Ecumenism against arms.
Germany’s Christian Churches are united in their opposition to the sale of 270 Leopard A7+ tanks to Saudi Arabia, to defend a 6500 km long border from dangerous neighbours.
Their position is in line with the Holy See’s declarations against “arms dealers” and in favour of the international treaty on the regulation of the arms trade.
In Germany, the Catholic and Protestant Churches agree on the condemnation of the immoral three billion euro contract between the German company EADS and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The contract, however, has the “blessing” of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Two years ago, demonstrations were also held by a peaceful movement of grassroots Christians in Italy, who launched a campaign against the “great deals for armed banks, particularly Italian ones.”
At that time, the number of financial operations authorised by the Ministry of Finance doubled, there was two and a half times more money being “moved around” and brokerage compensations paid by arms companies to credit institutions, tripled.” This pressure campaign was backed by Catholic magazines “Nigrizia”, “Missione Oggi” and “Mosaico di Pace”.
Catholic news agency ADISTA, noted that 1.262 “bank transactions” were authorised on behalf of arms industries during the course of 2008.
These transferrals came to a total of 4.285 million euro (in 2007, 882 transactions were made for a total value of 1.329 million euro, that is half the sum of 2008). Another 1.266 million was spent on “intergovernmental rearmament programmes” – such as the Eurofighter fighter bomber, which involved the cooperation of Italy, Germany, Great Britain and Spain – almost double the sum recorded in 2007, when the total figure reached was 738 million.
The total number of transferrals came to 5.500 million euro, for which banks received approximately 3-5% in brokerage compensations, based on order value and type.