The crates, labeled "sporting and hunting weapons," looked innocuous in Prague. But inside, dozens of Czech-made sniper rifles were cradled in plastic foam. Their destination: Yemen, a hotbed of al-Qaida activity. An unidentified licensed Czech arms dealer sold the rifles — along with 176 Soviet-era tanks, 60 tank cannons and a dozen L-39 combat jets — to the Yemeni government in the past four years.
| Uhhh... Actually, governments can buy that sort of thing... |
The Czech exports, part of the country's $90 million-a-year arms trade, raise troubling questions about the ultimate buyers since Yemen has a history of reselling arms to people from volatile nations across the Mideast and Africa, human rights group say. "You can never be sure that a country won't resell the equipment as its own surplus. It's a serious problem," conceded Vratislav Vajnar, managing director of the Association of Defense Industry, a trade group representing the Czech Republic's 120-plus weapons makers and exporters.
| There's where the problem lies. Of course, if governments were held responsible for the disposition of their arms, things would be different. |
Al-Qaida terrorists are suspected in the USS Cole bombing. That bombing turned up traces of C-4, a plastic explosive developed for the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. But Semtex, a Czech-made explosive, has been used in other terrorist bombings, and on Nov. 5 border police arrested three men as they tried to smuggle Semtex over the border into Austria. Taped to one of the suspects' bodies was 5 1/2 pounds of the powerful explosive — enough to blow up a dozen jetliners.
| Bet it took some heavy duty thinking to try and explain that one away... |
The recent Czech weapons trade was outlined in a report by Amnesty International, which cited customs records and other documents. Amnesty, Transparency International and other groups have expressed growing concern about legal sales of legitimate weapons and armaments to countries such as Yemen that are unstable, have ties to militant groups or are known for reselling equipment to third parties. Although there is no hard evidence that terrorists have obtained arms from the Czech Republic, human rights groups say the risk is real that deadly weaponry will fall into the wrong hands.
| Ohfergawdsake. Why make charges if you don't have any hard information? There's lots of hard information to be had, and it may or may not have to do with Czechland. But "couldas" and "mightas" aren't in that category. |
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