APPENDIX 9
Memorandum submitted by the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office
THE FOREIGN SECRETARY'S 30 JANUARY EVIDENCE
SESSION TO THE QUADRIPARTITE COMMITTEE: FOLLOW-UP REQUESTS FOR
INFORMATION
Your letter of 7 February set out certain requests
arising from the Foreign Secretary's 30 January Evidence Session
with the Committee and from written evidence submitted. I attach
a Memorandum, setting out:
(i) responses to the requests posed in your
7 February letter;
(ii) additional information, including responses
to some outstanding questions from your letter of 12 January.
Some of the attached information is passed to
the Committee in confidence, and is clearly marked as such. I
would be grateful if you could ensure that this information is
not published.
The Foreign Secretary wishes to inform the Committee
that in view of recent events in Israel since 28 September,
the Government has decided that certain categories of equipment
previously subject to Open Individual Export Licences (OIELs)
should now be covered by Standard Individual Export Licences (SIELs).
This will permit us to judge applications case-by-case for specific
quantities of the relevant equipment for export to named end-users.
The companies concerned have now been informed.
CONTENTS
I: Information requested in 7 February letter
from the Clerk of the Quadripartite Committee
1. Strategic export control legislation.
2. EU code of conduct consultations.
3. Wassenaar arrangement.
4. Foreign Secretary's opening address to
the 13/14 February Round Table on small arms.
5. Export licence for guns for the Jamaican
Constabulary Force.
6. Export licences to Israel for day/night
vision equipment.
II: Additional information
7. Proportion of export licence applications
seen by FCO Ministers.
REPLIES TO
QUESTIONS RAISED
IN 12 JANUARY
LETTER
8. Zimbabwe.
9. China.
10. Senegal.
I: REPLIES TO
QUESTIONS RAISED
IN 7 FEBRUARY
LETTER FROM
CLERK OF
THE QUADRIPARTITE
COMMITTEE
1. At Q 51 the Foreign Secretary offered
to seek for the Committee an indication of the latest timetable
for publication of the draft legislation on strategic export controls,
and at Q49 to explore the possibility of examination of the DTI's
drafting instructions on the Bill.
DTI replied directly on this point (see Annex).
2. It would be helpful to have available
details on the two cases of consultation where, following consultation,
a Member State granted a licence for an export originally deemed
similar to a UK-notified refusal (Q 59, 68).
See the confidential Memorandum attached at
Annex I.
3. The information sought at Q 71 on
the minority in the Wassenaar Arrangement blocking the proposed
extension would be helpful.
Annex II[5]
contains a full list of the States participating in the Wassenaar
Arrangement. We need to work in partnership with all these Participating
States if we are to make the Wassenaar Arrangement a more effective
forum for promoting responsible strategic export control policies.
It would not therefore be appropriate to go further than the statement
on page 7 of the 1999 Annual Report on Strategic Export Controls.
4. Copies of the Foreign Secretary's
opening address to the 13/14 February Round Table, and of the
EU's paper referred to, would also be helpful (Q 87-8).
The documents are attached at Annex III[6].
5. The Committee would welcome confirmation
and clarification of the arrangements for the export licence for
guns for the Jamaican police force, including the role of NGOs
and the timing (Qq 109 and 113).
The export licence application referred to is
for pistols and ammunition to be supplied to the Jamaican Constabulary
Force (JCF).
The training for the JCF, mentioned by the Foreign
Secretary, in human rights and the rule of law, has already commenced
in Jamaica. It is being provided by Ms Florence O'Connor who has
been contracted to carry out the work by the Jamaican Ministry
of National Security and Justice. We understand that she started
this work about a year ago. She works with all ranks below Inspector
(the regional delegate to the International Red Cross deals with
more senior officers). All new recruits to the JCF receive this
training. Officers who are already in the service are also receiving
the training on a rotational basis. We have received an assurance
that the equipment will only be issued to officers who have undergone
this training. It appears that Amnesty International are not involved,
as we had thought.
Following our discussions with the Jamaicans,
they have confirmed that procedural changes will be made so that
cases of shootings involving the police will be passed from the
police internal Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI) to the
civilian manned Police Public Complaints Authority (PPCA). The
Jamaican Government have confirmed that this is being progressed.
Although this case has been reported in the
media, the DTI had not yet completed their licensing procedures
when the Foreign Secretary gave evidence to the Committee on 30
January. The DTI has now issued the licences.
6. Among the list of licences granted
for export to Israel in 1998 are several for day/night vision
equipment, specifically:
It would be helpful to have any information
available as to the nature and type of equipment with which these
items are intended to be used.
See the confidential Memorandum attached at
Annex IV[7].
IIADDITIONAL
INFORMATION
7. The Foreign Secretary offered to tell
the Committee roughly what proportion of Export Licence Applications
were seen by FCO Ministers (Q 23, 24).
We estimate that between 5 and 10 per cent of
SIELs processed by the FCO in 2000 were seen by Ministers.
8. Zimbabwe: The Government response
to the Committee's conclusions on Zimbabwe referred to "seven
OIELs for permanent exports issued between August 1998 and February
2000". In evidence forwarded to the Committee, there seem
to be 13 (thirteen) such OIELs:
M/525146/98 | Thermal imaging equipment;
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M/544337/98 | Helmets;
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M/545528/98 | Sporting shotguns;
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M/547254/98 | Telescopic sights for sporting arms;
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M/531055/98 | Sporting shotgun cartridges;
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M/544583/98 | Military aircraft spares (Government only);
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M/545403/98 | Sporting air rifles;
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M/533355/99 | Sporting rifles;
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M/549672/99 | Air traffic control spares (Department of Civil Aviation);
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M/552557/99 | Military utility vehicles spares;
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M/549814/99 | Air traffic control spares (Department of Civil Aviation);
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M/545530/99 | Shotguns and air rifles; and
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M/551080/99 | Shotguns and rifles.
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It seems that Zimbabwe was removed as a permitted destination
from six of these in February 2000 and from the remaining seven
in May 2000. Clarification would be helpful, and confirmation
that the reference to three OIELs being to named end-users is
as set out above.
It would also be helpful to have an explanation of the
apparent discrepancy between removal of Zimbabwe from OIEL M/549814/99
in February 2000, but not from M/549672/99 until May 2000.
We have checked the records: the correct figure is 12 OIELs.
We regret the error. Of the OIELs on the list sent by the Committee,
OIEL M/525146/48 was for temporary export, as previously notified
to the Committee.
A table is attached at Annex V1 showing when these OIELs,
including M/525146/98, were issued and when Zimbabwe was removed
from the OIELs as a permitted destination. Zimbabwe was inadvertently
not removed from the coverage of M/544337/98 until April 2000[8].
Another table shows the five OIELs on this list under which exports
to Zimbabwe were permitted only to named consignees.
The Committee raised the apparent discrepancy between the
removal of Zimbabwe from OIEL M/549814/99 in February 2000 but
not from M/549672/99 until May 2000. It is not clear why action
was taken on the former OIEL in February 2000, as we had assessed
at that time that the goods covered by the OIEL were unlikely
to be deployed in the DRC conflict. Zimbabwe should have been
removed form this OIEL in May 2000, at the same time as action
was taken on M/549672/99.
9. CHINA: Some technical clarification would be helpful
of the reference to * * * .
The * * * can provide such a capability although at the time
the licence was issued there was no evidence to suggest that there
was a risk that the Chinese might use it for such a purpose. An
extract from Jane's is attached at Annex VI.1
10. SENEGALSIEL 553571: It would be helpful
to have an explanation of why the licence was approved 12 days
before agreement of the ECOWAS Code of Conduct, and what grounds
there were or are for supposing that it would have been treated
as an exception.
The licence for a very small number of spare parts for machine
guns for export to the Armed Forces in Senegal, which was issued
on 12 March 1999, was considered carefully against the national
criteria and those in the EU Code of Conduct on arms exports.
We would have refused the licence if we had believed there
was a clear risk that the equipment would be used in any way to
contravene the UK national or EU Code of Conduct criteria.
Given the limited amount of spares and the fact that the
end-user was the Senegal Armed Forces, we are confident that this
export would have been approved by the ECOWAS Secretariat as an
exception to the Moratorium.
Since its adoption on 24 March, the UK has fully supported
the ECOWAS Moratorium and we have taken the provisions of the
ECOWAS Code of Conduct fully into account when assessing relevant
export licence applications.
2 March 2001
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