[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 107 (Friday, July 25, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8150-S8151]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               SUPPORT THE ARMS TRANSFERS CODE OF CONDUCT

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the bill introduced 
just yesterday by Senator Kerry of Massachusetts, the code of conduct 
on arms transfers.
  Many of our colleagues will recall that Senator Hatfield was the 
leader on this issue prior to his retirement last year. He introduced 
this bill as S. 1677 in the 103d Congress and S. 326 in the 104th 
Congress. I cosponsored both bills, and I was pleased to offer the code 
of conduct as an amendment to last year's foreign operations 
appropriations bill.
  I am delighted that the Senator from Massachusetts is showing his 
usual leadership on arms control issues by authoring this bill in this 
Congress.
  This is a particularly timely effort because the code of conduct is a 
part of the version of the State Department authorization bill approved 
by the House of Representatives, a bill that is now in conference 
between the House and the Senate. I hope that by introducing this bill 
we will encourage our Senate colleagues on the conference committee to 
support the House provision.


                 THE United States LEADS IN ARMS SALES

  This bill is also particularly timely because the end of the cold war 
has propelled the United States to the rank of the world's leading arms 
supplier.
  During the last decade, U.S. arms sales have taken off. We now 
deliver 56 percent of all the world's arms exports, according to the 
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. And in 1994 the United States 
supplied 43 percent of all weapons sold to the developing world --the 
countries who can least afford arms. We ranked first in arms shipments 
to developing nations from 1992 to 1995.
  These countries have urgent domestic challenges, such as advancing 
public health, controlling disease, and achieving food self-
sufficiency. Yet we are catering to their governments' appetite for the 
latest in high-technology weaponry.


                       OUR CUSTOMERS ARE UNSAVORY

  It is bad enough that these governments have better things to do with 
their money than to buy American weapons. Still worse is what these 
governments do with our weapons once they receive them.
  According to the State Department's own human rights reports, more 
than 75 percent of U.S. arms sales in 1993 went to governments that 
were undemocratic. And we supply aid to 72 percent of the countries 
that the State Department lists as authoritarian governments with 
serious human rights abuses.
  Recent history tells a disturbing story of American weapons feeding 
ethnic conflict and instability around the globe. Of 48 ethnic 
conflicts underway in 1993, 39 involved forces that had U.S. weaponry. 
Indonesia used American weapons to occupy East Timor illegally, and 
Turkey used F-16 fighters in bombing raids against Kurdish rebels.
  Countries that have cracked down on domestic dissent using U.S. arms 
include Thailand, Indonesia and Guatemala.
  We are literally giving repressive regimes the means by which they 
maintain themselves in power. We must break ourselves of this habit.


                  THEY RESELL THE WEAPONS WE GIVE THEM

  And what if these unsavory customers resell the weapons we send them? 
The answer is disturbing. We have too little effective control over 
what happens to our weapons once they leave our hands. The classic 
example of this is the Stinger missile, a highly portable, shoulder-
launched anti-aircraft missile.

[[Page S8151]]

  Stingers are actually very available on the international arms 
market. We sent about 1,000 Stingers to Afghan rebels during the 
1980's. However, since the departure of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, 
the Afghan factions have been using Stingers to raise money and barter 
for other weapons for their civil war.
  The CIA was so alarmed by this trend that it began a program to buy 
Stingers back from the Afghan rebels. But this program met with limited 
success, since the result was that the price that Stingers could 
command on the international arms market doubled or trebled.
  And the CIA's efforts came too late. Media reports suggest that Iran, 
Libya, and North Korea now have Stinger missiles. These are the rogue 
states that pose the most immediate threat to our security and that of 
our allies.


                     OUR ARMS BOOMERANG AGAINST US

  Mr. President, if those Stingers are ever used against us, the 
missiles we shipped abroad will have come full circle. It will be 
another example of what is known as the arms trade boomerang, the 
tragic pattern of our troops facing enemies armed with U.S. weapons and 
technology.
  The last four times American troops have seen significant combat--in 
Panama, Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti--our weapons and military know-how 
boomeranged against us.
  For example, in the 5 years before our occupation of Panama to bring 
druglord Manuel Noriega back to the United States for trial, the United 
States accounted for 44 percent of Panama's arms imports. From 1950 
through 1987, we also trained 6,700 Panamanian military officers under 
the Pentagon's International Military Education and Training Program.
  Worse than the Panama example is the fact that international arms 
merchants sold Iraq $400 million in United States-designed cluster 
bombs plus our technology for manufacturing howitzers. We apparently 
intended the cluster bombs to be used against Iranian ``human wave'' 
attacks during the Iran-Iraq war. Fortunately, our control of the 
airspace over Iraq during the Persian Gulf war meant that these cluster 
bombs were never used against American troops.
  We sold Somalia 4,800 M-16 rifles, 84 106-millimeter recoilless 
rifles, 24 machine guns, 75 81-millimeter mortars, and land mines--the 
kind of weapons that Mohammed Farah Aideed's technicals would later use 
to kill 23 American soldiers. From 1985 to 1989, we sold Somalia 31 
percent of its arms imports.
  And as for Haiti, where we had the good fortune not to suffer major 
casualties, we had armed and trained Haiti's military. William Hartung 
of the World Policy Institute states that, ``Total US arms deliveries 
to Haiti . . . from 1987 to 1991 exceeded 25 percent of total Haitian 
arms imports.'' The Duvalier regime faced no external threat, and we 
had no business arming such a hated dictatorship. Yet we did it anyway.
  Mr. President, that is why we need the arms transfers code of 
conduct. We need to exercise self-restraint in the international arms 
bazaar.


                 CODE OF CONDUCT A COMMONSENSE APPROACH

  The Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers Act is a commonsense approach 
to conventional arms control. It aims to block the arms trade 
boomerang, to prevent us from arming the wrong governments and to put a 
lid on ethnic conflict and instability.
  In brief, the code would establish criteria for governments to be 
eligible for U.S. military assistance or arms transfers. To be 
eligible, a government must:
  First, promote democracy through fair and free elections, civilian 
control of the military, the rule of law, freedom of speech and of the 
press, and strong civil society;
  Second, respect human rights by not engaging in gross violations of 
internationally recognized human rights;
  Third, observe international borders, and not be engaged in armed 
agression in violation of international law; and
  Fourth, participate in the U.N. conventional arms registry, which 
provides transparency to the world arms market by listing major arms 
sales and transfers.
  There are two exemptions for countries that do not meet these 
criteria. First, the President could determine that an emergency 
exists, and that it is vital in the emergency to provide arms and 
military aid to a government that does not meet all of the above 
criteria. This determination would waive the act's restrictions and 
enable the arms shipment or military aid to go forward.
  Alternatively, the President could request an exemption from the 
Congress, certifying that it is in national interest of the United 
States to provide arms or military aid to a government that does not 
meet all of the above criteria. That exemption would take effect unless 
the Congress passes a law disapproving the request.
  I believe that these two exemptions--the emergency waiver and the 
national security waiver--provide the President with appropriate 
flexibility.


                       AMERICAN LEADERSHIP NEEDED

  Lastly, I would note that the code of conduct concept is an 
international effort that requires American leadership. The worldwide 
effort to control arms sales needs a positive sign from the U.S. Senate 
in order to come to fruition.
  The newly elected Labor government in the United Kingdom has taken 
the first step by announcing on May 22 its intent to restrict arms 
sales. However, Britain's arms manufacturers are crying foul, because 
no other country has yet followed Britain's lead. British defense firms 
are losing out in the international arms market because Britain is out 
in front on this issue. We need to stand shoulder to shoulder with the 
United Kingdom on this critical issue.
  It is important to note that if the U.S. Congress were to approve the 
code, the European Union would likely follow. The United States and the 
European Union between them account for at least 75 percent of the 
international arms market each year. Codes of conduct for American and 
European arms sales would go far toward establishing a worldwide 
conventional arms sales regime.
  That is what Oscar Arias, Elie Wiesel, the Dalai Lama, and 12 other 
Nobel Peace Prize winners are working towards. A number of delegations 
to the United Nations, Germany's foremost among them, have been working 
toward a U.N. General Assembly vote on a code of conduct. This is an 
international campaign, but it needs American leadership to succeed.
  Last year the Senator from Massachusetts offered a second-degree 
amendment to my Code of Conduct amendment making this very point. The 
code of conduct must be a multilateral effort for it to succeed. 
Otherwise, our defense firms will simply see foreign defense 
contractors grab our market share.


               LET US SET A STANDARD THE WORLD CAN FOLLOW

  In summary, I would like to congratulate the Senator from 
Massachusetts for his leadership on this matter. With his usual vision 
on arms control matters, has grasped a fundamental point. We must try 
to extend the concept of arms control to the international conventional 
arms market. The code of conduct is the right legislation for a world 
that has seen the end of the cold war.
  Passing the code of conduct bill will help us save taxpayer dollars, 
protect the lives of American troops, prevent American weapons from 
going to repressive regimes, and safeguard innocent civilians from 
military violence.
  Let us set a standard the world can follow. Let us show the European 
Union that we can exercise restraint--that we will not sell 
conventional arms to any government that asks for them. Once America 
leads, the nations will follow--to a safer world, for all of us.

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