Opalm from a Swiss business network for Egypt and Indonesia
Goods category: War materiel
Public Domain laut Commons (PD-Egypt)
Effect of the proposed War Materiel Act revision
Under the new Article 22b, the Federal Council could depart from all the licensing criteria in Article 22a under vaguely defined ‘exceptional circumstances’. The public would not have to be informed. The Federal Council could add Myanmar, Egypt, Indonesia, Algeria, Pakistan, Jordan and Syria to Annex 2 by amending the War Materiel Ordinance. This would remove the exclusion criterion based on participation in an armed conflict and make approval the rule. The Federal Council could refuse a licence only in exceptional cases. Article 18 paragraph 1 would abolish non-re-export declarations in the vast majority of cases. Weapons for Myanmar, Egypt, Indonesia, Algeria, Pakistan, Jordan and Syria could thus easily be supplied through a subsidiary or intermediary in a third country. For example, the following states could serve as third countries, having supplied substantial quantities of war materiel in recent years according to SIPRI: Myanmar: France (20 million TIV); Egypt: France (4’607 million TIV); Indonesia: United States (1’248 million TIV); Algeria: Germany (1’015 million TIV); Pakistan: United States (2’134 million TIV); Jordan: United States (677 million TIV).
Countries
Conflicts
Companies
Time period
PATVAG incendiary-weapons business from 1953; Opalm relocation from 1954; combat use into the 1970s
Sources
- Ma'ariv; arw-Dokumentation aus dem Sozialarchiv
- Regula Bochsler, swissinfo.ch, 11.01.2023: Napalm aus den Alpen
- Res Gehriger, SRF, 19.10.2022: Brisante Waffengeschäfte – Napalm-Bomben aus Ems
- Regula Bochsler, Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, 23.09.2025: Ems-Chemie
- handelszeitung.ch, 28.10.2022: Wenn Firmen von der Geschichte eingeholt werden (Bernhard Fischer)
- fridamagazin.ch, 07.03.2023: Napalm und Nazistein (Jost Auf der Maur)