Danas , Serbia
Aug 15 2008
Serbian arms manufacturer denies exporting weapons to Georgia
[Report by Zoran Radovanovic: "Serbian Government Banned Export of
Domestically Made Weaponry to Georgia in 2006"]
Kragujevac — The Russian Defence Ministry is quoted by the United
Kingdom’s BBC as saying that Serbia is on the list of countries that
assisted Georgia militarily ahead of the war in South Ossetia. On the
list of Georgia’s alleged helpers ahead of the war in South Ossetia,
apart from Serbia, are also the United States, the United Kingdom,
France, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine,
and some other countries.
Where Serbia is concerned, the Russian Defence Ministry’s statement
says that Kalashnikov assault rifles manufactured by Kragujevac-based
Zastava arms factory were used in attacks on South Ossetia and Russian
troops. In this connection, the BBC quoted former Serbian Foreign
Minister Vuk Draskovic as saying that he had had "warnings from
Russian diplomats that Georgians were shooting down their (Russian)
helicopters with so-called Strela [Arrow] missiles made in Serbia."
"I insisted that it was harmful to be selling arms to a country that
was in conflict with Russia, our biggest ally," Draskovic told the BBC
and added that the Serbian Government (in which he was the foreign
minister) had originally banned the export and then allowed it after
days of strikes by Kragujevac’s Zastava arms manufacturers.
At Zastava Oruzje arms factory yesterday they were surprised by the
Russian Defence Ministry’s statement and astonished by Vuk Draskovic’s
statement, which they said was "totally unfounded."
Zastava Oruzje CEO Rade Gromovic insists, for example, that for
decades past, the Kragujevac factory has not been exporting infantry
armament to Georgia, which he says can be verified at the Serbian
Defence Ministry, which used to issue permits and now gives approval
for the export of domestically made armament.
"I do not know how our Kalashnikovs came to be in Georgia. Perhaps
they were sold to the Georgians by Croatia or Bosnia-Herzegovina,
whose territorial defence forces at the time of the former SFRY
[Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia] had this kind of
weaponry. Zastava Oruzje and the state of Serbia cannot, however,
dictate to the former Yugoslav republics, which have long been
independent states, what to do with their army surpluses," Gromovic
says.
Vuk Draskovic’s statement refers to late 2006, when three domestic
military factories — Zastava Oruzje, Cacak’s Sloboda, and Valjevo’s
Krusik — applied to the competent state authorities and the Serbian
Government for permission to export armament and military equipment to
some Eurasian countries. However, at that time, the Kragujevac-based
factory did not ask for permission to export infantry armament to
Georgia, but to Armenia, with whose Defence Ministry it had signed two
business contracts. On the other hand, Cacak-based Sloboda and
Valjevo-based Krusik (manufacturers of grenades, mines and explosives,
rockets, and so on) did apply for permits to export armament to
Georgia and, in late 2006, the government first issued the requested
permits pursuant to consent obtained earlier from the competent state
bodies, but shortly afterward rescinded this decision in response to
Russia’s position on settling the status of Kosovo and banned the
delivery of products made by the Valjevo and Cacak companies to
Georgian security forces.
Subsequently, the government indemnified these factories for their
losses. However, those well versed in this matter do not care to state
with any certainty that Krusik and Sloboda had not exported their
products to Georgia prior to 2006, but then again, that would have
nothing to do with what Vuk Draskovic was talking about.
In late 2006, the government did not issue export permits to Zastava
Oruzje for two deliveries of infantry weaponry to Armenia and did not
agree that the state should indemnify the Kragujevac arms
manufacturers as it had done in the case of Krusik and Sloboda. After
several futile attempts to persuade the government through
negotiations to either issue export permits or pay indemnity,
Kragujevac arms manufacturers again resorted to street protests in
late December 2006, seizing control in the process of part of the
Kragujevac City Administration building and holding it in a blockade
until Serbian President Boris Tadic came to Kragujevac. Not long after
Tadic’s visit, official information was received from Moscow that
Russia was not opposed to the export of Serbian infantry armament to
Armenia. The Serbian Government then issued a permit to Zastava Oruzje
to export one shipment of armament to Armenia. The permit for the
other shipment of infantry armament for the Armenian Defence Ministry
the Kragujevac factory has not yet received and probably never will.
[Box] Unfounded Statements
Jugoslav Ristic, who until recently was Zastava arms manufacturers
union leader and is now president of the United Labour Union of the
Serbian Defence Industry, told our newspaper yesterday that the
domestic armament factories did not export weaponry to Georgia,
because they did not have the permission from the state of Serbia to
do so.
"It is surprising that Vuk Draskovic, who was the foreign minister in
the government that banned the export of Serbian armament, primarily
to Georgia and partly also to Armenia, has already forgotten what
decisions that government made in this connection. Therefore, his
statement made to the BBC is confusing and contradictory and as such
totally unfounded," Ristic stressed.
[translated]