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08/11/2010

Civil-rights activists have been protesting against full-body scanners for years. They argue that the devices, which are used at airports in some countries to check passengers for hidden weapons, violate people's privacy because they can "see" under individuals' clothing.

Now there is another reason for activists to oppose the scanners. Research by a German newspaper has revealed that scanners that will shortly be used in tests at Hamburg Airport are made by a company that also manufactures the much-reviled weapons known as cluster bombs.

According to a report in the Wednesday edition of the Frankfurter Rundschau, the units were manufactured by L-3 Communications Security and Detection Systems. The company is a subsidiary of L-3 Communications, one of the largest US defense contractors which, according to the Netherlands-based peace organization IKV Pax Christi, is one of the world's few manufacturers of cluster bombs.

An international ban on the bombs, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, went into effect on Aug. 1. The treaty has been adopted by over 100 countries, including Germany. The US has not signed the treaty, however.

Double Standards

Non-governmental organizations that had campaigned for a ban on cluster munitions accused the German government of double standards in doing business with the defense company. "You can not outlaw a weapon and then simultaneously buy the products of a manufacturer that also produces cluster bombs," said the director of the German branch of the charity Handicap International, François De Keersmaeker, in remarks to the Frankfurter Rundschau. The deal may be legal, but it was reprehensible both morally and politically, he said. "The German government is indirectly supporting the manufacture of cluster bombs."

The director of the German Initiative to Ban Landmines, Thomas Küchenmeister, called on the German government to reconsider the deal. "If one were to really embrace the spirit of the convention, one would have to avoid these kinds of deals," he told the newspaper.

According to the newspaper, the German Interior Ministry confirmed that the Federal Police will use two full-body scanners made by L-3 Communications in the tests at Hamburg Airport, which are due to start at the end of September. The spokesperson stressed that the government would not necessarily buy further scanners from the company should it decide to equip all German airports with the devices, saying that the contract would be put out to open tender.

Cluster munitions are weapons deployed by aircraft or fired from the ground, which release dozens or hundreds of so-called "bomblets." Often the bomblets fail to detonate on impact and can continue to kill people for a long time after the conflict has ended. According to Handicap International, 98 percent of the victims of cluster bomb are civilians, with children comprising nearly one-third of all victims.