exclusive
Saudi Arabian border guards are said to have systematically shot refugees on the border with Yemen. monitor-According to research, Germany plays a much larger role in the training of border guards than the federal government wants to admit.
Saudi Arabia is an important partner for the federal government: the state is one of the largest oil exporters in the world, and as a supplier of hydrogen, the Gulf state should also help implement the German energy transition in the future. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock traveled to the country to intensify economic relations.
It was not until July that the federal government further relaxed the restrictions on arms exports to the kingdom – despite repeated allegations of the human rights situation there.
Systematic shootings by Saudi border guards?
The organization Human Rights Watch accused the Saudi Arabian border guards last week of shooting refugees at the Saudi-Yemeni border. “The killings are widespread and systematic. Saudi Arabia knew or should have known that they were targeting Ethiopian migrants and asylum-seekers,” Human Rights Watch’s Nadia Harmann said ARD-Magazine monitor.
Saudi Arabia rejects all allegations: the claims are unfounded and based on unreliable sources. monitor spoke to an eyewitness who also reported on a Saudi firing squad: A Saudi border patrol kept shooting at him and the 40 or so other people who were traveling with him, Mustafa Soufian says: “I lost my leg. Most of the others lost their lives.” It was unbearable how people were being killed around him. Seriously injured, he is now back in his home country, Ethiopia.
training mission the federal police
After the reports, the federal government announced that it had called for a quick and transparent clarification of the allegations. But the most explosive question is: What role do the federal government and the German federal police play in connection with the alleged atrocities committed by Saudi border guards?
In 2009, the European armaments company EADS (today Airbus) was awarded the contract to equip the Saudi Arabian border with highly specialized surveillance technology – also from Germany. The ARD-Magazine fact revealed in 2011 that German federal police officers were deployed as part of the EADS business in Saudi Arabia to train Saudi border guards. Weapon training was also part of the training. The training mission was temporarily interrupted after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was critical of the regime, but has since been resumed.
When asked about the tasks and content of today’s training mission, a spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior said at the federal press conference last week: “There are no training measures specifically for the Saudi Arabian border guard, and at no time have the federal police trained or trained for the Saudi Arabian Arab border protection took place in the border area between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.” In addition, the federal government repeatedly emphasizes how important it is to convey human rights in its training program.
Training aimed “without exception at Saudi border officials”
monitor -Research now shows that the statements by the federal government are misleading and in parts are apparently also wrong. Federal police officers who have been or are on duty for training in Saudi Arabia said monitor in confidential talks, their training was aimed “without exception at Saudi border officials”.
Participants are all “officers of the border guard”. Among other things, the training contents are also “tailored to the border installations” and “to the EADS technology”. Border guards who are deployed on the Saudi-Yemeni border would also take part in the training. The Federal Ministry of the Interior has not yet answered a question about the contradictions.
Critics call for the end of training mission
Critics call for the monitor– Research again an end to the training mission of the federal police in Saudi Arabia. Jan van Aken, former member of the Bundestag for the Left Party and consultant for international conflicts at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, says: “Anyone in Germany who decides to train border guards in Saudi Arabia is making themselves complicit in all the crimes committed by these border guards. ”
The German government’s strategy has obviously failed, agrees Max Mutschler from the Bonn International Center for Conflict Studies (BICC): “We deliver, we provide training and we also want to convey human rights. If that was meant seriously at all, it failed miserably .”
You can see more on this and other topics today at 9:45 p.m. on Monitor in the first.