Anti-war and pro-peace organizations in Germany launched a new campaign titled “Action Outcry – Stop Weapons Trade”. Posters depicting the invasion in Afrin and the war in Yemen’s Aden and Sadaa provinces were prepared to draw attention to the cooperation between German weapons manufacturers and Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
The posters show the Turkish army and their allied gangs setting fire to a car in Afrin in Rojava Kurdistan, a burned down house in Aden and a child victim of the war in Saada, and were put up on the Französische Straße metro station in Berlin where the government buildings are situated.
The posters will stay up until June 17, exposing to the German public how the weapons trade effects the rest of the world. The campaign aims for an embargo that would ban weapons sales by the Federal Government to countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia as well as other countries engaged in wars, and draws particular attention to the invasion of Afrin.
WHY THE AFRIN INVASION?
Campaign official Jurgen Grasslin said: “German weapons exports bring oppression, violence and occupation to the war zones. The photographs of Leopard tanks Turkey used during their invasion that violated international law in Afrin is a clear example of that.” The campaign’s organizers also said the following on why they chose Afrin:
-Leopard 2A4 type tanks manufactured by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann were used in Turkey’s military operations against Afrin. These tanks were being sold to Turkey without any restrictions since 2005. The Turkish army currently has more German tanks than the German army.
-There are several videos and photographs showing Turkish army tanks being transported to the north of Syria with military transport vehicles, that were manufactured by Mercedes.
-Turkish soldiers were using HK33 rifles during the Afrin attacks. The rifle, an iteration of the G3, is manufactured with a license Heckler & Koch provided to Turkey.
-The firing mechanisms for the mortars on the tanks the Turkish army situated in Syria and the tank motors were manufactured by the German company MTU.