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Summary and Recommendations

Slovakia, like many Central and Eastern European countries, has serious and longstanding problems with its weapons trade controls. It has been a source of arms supplies to regions of conflict marked by gross human rights abuses, such as the Great Lakes region of Africa, and to armed forces with a record of serious violations of international humanitarian law (“the laws of war”), such as Angola and Uganda. Slovakia also has been linked to illegal arms deals that violate international embargoes.

The Slovak government has recognized that it needs to improve arms trade controls. Particularly after Slovakia was linked to illegal weapons flows to Liberia, an embargoed country, in 2000 and 2001, the government came to understand that doubts about its ability to prevent illicit arms trafficking could damage its prospects for joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (E.U.). The Slovak government made a serious effort to tighten controls in the lead-up to the November 2002 NATO summit, at which it was invited to join the alliance, and the December 2002 E.U. meeting, at which it was invited to join the E.U. in 2004.

To clean up the arms trade, however, and live up to the expectations of NATO and the E.U. as it integrates into both organizations, the Slovak government must acknowledge and address the full scope of the problem. It must learn from past mistakes and overcome pressures for a quick fix that would undermine meaningful and lasting change.

This report features three detailed case studies that exemplify the main arms-trade challenges facing Slovakia today: illegal arms deals parading as legitimate transactions, the use of deceptive practices by arms brokers and transport agents, and the inadequacy of existing licensing controls. The purpose is three-fold: to draw attention to the dangers posed by continuing problems; to describe recent progress in addressing those problems; and to identify specific further reforms that Slovak authorities should undertake to ensure that legal controls are strictly implemented and fully enforced.

In addition, this study offers important lessons for the many other countries that face challenges similar to those described for Slovakia. It is directed in part to Slovakia’s international partners, including in the European Union and NATO, who are in a unique position to promote needed arms trade reforms in Slovakia and beyond. It is also relevant for members of the international community who seek to combat illicit arms trafficking and better regulate authorized weapons transfers, consistent with basic standards under international human rights and humanitarian law.

Ripe for Reform

Slovakia, as government officials emphasize, is not the world’s worst offender in terms of irresponsible arms trading practices. Yet it has many important features that led Human Rights Watch to focus attention on it. It plays a significant role in the global supply of weapons to human rights abusers, including in Africa. In addition, Slovakia exhibits many weaknesses that are evident in other countries in the region, and thus offers a window into a wider problem. Importantly, the Slovak government has made a credible pledge to improve its record.

Slovak arms trading today is in part a legacy of Cold War policies in which Warsaw Pact states supplied arms to Soviet-backed rebels and regimes. When Czechoslovakia split in 1993, Slovakia inherited much of the weapons production capabilities and set about promoting its own exports, including the sale of vast stocks of surplus weapons. With support from the government, the arms industry marketed its wares to dubious clients the world over—including serious human rights abusers. In more recent years, Slovakia’s supply of weapons to human rights abusers and failure to adequately monitor the weapons trade continued to raise serious concerns.

A top Slovak security official, speaking in late 2001, emphasized the prominence of arms trade issues in Slovakia after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States: “The world looks very negatively on the fact that our arms traders falsify licenses and end-user certificates and are supplying global terrorist organizations with weapons and systems. Our priority should be adopting a radical solution to this problem.”1 Elsewhere he noted, “Slovakia is considered a high-risk country from the viewpoint of trading in arms. Our firms and Slovak nationals are suspected of various shenanigans and links to illegal arms deals.”2 Others in the Slovak government dismissed this characterization as exaggerated, but nonetheless conceded that Slovakia was under pressure to improve its controls.

Attention to terrorism concerns has helped keep a focus on Slovakia’s arms trading. In July 2001 three members of the Real Irish Republican Army were arrested in Slovakia as part of a British sting operation. The suspects were extradited to face trial in the United Kingdom (U.K.), where their confession helped convict them for an illegal attempt to purchase large quantities of weapons and explosives in Slovakia for use in terrorist attacks.3 In August 2002, Slovak authorities raided the home of a North Korean couple and found scores of documents allegedly showing that they had brokered the sale of weapons and missile technology from North Korea to the Middle East.4 In December 2002, Slovak authorities opened an investigation into allegations that the rocket launcher used in an attempted terrorist attack on an Israeli airliner in Kenya originated in Slovakia.5 Officials said they did not give much credence to the allegations, but could not afford to ignore them.6

Some of the weapons shipments addressed in this report have been authorized and are therefore considered legal under Slovak law. They nevertheless contravene Slovakia’s international commitments not to supply arms in certain circumstances, including if the weapons will go to human rights abusers, countries in conflict, or recipients who may divert the weapons to other destinations. Other arms deals from Slovakia have been approved for one destination but supplied to another. Some deals have taken advantage of legal loopholes that allow certain weapons transactions to bypass government review and approval. Many of the arms supplied in questionable deals have come from surplus stocks, stores of Soviet-era military equipment the country continues to shed as it integrates into NATO. The weapons sold consist of small arms and light weapons (hereafter “small arms”), as well as heavy conventional weapons, such as tanks.7

The Slovak government since 2001 has taken a number of steps to improve implementation of existing controls. It has promised to review arms deals closely and reject any questionable deals. It has resolved to improve its law enforcement capacity, and has had several successes in detecting and halting suspicious arms transfers as a result. It also has recognized some areas of weakness in its regulatory system and made some adjustments accordingly. With respect to legal reforms as well, the Slovak government has taken some initial steps. In April 2002, it introduced amendments to strengthen the national arms-trade law, and these were adopted in July 2002.

These improvements are welcome, but they do not go far enough. Slovakia has continued to engage in arms trade with human rights abusers, contrary to its pledges to restrain such trade. Investigations and prosecutions of illegal deals, in those cases where they have been opened, have proceeded very slowly, and in at least one prominent case have been hampered by a lack of resources, attention, and political will. Regulatory controls require further tightening, and important legal loopholes remain in place. The reforms to date thus mark an incremental improvement and, it is hoped, open the door to more comprehensive change still required. A center-right-dominated coalition government that ruled from 1998 to 2002 oversaw many of these changes, and elections in September 2002 brought several of the same parties back to power in a revamped coalition. The expectation among working-level government officials was that the new government would continue a reform-minded agenda with respect to the arms trade, and some officials were predicting that further legislative changes in this area would be proposed in 2003. As of June 2003, the government had begun to take the first steps toward studying the issue.

This report begins with a description of a scheme by arms smugglers, put into effect in 2000 and 2001, to repair combat helicopters in Slovakia for illegal export to Liberia, an embargoed country. A Slovak national and others associated with a Slovakia-registered company were implicated in the scheme and were identified as members of an international arms trafficking network blamed for a host of illegal arms deals. This first case study reveals how illegal arms deals are organized under the pretext that they are destined to legitimate clients. It illustrates the need for Slovakia to clamp down on illicit arms trafficking.

The second case study details a complex arms deal in September 2001 in which several hundred Iranian anti-tank munitions designed for use with a RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher were to have been loaded onto a Ukrainian plane at Bratislava airport for delivery to Angola via Israel. The shipment was impounded in Slovakia after officials there discovered that they had been misled about the nature of the shipment. Many questions surround the case, which nevertheless usefully demonstrates how arms brokers and transport agents, sometimes working in tandem with governments, can use deceptive practices to avoid scrutiny of sensitive and possibly illegal weapons transactions. In doing so, they rely on weak government controls, corruption, or sometimes official complicity on the part of one or more governments. The case highlights the importance of efforts by Slovak authorities to tighten controls over arms brokers and the need for them to also closely regulate the activities of other arms intermediaries, such as transport agents.

The third case relates to an arms shipment that was authorized for export to Angola, an unsavory arms client responsible for gross human rights abuses. That case, which also took place in September 2001, reveals problems with controlling the authorized trade in arms. It illustrates the necessity of stricter licensing controls, including adherence to minimum arms export criteria.

In developing each of the case studies, we interviewed persons with direct knowledge of the events, such as private persons involved in the transactions, investigators and prosecutors taking part in criminal inquiries, and government officials familiar with the cases. We also reviewed primary documents related to each case. We note with appreciation that we received excellent cooperation from those private individuals and public officials in Slovakia who agreed to be interviewed, although secrecy rules and other considerations in some cases limited the information they would provide.

Further arms scandals have emerged in 2002 and 2003, demonstrating the continuing importance of addressing Slovakia’s arms challenges. After detailing the featured case studies, the report describes the kinds of reform that are still needed and how they can be implemented. It emphasizes the links between the processes of NATO and E.U. enlargement and Slovakia’s drive to improve arms trade controls. It also provides an analysis of each of the key problems identified, highlights where the Slovak government has taken measures to tackle these problems, and identifies what remains to be done. Appendices reprint selected documents obtained by Human Rights Watch.

Recommendations

To effectively tackle the human rights implications of arms transfers, Slovakia must prioritize three tasks: preventing illicit arms trafficking from or via Slovak territory; controlling arms brokers and other intermediaries who operate in a “gray area” between legal and patently illegal deals; and enhancing legal controls over the authorized trade in arms. A number of other important issues also require attention. Full recommendations are elaborated in a later section of the report.

Human Rights Watch’s main recommendations to the Slovak government are to:

  • Ensure strict licensing

  • Identify and close licensing loopholes

  • Improve end-use controls

  • Closely regulate arms trading companies

  • Closely regulate arms brokers and other intermediaries

  • Control weapons transshipment

  • Strictly enforce arms embargoes

  • Fully implement minimum arms export criteria

  • Dispose responsibly of surplus weapons

  • Combat corruption and conflicts of interest

  • Ensure transparency and secure parliamentary oversight

Change is also needed at the regional and international level, both to reinforce and build on national controls and to address the transnational nature of weapons smuggling. Human Rights Watch’s main recommendations to Slovakia’s international partners follow.

To All Arms-Exporting States:

  • Adopt strict arms export criteria conditional on the ultimate recipient’s observance of human rights and compliance with international humanitarian law. Incorporate human rights and international humanitarian law criteria into national arms trade law so as to make them binding. Develop and strengthen regional codes of conduct, which should be made binding. Negotiate a binding international instrument defining minimum criteria for arms transfers that contains strong human rights and humanitarian criteria, such as the proposed international Arms Trade Treaty.

  • Comply fully with the European Union’s Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, the provisions of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Document on Small Arms and Light Weapons, and any other applicable instruments defining minimum export criteria, as well as the measures of restraint agreed to in other fora, such as the Wassenaar Arrangement.

  • Fight against weapons diversion to unauthorized destinations by improving regulatory controls, including controls on the ultimate destination (end user) of weapons shipments, as well as border, customs, civil aviation, and (where appropriate) maritime controls.

  • Carefully review arms export license applications, including the reliability of the prospective arms trader.

  • Halt the flow of arms to governments and groups that recruit and use child soldiers.

  • Monitor how weapons supplied to foreign forces are used, and make such end-use monitoring a standard condition of arms transfers.

  • Work to develop an international regime for the standardization, authentication, verification, and continued monitoring of end-user commitments.

  • Closely regulate the activities of arms brokers and other intermediaries. Move forward to negotiate binding international treaties on arms brokering and the marking and tracing of weapons.

  • Adopt and strictly apply controls on weapons transshipment.

  • Secure arms stockpiles and dispose responsibly of surplus and seized weapons to prevent them from being stolen or sold off to unaccountable forces.

  • Improve legal accountability, including by enacting national laws that implement United Nations arms embargoes, by thoroughly investigating suspected embargo breaches and other arms trade violations, and by prosecuting and punishing violators.

  • Combat corruption and conflicts of interest among authorities responsible for controlling arms transfers.

  • Increase transparency and parliamentary oversight regarding the arms trade, including by preparing and making public a detailed annual report on arms transfers and by providing advance notification to parliament of pending arms deals.

  • Ensure that military finances are transparent and part of the formal budget in order to prevent opaque and off-budget arms transfer practices that can undermine good governance, foster corruption, and permit unaccountable governments to squander their countries’ resources.

  • Improve international cooperation with respect to arms trade issues, including by providing legal assistance to support criminal investigations of international arms traffickers and their networks and by working toward the development of a common and difficult-to-forge end-user certificate and better systems for verification of end-use.

To the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and its Member States:

  • Promote the harmonization of arms trade controls within the E.U. and NATO to the highest possible standard. Actively encourage candidate countries and new members to undertake needed reforms to meet those standards. Take steps to facilitate their progress, by providing practical assistance for improving legal controls, law enforcement capacity, and information sharing, including with respect to circulation of denials under provisions of the E.U. Code of Conduct on Arms Exports.

  • Provide incentives, including financial assistance, for the responsible disposal (for example, through destruction) of surplus military equipment held by candidate countries, invitees, and new members. Target heavy conventional weapons systems as well as small arms and light weapons. Make the transfer of newer military equipment to candidate countries and new members contingent on the recipient country’s responsible disposal of quantities of surplus weapons.

  • Unambiguously identify responsible arms trading practices, including strict arms trade controls and the disposal of surplus weapons in conformity with human rights criteria, as a requirement for membership and the minimum standard expected of future member states.



1 Tom Nicholson, “Opinions on arms control,” Slovak Spectator, December 17-23, 2001.

2 “Officials React to UN Report on Slovak Firm’s Involvement in Illegal Arms Deals,” SME (Bratislava), via World News Connection (WNC), November 20, 2001.

3 Richard Norton-Taylor, “30 years in jail for Real IRA trio - Court told of MI5 sting operation that exposed terrorist shopping...,” Guardian (London), May 8, 2002.

4 Bertil Lintner and Steve Stecklow, “A Global Journal Report: North Korea’s Missile Maze — Slovakia Case Reveals Lucrative Business for Pyongyang,” Asian Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2003.

5 Martina Pisarova, “Slovakia fingered in Kenya terror attempt,” Slovak Spectator, December 9-15, 2002. The allegations appeared in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera. Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 This report addresses the trade in conventional weapons. It does not address the trade in so-called dual-use goods, items such as certain chemicals, explosives, and machine tools that can have both civilian and military uses.


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February 2004