The land of chocolate, cheese and arms.

By Naomi Conrad

Tourists line up in front of the flag-lined, fenced-off entrance of the United Nations head quarters in Geneva to take turns posing for photos. A Buddhist monk, conspicuous against the grey drizzly sky in his bright orange robe and sandals, leans against the concrete wall next to the UN logo as his friend snaps away. On the square behind his back a huge, over-dimensional wooden chair towers, resting on three legs, the fourth is a burnt stub, hanging uselessly and pitifully in the cold autumn air: A small silver plaque below the chair explains that it is memorial to the victims of landmines.

Landmines still lie in the forests of the hills surrounding Sarajevo, make many off-road routes of the Casamance region in southern Senegal impassable and dangerous and take their heavy toll of children playing in Afghanistan and other conflict countries.

It seems ironic, to the point of macabre, that Switzerland is host to the UN head quarters, where the countries whose flags line the imposing entrance, come together in the Palace of Nations to discuss disarmament and proliferation: In 2008, Switzerland exported military material worth almost 700 million US dollars to more than 70 countries. A record year, compared to most years when arms export tend to average half that figure.

In theory arms sales are limited to ‘safe countries’, which know how to use arms in a responsible fashion and protect their citizens’ human rights. In theory. However, a group of Swiss law professors has found that Swiss-produced weapons are helping fuel wars and bolster regimes with very dubious human rights records. They argue that a substantial portion of arms sales made in the first half of 2009 went toward fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Switzerland’s best client is Pakistan, closely followed by Saudi Arabia; two countries hardly renowned for their good human rights records.

Under pressure from civil society, arms sales to Pakistan, which have been found to be used in Kashmir, were frozen last year. However, it has recently emerged that several million US dollars worth of arms material were nevertheless delivered to the country.

It seems that the approach to Swiss arms sales is similar to that of the Kimberley Process, aimed at reducing blood diamonds (see article on diamonds) to which the Swiss have nominally signed up for, but let exporters in charge of the entire certification process. Since the beginning of the Kimberley Process, many European diamond sales have gone through laxer Geneva rather than Antwerp.

The ‘Group for Switzerland without an Army’, backed by a broad coalition of NGOs and centre-left political parties, is trying to change that and are pressing for a ban of arms sales. They have gathered the necessary amount of signatures, over 100.000 of them, to press the government to organise a referendum, which will be held on the 29th November. The ban would not, however, include hunting and sports weapons, demining systems and goods destined for civil protection.

The Economics Minister Doris Leuthard is vocal when it comes to the ban. She has warned against banning the export of weapons and has painted a grim picture of more than 5,000 specialised jobs moving abroad in a time of economic downturn and recessoin. She claims such a ban would have severe negative effects on Swiss competitiveness as technical innovations from military research and development also serve civilian purposes: Accordingly, innovation, economic development and arms go hand in hand in Switzerland.
Geneva’s main squares and roads are plastered with posters for the upcoming elections. The green party’s poster shows a picture of a miniature tank, yellow and full of holes, a cheese tank. The message is clear: Switzerland has other products than arms to export. Maybe one day the chair will be replaced with a huge chocolate fondue set, or maybe a huge solar panel. A recent study shows that investment in renewable energies could create up to 60,000 jobs, more than ten times the amount of jobs lost with the ban.
Or maybe not: two similar referenda on banning arms exports were rejected in 1972 and in 1997, when three quarters of voters were in favour of continued arms sales.