Germany is fueling the arms race in North Africa

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) accused the German government of fueling the arms race in the conflict region of northern Africa with weapons sales. "It is irresponsible and against the German arms export policies to deliver weapon systems to countries that are shaken by civil wars", said the STP's expert on questions regarding Africa, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen on Tuesday. "It is especially absurd and inhumane to supply two feuding neighbors like Algeria and Morocco with weapon systems from Germany for a possible war or proxy war."

Both Algeria and Morocco want to buy new weapons from Germany. On October 30, 2012, the Moroccan media reported that the Kingdom wants to purchase a submarine of the series 209/1100 by ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems. Submarines of this type have been built in German shipyards for more than 60 states since 1967. Morocco could use the submarine for a naval blockade of the Western Sahara and Algeria. Morocco is planning to purchase another submarine from Russia.

The German Federal Government had recently approved of more than two billion Euros in Hermes export credits for Algeria to purchase two frigates in Germany. According to reports by the German news-magazine "Der Spiegel", Algeria also wants to buy 54 light wheeled "Fuchs"-tanks from Germany and produce up to 1200 of these vehicles under license.

Algeria and Morocco have been fighting for supremacy in North Africa for years. In the Western Sahara – which is occupied by Morocco – there is also an unstable truce that could collapse any day. In the Kabylie region (Algeria), security forces and radical Islamists fight each other almost every day – and the situation for the Kabyle civilians is similar to a civil war. Algeria's leadership is trying to suppress any peaceful protests of the population and any efforts towards a democratization of the country. Those who were responsible for the violent deaths of 120,000 to 150,000 people during the Algerian civil war in the 1990's have still not been brought to justice.