The article, Denel must change or go under (August 24) refers. Shaun Liebenberg’s strategy of partnering Denel’s smaller business units with major foreign arms producers dashes hopes that he will see the writing on the wall and preside over the responsible evolution or burial of this apartheid dinosaur.

While he envisages that Denel will “always retain a golden share in all its subsidiaries”, the loss of full control by government is unacceptable.

Even if a “golden share” means a controlling interest, the overwhelming influence of major foreign arms producers over Denel’s small fry represents a compromise in control that the people of SA should not tolerate.

Arms are not potatoes. Market forces cannot be left to decide what is done by the country’s state arms producers.

While the National Conventional Arms Control Act represents a great step in the right direction, the implementation of that act has left much to be desired.

Until the act functions as it should, we must say no to any weakening of the state’s control over its arms producers.

As it is, the globalisation of the arms industry has resulted in the weakening of state control world-wide. It may be only when those components are brought together that the final product emerges as a weapon of war.

SA cannot be a part of a process that undermines state control of the international arms industry.

In 1995, former president Nelson Mandela said: “Never again shall SA be the fountainhead of conflict in the region and further afield. Never again shall our country be the source of armaments used to suppress our neighbours.

“Never again shall we spend our people’s resources to develop weapons of mass destruction.”

Now is the time to honour those words.

If Denel must change or go under, and if change means losing full state control of state arms producers, then now is the time to let Denel go under.

Rob Thomson
Ceasefire Campaign

With acknowledgement to the Business Day.