The soldier knows that after one minute he is going to pull the trigger, but he listens to the man pleading for his life anyway ...
Australia had fairly strict military export controls until June 1989, when they were significantly eased. The new export guidelines no longer embargo arms sales to repressive governments, and the Department of Foreign Affairs has lost its role as human rights watchdog, being relegated to a consultative status. The arguments for this easing were based on our need to increase export income.
Australia's current military exports are worth about $300 million. They could expand considerably. According to the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the global arms market, although quite volatile, is worth about $70 billion a year. By comparison, our total exports are only $43.5 billion.
However, as John Langmore, federal MP for Fraser in the ACT, wrote in the introduction to Australia's Arms Exports (a report written by St John Kettle, co-funded by Community Aid Abroad and the Department of Foreign Affairs and published by the ANU Peace Research Centre), the question is whether a policy of arms exports "is the best available for contributing to the global goals of ... peace, economic well being, political freedom and economic balance".
In June 1988, Bill Hayden, then foreign minister, addressed the United Nations special session on disarmament. He said that "arms exports should not be turned to as a way of solving domestic economic problems. Arms transfers must not become a new cash crop."
Australia's annual defence budget is $8 billion. This is about 10% of total Australian government spending, nearly as much as spending on health (11%) and more than on education (7.5%).
Burdensome as this is, in many developing countries the purchase of military equipment is in even more direct competition with the purchase of food or health care.
According to UNICEF, servicing debts and buying military equipment costs the nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America $1 billion per day. And the director of the World Bank said in 1989 that 20% of world debt was due to arms purchases.
Arms races
According to Australia's Arms Exports, Australia contributes to regional arms races through both sales and military aid. An obvious example was last year's agreement to sell 50 mothballed Mirage jet fighters to Pakistan for $36 million.Australian military aid to Thailand rose from $600,000 in 1980-81 to over $5 million 1985-86.
St John Kettle's report also notes that Australia provides military supplies for repression "through its ongoing exports to Indonesia and the Philippines, but also through its supply to the US and France which have a track record of repressive intervention".
And last year the government supplied both helicopters and an RAAF Hercules loaded with small arms and ammunition to the Papua New Guinea government fighting rebels on the island of Bougainville. A report at the time said, "Men, women and children are being killed, tortured and harassed in Bougainville".
Australia produces many specialist military items, largely developed by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation — which, with an annual budget of $200 million, is the country's second largest research organisation, surpassed only by the CSIRO.
Current Australian military exports are largely limited to "non-combat" items such as the Nomad light transport aircraft, the Barra submarine detection sonobuoys, the Jindavik pilotless target drone and small arms target training aids. But Australia also sells naval patrol boats, the Ikara anti-submarine weapon and components for the US F/A-18 jet fighter, Sikorsky helicopters and various missiles and artillery pieces.
According to the Pacific Defence Reporter, a group of Australian companies will be building new fast patrol boats for the Philippines. These will be mounted with four guns and will most probably be used in counterinsurgency operations.
Other military equipment manufactured by the Munitions Group of the Defence Department's Office of Defence Production includes small arms, high explosives and mortar shells. According to CAA, 90% of this currently goes to the Australian armed forces, with about $12 million worth being sold to other countries.
Buyer's market
The efforts to increase military exports come at a time when many contend there is little to gain because of a glutted global arms market.
The USSR has announced large cuts in arms spending, which had been followed by similar US announcements — at least until the Gulf War. In NATO countries and Eastern Europe, there have been large reductions in arms spending. And with large amounts of Soviet arms production now being exported, it is essentially a buyer's market.
Australia could not compete effectively in the world arms market with either the high-tech > or the low-cost production of countries such as Brazil and South Korea.
St John Kettle points out that, although the government assures us there is adequate control of arms exports, we really have no idea of what is going where. The Department of Defence is not obliged to disclose any details of exports which it doesn't consider to be sensitive.
This means, in effect, that exports to "friendly" countries are not even subject to scrutiny by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. And that is regardless of those countries' habits of reselling arms to other, "less friendly" countries.
... the peasant stares emptily. He can see nothing, not even the hand holding the gun pressed into his face. The soldier squeezes the trigger, bracing his arm for the recoil.
The bullet costs about 50 cents.