Denmark has officially banned the transportation of any military equipment to the United Arab Emirates. The Danish government imposed a ban in 2018 over a concern that these products could potentially be used in the ongoing war in Yemen.
The War in Yemen has already caused a lot of deaths, as 85,000 children have reportedly died due to the lack of food in the country due to the never-ending crisis. The UN described this war as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis to date.
The war has been going on for almost three years now, and UAE is playing a leading role in the war. UAE is receiving its military equipment from Denmark Top IT Company Systematics.
Despite the Danish ban, the company furtively supplied and implemented SitaWare, an advanced command and control system to help the UAE military.
Danwatch has been investigating this case that is backed by TV2 and international research Centre Lighthouse reports.
Systematically continued rearmament of a warring country is exposed in accounts on social media, job advertisements, annual reports and freedom of information requests into systematic activities.
Human Rights Organisations are highly critical of Danish companies over their continuation of supplying military software to the UAE. It also highlighted that the UAE is using military software to perform serious war crimes in Yemen.
Patrick Wilcken, an Expert in Arms Control at Amnesty International, said, “There is a very high risk that equipment exported to the UAE would be used in serious violation of human rights and international humanitarian law in Yemen”.
As per the UN reports, the never-ending war in Yemen has already caused more than 230,000 deaths. The UN also suggests that the way things are going for Yemen is possibly heading towards the worst famine disaster.
The UAE is largely responsible for the Yemen disaster and hunger by keeping food and emergency aid far from the reach of the people.
A British Loophole
After the Danish ban on military export to UAE, the company systematically came up with a plan to use its British subsidiary as an alternative channel to provide military softwares to UAE.
Systematic is also known for providing Customised IT solutions such as electronic patient records and library lending systems to the public sector in Denmark.
The company reportedly exported military software products to the UAE directly from their head office in Aarhus before the Danish export ban.
However, In October 2018, the Danish ministry of foreign affairs imposed a proper ban on the Systematics direct exports to the UAE over the concern that it could come into use to exploit the ongoing war.
After three weeks of the Danish ban, a systematic subsidiary in the UK applied for an export permit to the United Arab Emirates in the UK.
This comes into view in several documents from the British and Danish authorities, which Danwatch, TV2 and Lighthouse have access.
Systematic claims that they are not violating any rule by exporting the Software products to UAE through the United kingdom.
