‘There’s only two things that count in business my friend: sex and money’, says Riccardo Privitera in the 2016 documentary Shadow World about the global legal and illegal arms trade. ‘Being able to sell a gun depends on the quality of your secretary’s ass.’ He admits that he would often set up his arms deals with call girls and use bribes. ‘Politicians are very much like prostitutes, except they’re a lot more expensive.’
The film is in part based on the book The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade (2011) by the South African Andrew Feinstein. He is a former Member of the South African Parliament on behalf of the ANC and currently works as director of Shadow World Investigations, an NGO that investigates corruption, among other things. On 23 May, he will visit the university: after a screening of the film at the Wijnhaven building, he will engage in discussion with students.
SMALL PLAYER
‘Privitera is really just a small player in the arms trade’, says Feinstein from London via a Zoom call. ‘But he’s a larger-than-life character, representative of a certain type of people you encounter in this world (see box).’
The heart of the arms trade is not sex, but money; and corruption in particular, Feinstein explains. ‘The problem is much bigger than men like Privitera. Prime ministers and presidents are the true arms dealers, because they strike more deals than anyone else. They, in turn, are under the thumb of the arms industry.’
According to Feinstein, a global security elite has emerged, made up of businesses, politicians and intermediators who divide up the money from the arms trade among themselves. ‘One of the problems is that businesses are very close to the government, they’re almost part of it. The big boss of British arms giant BAE Systems had the same security clearance as the Minister of Defence. So a private company can enter any military base, attend confidential meetings and help determine policy. That’s insane.’
In Germany, too, the industry has a hold on politicians. ‘Chancellor Helmut Kohl partially financed his party, the CDU, with money obtained through arms deals. He was extremely corrupt.’
LEGAL BRIBERY
But under Angela Merkel’s leadership, the party was not exactly clean either. ‘The German arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch offered gifts to local CDU party members. The amounts were always under ten thousand euros because that way, the gifts didn’t need to be recorded in an official register.’
Corruption has become the norm. ‘In the US, it’s come to the point that there’s effectively a system of legal bribery in place. It’s easy to find out how many millions from the arms industry go to specific Members of Congress. They’re literally making billions at the expense of human lives, because in order to make a profit, you need conflict.’
Raytheon Technologies, one of the largest arms companies in the US, produces the Javelin anti-tank missile system, among other things, which is now being used successfully by the Ukrainian army. ‘Just under a month before Russia invaded Ukraine, the boss said in a meeting that he definitely expected the rising tensions in Eastern Europe to be of benefit to Raytheon. War comes as good news.’
Feinstein is critical of the news coverage of the war in Ukraine. ‘In no way do I want to justify the Russian aggressions or suggest that Putin is a good guy, but there is no room for nuance. Parties on all sides of this conflict are shitty and corrupt.’
NO ROOM FOR NUANCE
For the United States, a key player, expansion of NATO is very much a strategy, also to sell arms. In fact, the chairman of the American expansion committee was the vice-president of Lockheed Martin. That’s right, another major arms manufacturer. The policy was as follows: if you buy arms from us, we guarantee that the US will support Poland’s membership application.’
In a haze of corruption, Poland ended up buying billions worth of F-16 fighter jets. ‘In the end, it’s always about money. It’s not like the US, NATO and the West caused the war, but it seems that little diplomacy is being used to prevent conflict.’
Feinstein stresses that he is not inherently opposed to the arms trade. ‘I’m not a pacifist, much to the chagrin of many people who collaborated on my book. I’m Jewish and my mother lost 39 family members in the Holocaust. She survived by spending 3.5 years in some basement. If I had been a young man at that time, I would have picked up a gun. The ANC, which I’m a member of, also waged an armed struggle during Apartheid. Armies are necessary, and so is the arms trade. Unfortunately, it’s all heading in the wrong direction. That’s partly because countries often buy arms that are far too expensive and of little use to them.’
NOT A PACIFICT
This is certainly true of the F-35, better known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). ‘The American taxpayers are paying at least 1.5 trillion dollars for this fighter jet. The Netherlands has already purchased this aircraft and Germany is going to do the same. However, it has numerous problems. You’re spending an enormous amount of money on shit that doesn’t work, just because of corruption and political alliances. That’s really not going to make your country any safer.’
As a politician in South Africa, he also encountered this problem in 2001. ‘The cabinet bought very expensive fighter jets, and the politicians responsible took bribes for that. Yet most of these jets will never fly, because they’re far too expensive to use and maintain. Also, we have absolutely no need for them.’
As part of a parliamentary committee investigating the corruption, he was thwarted in his efforts. ‘But my own party didn’t allow us to carry out that investigation properly. That’s when I resigned from parliament.’
WAR CRIMES
The notorious Dutch arms dealer Guus Kouwenhoven is still residing in South Africa. He bought arms for Charles Taylor, who, as president of Liberia, exercised a reign of terror and committed war crimes in the neighbouring country Sierra Leone. ‘Kouwenhoven was very close to Taylor and he’s also a war criminal. He has since been sentenced in the Netherlands to 19 years of detention, but he’s not in prison and is enjoying his freedom in South Africa right now. I’d wager that Kouwenhoven has bribed former president Jacob Zuma, other politicians and officials to avoid extradition. It truly amazes me that the Dutch government hasn’t worked harder to get him on a plane to The Hague.’
Andrew Feinstein, Shadow World, film screening and discussion. Wijhaven, room 2.02, Monday 23 may, 17-20 u.
‘Riccardo Privitera is a typical example of a certain kind of arms dealer, a bottom feeder; those sleazy types who make disgusting statements’, says Andrew Feinstein. ‘The real players are more like pillars of society. Privitera was the only dealer foolish enough to appear in the documentary. But make no mistake, he was making millions a month from the arms trade.’
Privitera has a rather colourful past. ‘He spent 5.5 years in prison for bribing three Portuguese generals. This was for a deal worth 94 million euros and no materials were ever delivered. These officers walked away scot-free, by the way. We’ve had to do a lot of research on him because he lies so much and tells everyone a different story. For example, he claimed that he had served with the Mossad and that he’d been in the army. That’s not very likely, because he suffered an accident when he was young, which left him with a glass eye.
‘He had nine important business partners, including a former US Senator, and he had told each of them a different life story. I interviewed his ex-wife in Vienna. She told me that one day, he showed up wearing a uniform and said, “I’ve been made a general in the Italian army, let’s celebrate.” When he was in prison, she found a piece of paper among his belongings: a tailor’s receipt for a fake uniform.’