Tracing the Middle East weapons flow

Earlier this year, as mass popular uprisings spread through the Middle East and audiences across the world sat transfixed by images of unarmed citizens confronting iron-fisted security forces in the streets of Arab capitals, powerful governments from Russia to the United States were forced to begin accounting for the weapons they had for decades sold to the very rulers they now found themselves abandoning.
In Egypt and Bahrain, protesters held up tear gas canisters stamped "Made in USA", giving longstanding US support for autocratic Arab regimes a painful physical manifestation.
But the United States has not been the only culprit. Egyptian riot police fired shotgun shells made in Italy, and Libyan special forces wielded Belgian assault rifles. Bulgaria has led weapons sales to Yemen, and Russia likely supplies a huge amount of Syria's armoury.
According to a report released on Wednesday by London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International, in the five years preceding the Arab Spring, a host of at least 20 governments - including Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Serbia, Switzerland and South Korea - sold more than $2.4 billion worth of small arms, tear gas, armoured vehicles and other security equipment to the the five countries that have faced - and violently combated - popular uprisings: Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen.
After security forces turned on protesters with lethal force, some governments, such as the United Kingdom, France and Germany, suspended certain arms sales. Britain announced in February that it would revoke more than 50 arms licenses, including for tear gas and ammunition, to Bahrain and Libya. In Syria's case, many governments had not sold weapons to the government of Bashar al-Assad for years.
But for the thousands of people who have died since January, such measures came too late, and many countries seem ready to return to business as usual. The United States is currently considering selling Bahrain $53 million of Humvees, bunker-busting TOW missiles and other items, the first such sale to the Gulf island monarchy since protests erupted and were violently repressed earlier this year. China has said it will look into whether companies violated state policy when they negotiated an arms deal with Muammar Gaddafi’s regime during the uprising in Libya, but neither Beijing nor the government in Russia publishes data on its weapons sales, making accountability difficult for two of the world's biggest arms suppliers (10 per cent of Russia's arms sales go to Syria, according to Amnesty)...

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