Swiss War Materiel and Arms Exports

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Swiss weapons in Chile’s military coup

Goods category: War materiel

Augusto Pinochet, around 1974; portrait crop.

CC BY 2.0 CL

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Chile was the largest South American buyer of Swiss armaments. Deliveries included armoured vehicles, rifles and anti-aircraft guns. Most exports were also approved under dictator Augusto Pinochet, despite an announced shift to a more restrictive policy. Mowag armoured vehicles and SIG assault rifles were used in the military coup against Salvador Allende in 1973.

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 Chile 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 Chile could thus easily be supplied through a subsidiary or intermediary in a third country. The United States could serve as a third country, having, according to SIPRI, supplied substantial quantities of war materiel to Chile in recent years (468 million TIV).

Countries

Conflicts

Companies

Time period

Deliveries from the late 1960s to 1973; military coup in 1973

Sources

  • Woz 2003
  • Der Bund, 28.10.2004, S. 2: Die Schweiz misstraute Allende (Stefan Schmid und Joel Widmer)
  • Woz, 2003