Swiss weapons lost in Slovakia

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Swiss weapons may not be supplied to countries involved in an armed conflict. This is stated in the War Materials Act. Partly for this reason, the State Secretariat of Economic Affairs (Seco) regularly checks abroad whether countries are complying with the re-export ban.

But there are always problems, as the “Tages-Anzeiger” writes. During a visit by the Swiss inspectors to Slovakia, only 60 percent of the delivered submachine guns could be checked, according to a federal report. During the visit in November 2021, some of the war material could not be found. Nevertheless, the Swiss armaments inspectors ultimately awarded the grade “as good as good”.

When asked, Seco did not specify how many submachine guns are missing in total.

Good numbers for Kuwait and Bulgaria

The federal delegation wants to check with its own on-site checks whether all Swiss weapons are still where they should be. From 2015 to 2017, submachine guns were supplied to the Ministry of the Interior and the Secret Service of Slovakia – on the condition that they would not be resold to other states. According to the report, the Slovak authorities showed little understanding of the need for the Swiss investigation.

Controls in Mexico painted an equally poor picture, where only half of the weapons originally delivered could be checked at all. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Malaysia were rated “good” – although “unfortunately not all exported war material could be physically checked”, as the corresponding test reports state.

Federal gun controls in Kuwait, Bulgaria and South Africa improved. All the war material from Switzerland was recently verified on site there.

Export stopped

Switzerland has already banned arms exports as a result of such controls. For example, the export of war material to Ghana was suspended in 2016 because the country violated the conditions in the non-re-export declaration. And exports to Lebanon would also no longer be approved due to the unsatisfactory result in 2019, according to Seco. (she)

Source:Blick