Swedish minister says weapons found in Kachin state came via India

PHOTO OF A SWEDISH MADE 84MM M3 CARL GUSTAV LAUNCHER, SHELLS AND A BURMESE LANGUAGE USERS MANUAL CAPTURED BY KIA FORCES IN AUGUST FOLLOWING A RETREAT BY BURMA FORCES IN HPAKANT.

Speaking in Parliament on Thursday Sweden's Trade Minister Ewa Bjorling confirmed that the Swedish made M-3 Carl Gustav anti-tank weapons recently captured from Burma's military by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) did not come directly from Sweden.

Bjorling told her fellow MPs that the Swedish Agency for Non-Proliferation and Export Controls (ISP), using the serial numbers found on photos of the weapons, was able to determine that the M-3 Carl Gustav launcher and assorted shells came from a batch of arms sold to India. This confirms a report in the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper on Tuesday fingering India as the original destination for the weapons.

According to Bjorling as a result of what she was told by ISP she asked them to “request clarification from the Indian authorities”. It remains unclear what this would entail. It is also unclear whether Sweden will do anything to punish India or the Swedish weapon's manufacturer for violating a weapons sales agreement designed to prevent the re-sale of Swedish made weapons to blacklisted third parties like Burma's military.

The veteran Swedish journalist and longtime Burma commentator Bertil Lintner who wrote the story for Svenska Dagbladet told the Irrawaddy magazine that it is very unlikely that Sweden will take retaliatory measures against India for violating rules given India's considerable appetite for Swedish-made made weapons.

“It will be investigated, but because India is such an important market and a major buyer of Swedish weapons, there will probably just be a slap on the wrist,” said Lintner.

The launcher and shells were manufactured by Saab Bofors Dynamics, part of the Saab group. Bofors, a firm absorbed by the Saab conglomerate more than a decade ago is best remembered in India for its central role in the 1980's in a massive bribery and kickback scandal that plagued Rajiv Gandhi's government.