Mexican State Police with H&K assault rifle
Police in Germany have once again raided the headquarters of arms company Heckler & Koch, this time amid allegations that the company has been bribing Mexican officials to get lucrative arms deals. Around 300 officers raided company premises on November 10th, as well as the homes of several H&K executives.
According to the Stuttgart prosecutor, H&K bribed Mexican officials from 2005 to 2010, and possibly bribed German officials too. The company was also raided last December by police investigating H&K’s illegal sale of weapons for Mexican states that are known to commit serious human rights violations.
The arms company has an international sales office in Nottingham, at Unit 3, Easter Park on the Lenton Lane industrial estate. Local campaigners believe that the company’s business is unethical and that it should be shut down.
Hey, I’m all for shutting down human rights abusers, but remember it isn’t only H&K, but also who is selling them uniforms, cars, construction materials, internet access, and everything else they use. Just blaming the guns is like blaming penises for rape. IBM for example made equipment to process Jews during the Nazi regime that was so exact, that people inside that company had to know exactly what they were doing. There are so many levels to this. What do you buy and own that is from China? China commits so many human rights abuses against its citizens and yet, that same government owns at least in part most of the companies that exist there. Weapons makers are just easy targets for folks looking for someone to blame. Seriously, I think you guys have your hearts in the right places, but you want to get mad, get mad at the people that truly abuse human rights, Not some over priced tool.
So you’re all for shutting down human rights abusers but not the companies that arm the human rights abusers? Your argument is a smokescreen, but anyone can see that selling cars or buying Chinese-made products is not as bad as illegally selling assault rifles to repressive regimes. And even it it was, that wouldn’t make it right to sell the weapons. Weapons makers are obvious targets because unlike construction materials or internet access, their products are designed to kill and are the tools of human rights abuse.