Aldo wanted to be a teacher. He was
studying at the Ayotzinapa teacher training college in the
Mexican state of Guerrero. But one bullet
changed everything. This footage shows the fateful moment.
Aldo and around 50 other students had commandeered public buses to get back
to their college after a demonstration. Such actions aren't unusual
in parts of Mexico. Suddenly police stop the bus — and then
open fire on the unarmed students. Hit by a bullet, Aldo
fell to the ground. Six students were shot dead, two more
were seriously wounded. 43 students, all aged between 18 and 23, were abducted.
They have never been seen since — just like thousands
of others in Mexico. A number of police officers were
subsequently arrested, accused of carrying out the murders. A number
of the weapons used in those crimes were German military-grade, G36 assault
rifles made by Heckler & Koch. But the German government hadn’t
approved their export to this region. So how did they get there? A court in
the city of Stuttgart took up the case. The almost year-long trial was Germany’s
most detailed investigation of an arms deal to date. The verdict surprised many.
The case was initially brought by Jürgen Grässlin, a prominent
opponent of Germany’s arms industry. -The managers have walked
away free, that’s the big scandal, and proof of a
two-class judicial system. So were the managers of Heckler
& Koch not responsible for the illegal weapons deal in
the opinion of the court? -It is the conviction of this chamber
that there was insufficient evidence to suggest the other defendants took part in
the crimes. Hence the acquittal, thank you. So what actually happened? It all began
in 2005. German arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch wanted to export
thousands of G36 assault rifles to Mexico, along with submachine guns. So
the company submitted an application to the German economics
ministry in Berlin. But the FOREIGN ministry expressed
concern, citing human rights violations by Mexican security forces,
including abductions and murder in Guerrero
and other states. The economics ministry sought a compromise.
Meanwhile Heckler & Koch was waiting impatiently for permission to export, as
the company’s then sales representative for Mexico explains. We can
only identify him as Markus B. -We were then asked by sales whether
we could change the designated end-use certificate, because some
ministry had requested that certain aspects
shouldn’t be mentioned. Heckler & Koch had originally presented
this end-use certificate from the Mexican defence ministry to the German
economics ministry. The details of this certificate showed clearly that
the weapons were partly intended for Mexican states considered
particularly dangerous. -So I wrote an email to my wife from the
computer of (Bleep) at Heckler & Koch, asking her to ask the head of DCAM -
the official body responsible for arms sales in Mexico - whether
it was possible not to name these three states and
to issue a new end-use. So, once the economics ministry had
informed Heckler & Koch which Mexican states would not be approved, the
company submitted a new end-use certificate, where the critical states
were no longer mentioned. But the strange thing was, the exact same
number of guns would still be supplied to Mexico — which surely
should have been noticed. But approval for the export
was given and the deal began. Over the following years, a team from
Heckler & Koch travelled all over Mexico, showing police officers and the army
how to use the firearms. Here they are in Colima, but they also went to the
states that were supposedly banned, including Guerrero, where the
weapons would soon be used. On 19-year-old Aldo Gutiérrez Solano, for
example. This was him dancing at his brother’s wedding just days before security
forces would destroy his life forever. -He was a clever child, really bright.
He was always keen to see everything and to learn. That’s why he went to college.
Now all that’s gone. Details of that night
haunt the family. Aldo’s brother Leonel
tells us what happened. There were a number of buses. Aldo was
in the first one. When the attack started, they were already heading
back to the college. First the police started pursuing them. Then a police
vehicle blocked the junction ahead to stop them leaving the city. So the students
got out of the bus. Aldo was one of the first to get out. He wanted to talk to
the police who were blocking the road, in the hope that they could proceed. But the
police immediately started shooting. The other students got off the buses and
started filming with their cell phones. When Aldo was hit by a bullet, the
others screamed for help. They called an ambulance for their friend, while
running for cover themselves. More shots fell. That same night, Aldo‘s
family rushed to the hospital. -I saw him and he had a
bullet wound to his head. The bullet went in here,
and came out here. Drug cartels kill thousands in Mexico
every year. But the security forces are also responsible
for many deaths. One of the Heckler & Koch gun
instructors started to have doubts. In 2010, he testified to state prosecutors
against his former employer Heckler & Koch. It was a damning indictment of
colleagues and managers. That led to two police raids on the company
premises and a mammoth investigation. -It took eight long years
from the start of the investigation to the trial
opening in May 2018. In 2018, the largest trial of its kind
in German post-war history finally got underway. Trial observers
took detailed minutes. Jan van Aken was one of them. He was
previously a weapons inspector for the United Nations and a member
of the German parliament. -I remember three things from the first
day: Firstly the charges were read out, which included conspiring to
commit crime. The second was that the two main suspects weren’t in the room.
One has since died. The other was Heckler & Koch’s Mexico representative
who lives in Mexico and was allegedly not well enough to travel.
So his trial was separated off. The defendants included: ex-CEO Peter
Beyerle and another former Heckler & Koch CEO. Two past employees
from the marketing division. The company Heckler & Koch
itself as a co-defendant. And a secretary from
the export department. -The third thing I remember was the
initial statements given by the accused, where it was totally clear they had no
sense of guilt and I think they were really serious about that. Their
argument was they had received approval for exports to Mexico
and so they exported to Mexico. They couldn’t work out
why they were in court. The end-use certificate is the
centrepiece of Germany’s arms control mechanism. In this document, the buyer
declares where the weapons will be delivered and where they will be used,
ruling out that they will end up anywhere else. Several different ministries
examine the application, under the direction of the economics ministry.
The government’s export control office — BAFA — then takes care
of the licensing procedure. Arnold Wallraff was president of BAFA for
ten years. He’s well acquainted with the procedures and knows
those who worked in the economics ministry during
the period in question. -In the Heckler & Koch case, the
colleague involved at the economics ministry was not someone who
exercised any particularly critical judgement in that regard
— shall we say... That official — who was in a senior
position in the economics ministry — was one of the first
witnesses to be called. His testimony got off to
an uncomfortable start. -The witness was asked by the presiding
judge to disclose what the Mexico deal was all about. He answered: one
moment and put a huge brief case on the table. He pulled out an entire file.
The judge asked him what he was doing. He said “I need the file on the
investigation, to get the indictment.” And you could see the faces of the
state prosecutors’ turning red because that’s not allowed, that a
witness in a German criminal court case is holding the
indictment in his hands. But that wasn’t the end of it. During
questioning, the witness revealed that the other ministries also had access to
the confidential files. But where they came from? THAT bit
he couldn’t remember. -And then he actually stated in court:
We’re called the ministry FOR the economy. We have a special interest in
ensuring that these manufacturers can survive economically. That’s from the man
responsible for regulating arms exports. For decades, Heckler & Koch has been
a key supplier to the German armed forces and the police. It’s considered
to have systemic relevance. So does the economics ministry give special
treatment to a company like that? We decided to ask former economics
MINISTER, Sigmar Gabriel. The official began his statement by
saying, “We’re the ministry FOR the economy. So the ministry wants
this key manufacturer to survive. -That’s true, but the export guidelines
state that when it comes to ARMS exports, economic considerations and
jobs are not to play a role. That’s the legal position. I hope the court is
familiar with the export guidelines. Back to the courtroom. Under further
questioning by the presiding judge, the official from the economics ministry
stated - from the witness stand - that human rights were more
a ‘work of endeavour.' -These are the people charged with
safeguarding our highest value — namely human rights — in all
constitutions, in OUR constitution - and they see it merely as a ‘work of
endeavour’? So if it happens to suit, then we’ll include that too. But
otherwise we’re not interested. Human rights as a ‘work of endeavour’.
That’s not what the approval guidelines set
out by the government state: -They conclude with the sentence:
“For this question, the human rights situation in the recipient country plays
a prominent role.” For me, also coming from a legal background, it’s
clear that it’s an absolute test criterion and a
deal-breaking criterion. And indeed, the official from the
economics ministry admitted himself, while testifying to the Customs
Investigation Bureau, that he realized the firearms had only been excluded
from parts of Mexico ON PAPER. But the economics ministry
denies any wrongdoing. The ministry’s main contact at
Heckler & Koch was Peter Beyerle. He was in the dock in Stuttgart
- but HE was acquitted. -On day two of the trial, Peter Beyerle
stated that these end-use certificates are — and I quote — “the wrong
instrument, and ineffective.” This supposed “wrong
instrument” has for decades been the basis for all of
Germany’s arms exports. Peter Beyerle had been the head judge
at a district court, before moving to Heckler and Koch. Initially he was the
company’s liaison officer for the authorities and then later CEO.
Throughout he was responsible for export applications —
and end-use agreements. The export control office
BAFA also understands that the end-use agreement
is a binding document. -According to our understanding
of the law, the end-use certificate is an integral
part of the licensing. Yet veteran legal expert Peter
Beyerle argued in court that end-use certificates are NOT decisive for
arms exports, and he claimed to know nothing of the reworked certificate for
Mexico. But his correspondence with the chummy official at the economics
ministry tells a different story. -I wasn’t aware of this email before.
It’s completely clear here: The economics ministry is telling Heckler & Koch: You
can’t export to these Mexican states — but these other ones are OK. And yet in
the trial, all those involved maintained repeatedly that there had never been a
list of positive and negative states. It’s absurd that this
has only turned up now. But that’s not all. When the approval of
arms exports to Mexico did not appear forthcoming, Beyerle emailed colleagues,
suggesting they pursued what he called the “political route”. The
company made donations to the constituency offices of
influential politicians. We tried to speak to Peter Beyerle, too,
as he emerged from the court one day. His lawyer Dietrich Quedenfeld blocked our
cameraman, pulling out the sound cable. Peter Beyerle began
brandishing his briefcase and his lawyer continued to
attempt to obstruct us. "Mr Beyerle, what do you know about the
party donations? About Heckler & Koch?" They were clearly not willing to talk
about donations to politicians... In Mexico, meanwhile, the families
of the 43 missing students are still searching for the bodies of their loved
ones. More than 60,000 people are classified as “missing”
in Mexico, presumed dead. -The appearance of the stones help us
to locate graves. I can see these stones were previously under the ground, so
I know the ground has been dug over here. You see the difference
in the color? This stone was on the surface, the other
was buried deeper. The remains of clothing are
scattered across this site. A putrid smell
hangs in the air. -I still hope that my son will
walk through the door one day. The pain is unbearable. It just hurts
so much. But I’m not giving up. Not until I’ve found my son. Every time
I come up to these hills, even though I‘m sick, I forget my illness. Because I
want to find out something about my son. Mexico has never forgotten the missing
student teachers. For more than five years, thousands of people have been
taking to the streets every month to demand answers. They include families and
friends of the 43 students who disappeared. Human rights lawyer Sofia de
Robina represents the families. -I am an attorney at the Miguel Agustin
Pro Juarez Human Rights Center and have been legally accompanying the
Ayotzinapa case for four years. We represent relatives of the 43
students who disappeared on the 26th of September 2014, as well as the
students who were executed and also those who were injured that night. Aldo
Gutiérrez Solano is one of my clients. Even traveling in the crisis-torn
state of Guerrero is dangerous. The lawyer takes us
to Aldo's family. Civilian militia groups have taken control
of the roads and levy so-called “customs duties.” We are at the mercy
of the local commanders. When they spot our camera,
things get a bit edgy... Guerrero has been scarred by the drug
war, by violence and corruption. The Gutiérrez family is taking care of
Aldo in this house built with donations. -We have suffered a lot as a family
because we have to struggle with everything. Ultimately, we
wish for nothing more than to see this little, lively
guy again who we’ve lost. The family still clings to
the hope that Aldo will get well again — even if this
is medically impossible. -He listens, he
listens closely. -Sometimes he opens his eyes when you talk
to him, and then he closes them again. We take care of him. Every day we
come here and we take care of him. All day and all night we take care of him.
And yes, he can hear. And he responds, too. "And does he
respond to you?" -Yes, definitely. Just yesterday, he moved
his finger. Even in a coma, he still moves. The hopes of a mother.
The hopes of a family. -We are here, we
miss him very much. The whole family
loves him so much. That's why it's so hard for us to see
the change that he's undergone. I won't abandon you, I'll be with you.
No matter what happens. Meanwhile, the trial in Stuttgart was
continuing. Evidence was presented and the court called dozens of witnesses.
Then, on the 20th day, something completely
unexpected happened. -And suddenly the number was clear:
15,000 e-mails had slipped through. That created a bit of a shock up there
on the bench. They realized they suddenly had a lot of
documents here that hadn’t been included in
the proceedings at all. An investigation was launched into the
missing e-mails. Where were they? Then the name of an auditing
company came up: KPMG... -Then it turned out the Customs
Criminal Investigation Office - leading the investigation - had received the
e-mails, the documents, from KPMG. But they had already been
filtered and sorted. Heckler and Koch called in KPMG shortly
after police searched its headquarters. Part of their task was to evaluate the
staff’s electronic communications. Markus B. was the company’s
sales representative in Mexico. -In fact, Heckler & Koch had asked KPMG
to carry out an internal voluntary investigation. Incomprehensible.
Why? It’s enough for the prosecutor to investigate,
the police and so on. KPMG is one of the world’s four largest
auditing companies. The internal investigation was supposed to support the
Customs Criminal Investigation Office, Baden-Württemberg State Criminal Police
Office and the public prosecutor's office. Wolfram Ziegelmeier still represents
Markus B. and is critical of the fact that the state investigators had agreed to
cooperate with the private auditors. -On the one hand, it is not justifiable
and, in my view, not acceptable that the public prosecutor's office should
agree that Heckler & Koch, of all companies, which is the target of the
accusations, should be given the opportunity to become involved in the
investigations by commissioning an internal expert report that it paid
KPMG a lot of money to produce. Why did the authorities agree to
cooperate with KPMG in the first place? How close was that cooperation? The
KPMG report confirms the cooperation with the police, customs investigators
and the prosecutors’ office. The customs investigators say they exchanged
information with KPMG for 3 years. -This is the reason, I believe, that we
also have these (so-called) pawns in the dock. We do not have the people -
actually responsible for the whole story, for initiating it - in the dock. Those
people are probably more likely to be found in departments of the Federal
Ministry of Economics or the people at the top of Heckler & Koch and
perhaps of the Federal Ministry. The KPMG investigation said there were
“significant irregularities” in the stories of a secretary, a marketing employee
and the representative in Mexico and said they were primarily responsible
for the crooked arms deals there. What the auditors also “overlooked”
were the purchase contracts with Mexico on which the
deals had been based. Heckler & Koch and the Mexican
Ministry of Defense exchanged dozens of purchase contracts. We have
these original contracts. They explicitly list the destinations of
the weapons, including the banned Mexican states such as Guerrero
— UNLIKE the end-use certificate the company
provided the government. The court in Stuttgart has refused
to comment on the proceedings or the ruling. In answer to a written request,
the Stuttgart public prosecutor's office said the cooperation with KPMG had been
helpful. But it also points out that KPMG's findings had also been
compared with the information gathered by the office...and
"critically assessed." KPMG had also been advising the Defense
Ministry, which was looking for a successor model to the German Armed
Forces’ standard assault rifle. Heckler & Koch was the
favorite to win the tender. We have asked KPMG but the company
has refused to make any comment. In September 2018:
accompanied by his lawyers, Aldo's brother Leonel traveled
to Stuttgart for the trial. The court had already rejected the
family's request to appear as joint plaintiff in the criminal proceedings. In
the court’s opinion, the alleged illegal deliveries did not contribute to the
concrete acts of injury in question. In the courtroom, Leonel took two
photos of his brother out of his backpack because, as he
later said, Aldo could not attend the trial himself.
The court reacted swiftly. Nine court officers surrounded
the guest from Mexico until he gave them the
pictures of his brother Aldo. -It was all about equipment up there. It
was all about files and stuff. No one ever talked about the victims. And I
think it is important, in this whole discussion about arms exports, not only
in the trial, to make that clear from time to time: this is about death, this
is about blood, this is about war and not just about sewing machines
and refrigerators. And that is why this is a very, very
special moment for me. Only when Leonel left the courthouse did
he get the pictures of his brother back. It was the end of Leonel’s
visit to Germany. In February 2019, the
court gave its verdict. The secretary received a 17-
month suspended sentence and had to perform 250 hours
of community service. A former marketing employee was
sentenced to 22 months on probation and had to pay an 80,000-Euro
fine to social organizations. Heckler & Koch was fined 3.7 million
euros — approximately the contract value of the illegally exported weapons.
The other defendants, including the two former CEOs, were acquitted. Both
Heckler & Koch and Peter Beyerle have refused to give any interviews,
but deny any wrongdoing. The public prosecutor's office decided
not to appeal against the acquittal of Beyerle and the other ex-CEO, while
appealing the other rulings. "We are convinced", said the presiding
judge in his oral verdict, “that neither an end-use certificate as such, nor the
actual end-use can be made a part of the permit in terms of administrative
law.” But the former head of BAFA — the government’s export control
office -- doesn’t agree: -Administrative law is quite clear: they
ARE part of it. But, if I may put it cautiously, criminal lawyers who do not
deal with these things so often may see things differently, and that was
probably so in the Stuttgart ruling. Two months after the Stuttgart ruling,
a court in Kiel came to a different conclusion than the court in southern
Germany. At the trial of the German arms manufacturer Sig Sauer for illegal
arms exports, end-use certificates WERE judged to be part
of the export licenses. Sig Sauer had sold 37,000 pistols
to Colombia, although the end-use certificate said they were destined
for the USA. Ex-managers of Sig Sauer Germany and the CEO of its US affiliate
were given fines and suspended sentences. This case is also
under appeal. Now Germany’s supreme court must decide
whether to deal with the 2 rulings or not. Filming in Mexico City in June 2019,
we make a surprising discovery: The soldiers who raise the national flag in
front of the presidential palace every day carry weapons from all over the
world, including many from Heckler & Koch. But our cameraman notices that
the soldiers are also carrying weapons from another German
company: Sig Sauer. Sig Sauer is the country’s second largest
manufacturer of small arms, and is based (not far from Kiel) in northern
Germany. Its product range includes pistols, submachine guns
and assault rifles: “Made in Germany,” says the
company's website proudly. Was Sig Sauer licensed to export arms
to Mexico? We asked the government, which said “No.” So how did Sig
Sauer’s weapons end up in Mexico? The Mexican Defense ministry
confirmed that Sig Sauer USA sells pistols, submachine guns and
assault rifles to Mexico - with the permission
of the US government. The court in Kiel has already found
the CEO of Sig Sauer USA Incorporated guilty of making illegal arms deliveries to
Colombia via the US. The affiliate is 100 percent owned by its German parent
company, Lüke & Ortmeier Holding. Under American law, Sig Sauer USA can
sell weapons manufactured in the US abroad - but can weapons
made in Germany be exported to Mexico via the US affiliate?
Is this permitted? -If they were intended to be delivered
elsewhere, the German manufacturers would have to say in their application
that the final destination is not the recipient country where their affiliate
is based?but somewhere else. Nevertheless, there ARE Sig
Sauer weapons in Mexico. -If some got there, it must
have been by a different route. One without a permit,
at any rate. This internet video of a Mexican police
officer shows a Sig Sauer P229 pistol. The policeman says it's odd that his gun
has two engravings on it: “Frame made in Germany” and “Exeter,
New Hampshire.” But how did this gun
get into Mexico? Human rights activist John Lindsay-Poland
investigates arms exports from the USA to Latin America and has published
numerous studies on the subject. -The data that shows that Germany
exported firearms and firearm parts during this period to New
Hampshire and that New Hampshire exported firearms and
firearm parts to Mexico. Sig Sauer haven’t disclosed how many
weapons they deliver and to where. But figures from the US Department of
Commerce show how many weapons have been delivered from Germany
to New Hampshire and from New Hampshire to Mexico since 2000. A
document issued by the US Department of State makes clear the extent to which Sig
Sauer USA supplies Mexico with weapons. -On that list was a license for Sig Sauer
to export up to 266 million dollars’ worth of firearms to Mexico up to 2024.
Which is an enormous amount of weaponry. Unprecedented for Mexico and the United
States in terms of any exports to Mexico. The Mexican Defense Ministry has
confirmed that the weapons supplied by Sig Sauer USA are distributed almost right
across the country, including those states that the German government
classifies as having a particularly critical
human rights situation. -Mexico distributed these weapons
to states where police are in heavy collusion with organized crime and are
committing human rights violations. This raises many questions about the legality,
not to mention the morality, of Sig Sauer’s role in the violence
in Mexico — both through the United States and
from its German parent. Basically, Sig Sauer should not have
been allowed to supply Mexico from Germany at all. So, it’s all the more
surprising that Sig Sauer USA’s turnover suddenly went through the roof shortly
after rival Heckler & Koch was banned from selling weapons to Mexico because
of the investigations back home. The Mexican Ministry of Defense
records are illuminating. So, is Sig Sauer circumventing
Germany’s arms export laws with the help of its US affiliate? In procedural
terms, at least, there would seem to be a certain similarity to the case relating
to illegal exports to Colombia. Sig Sauer has not responded to our
repeated requests for comment. The former Heckler & Koch weapons
demonstrator also provided the tip-off for this trial. In the meantime, he
had moved to competitor Sig Sauer. The Colombian government has
confirmed the receipt of around 120,000 Sig Sauer pistols, three times
more than the number cited in the Kiel hearing. This was not approved by the
German government - it has not approved any permits for small arms exports to
Colombia since the year 2000. So how did the 72,000 weapons that the Kiel court
knew nothing about end up in Colombia? To find out we decided to go to Bogota,
the capital of a country blighted by decades of civil war. And the
peace here is deceptive. The city has seen months of mass protests
and frequent riots. The army and, above all, the Policia Nacional have been accused
of serious human rights violations. We saw policemen carrying Sig Sauer
pistols everywhere — in fact, none of the officers we met on this
trip carried anything else. We visited the museum of the Policia
Nacional, an organization still feared today for its involvement in human
rights violations. The guard at the entrance was also armed
with a Sig Sauer pistol. A policeman showed us a Sig Sauer
SP2022 in the weapons display. "So Sig Sauer is the standard
weapon of the Colombian police?" -That's right. We all have them.
They're the best! Then he asked a colleague for his service
weapon - and showed us the engraving on the SP2022: "Frame made in
Germany" again. This weapon should not be in Colombia. We also noticed its
serial number is missing. This is a so- called “ghost gun” — and
they shouldn’t exist at all. Next stop: Medellin, for many years,
the murder capital of the world. An hour's drive outside of Medellin,
we visited a retreat for the rich and powerful. The ruins of Pablo Escobar's
house are a reminder of the cocaine trade that is still flourishing
today — in fact, some say it still remains the backbone
of the Colombian economy. Pretending to be German tourists, we
got chatting with police officers. We asked one of them to pose for a selfie.
Then he showed us his gun. It’s another Sig Sauer SP2022, and this
time we could clearly see a serial number, the German eagle
and an official proof mark from the responsible
office in Kiel. "Now, for example, here on the gun, you
can see Exeter, New Hampshire. But here there are proof marks from Kiel. The
federal eagle with the N on it and..." -Yes, so the original stamps indicate
that the thing is from Germany. Is this pistol even allowed
to be in Colombia? -If the hardware comes
from Germany as your pictures imply, then that
is clearly a violation. The serial number of this weapon is not
listed in the Kiel court papers. Does that mean that the true extent of
Sig Sauer’s illegal operations is much greater than
previously realized? Documents from the US Department
of Commerce prove: Sig Sauer USA continued to deliver weapons to
Colombia, even though Sig Sauer Germany and the managing director
of its US affiliate have been under investigation for illegal arms exports
to the country since 2014. Some 10,000 pistols were still delivered to Colombia
even after the April 2019 verdict. -If they know it and can
prove it, then I think that is a reason to pass it on
to the legal authorities. And Mexico? New documents from the
US State Department prove that Sig Sauer USA not only delivers finished
weapons to Mexico. The US permit also includes a license to manufacture
various Sig Sauer models in Mexico, including these ones, some
of which were originally developed and produced in Germany.
Is that allowed? The German government has confirmed
that Sig Sauer Germany has been granted a total of 26 permits for the
transfer of technology to Sig Sauer USA since 2000. But German law
requires a further license before the technology can be
transferred on to Mexico. -When a production license is approved,
it's approved for one location — in this case the US where the production
actually takes place — and not for export. We would have to approve
any further exports again. The government has confirmed that
no such authorization exists. -I hope the people behind such things are
held accountable. That, at any rate, would be the job of the relevant
authorities, who, as I have said, will once more have to consider whether to
refer it to law enforcement authorities. Is the Sig Sauer arms manufacturing
group circumventing German export regulations by relocating its business to
the USA — and getting away with it scot- free? If it is, all illegal arms deals will
probably soon be carried out this way. It certainly seems to be working for
Sig Sauer, which has now become the largest exporter of small
arms in the United States.
To clarify, I’m not necessarily taking either side in the alleged conflict. The morality of selling the weapons in the first place is a question that goes way over my head/judgement, but it’s an interesting look into exactly how HK corporate got the contract through.
Obviously the specific acts of violence would have been committed by the Mexican authorities anyway with whatever guns they had before buying the G36’s, but it does raise some interesting points in the conflict between HK’s business dealings and the German government; you could go as far as to say it’s that same environment that inhibits the export of the models we all want on the US civi market (MP7, anyone?).
I wonder if it’s within reason the theorize HK going through route of what led to Sig Sauer becoming what we know it as today (being 100% US based/manufactured). From what I understand, difficulties with the German government on export were the primary reason their last remaining german manufactured guns become non-economically viable.
I just did. Thanks for posting.
While this does shed light into possible reasons why "Zig Zauer" moved its operations to the US, its not the only reason companies choose to relocate. Exporting/importing guns is extremely expensive and also has limits depending on the country they're being exported from and to. Like 922r and 1968 GCA, and the very strict German export laws. You're right, Hk has been doing the same for years now. They have opened up manufacturing facilities in the US because of German export laws and cost. If the demand is high enough, its just cheaper. While "skirting" export laws and regulations can be the reason companies relocated, its not always for bad reasons. Governments and their export/import laws can be oppressive, so sometimes its good companies choose to move.
I not sure why they tried to make a conspiracy of Sig pistols having german made frames and U.S. made slides. Half my Sigs are assembled that way. Again, its about cost and export laws. This is a lack of knowledge when it comes to the firearms industry. Some HKs are the same way.
I'm not sure how I feel about the conclusions of the documentary. On one hand I feel these companies should be responsible for where their weapons are used and what they're are used for, to an extent. But on the other, even if the countries (or states within) have a history of corruption or human right violations; the country, states and their military/police still have a right to arms themselves for defense. Not everything they do is wrong. I think this issue needs to be addressed by fixing the goverment (and individuals within) that are the problem, not attacking the foreign supplier of arms to said government.
Very interesting documentary though.
I like this stuff thanks for the post
As a HUGE H&K fanboi I want to root for them, but it's fucked up to sell to Mexico. There is a reason why places like Colombia and Mexico are scrutinized the way they are.
It's not as clear cut as selling to "clearly evil" regimes like North Korea, Iran or the Taliban but close enough for me to be on the side of not arming sadistic killers. A lot of those arms ended up in the hands of the Cartels, the level of corruption in those governments is clear cut and internationally accepted. Cartels are filled with "ex" goverment special forces and police.
Up to the German people to decide how they want their gun manufacturers to behave.
I was rooting for HK the entire time! Probably not was DW was going for. Not HKs fault people want to shoot each other.
...And who committed the crimes in Mexico? It was the police... HK sold to a government entity and they turned those guns on their own people. It ain’t HKs fault, it’s just like gun control in the US, it’s always everyone’s fault but the assholes doing the evil shit...