Thread by @DavBrenner

Supporting #Myanmar’s generals has a long tradition for Germany and its companies since the dictatorship of Gen Ne Win. The most immediate relic of this is the wide-spread use of German-designed G3 rifles by Myanmar’s security forces
Some thoughts 🧵 1/6 #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar

https://twitter.com/JusticeMyanmar/status/1378220579040460802

While more modern Chinese MA rifles have gradually become the Tatmadaw’s murder tool of choice, the G3 has long been the standard rifle of Myanmar’s security forces, be it in their wars against EAOs, the genocide against Rohingya or massacres of civilian protestors then & now 2/6

This is not least because Germany’s Heckler and Koch did not only sell thousands of G3 rifles (& MG42 machine guns) to Myanmar since 1960s. Germany also helped the Tatmadaw to establish weapon factories in order to produce these murder tools itself. This started in 1953 ... 3/6

... and expanded significantly after Ne Win took power in a military coup. Lead company was the Fritz Werner GMBH, which was owned by the German state at the time. Factories construction was supervised by engineers of German’s foreign aid agency (GTZ now GIZ)! 4/6

A displaced Karen man once explained the German G3 to me: when you are hit by an AK, you have a chance of survival as the bullet goes straight through. But there is no chance to survive a G3 hit because the bullet expands upon impact and rips your body apart. German quality! 5/6

For more details I can recommend Andrew Selth's Burma's Secret Military Partners (available here: tinyurl.com/Selth) and the following Irrawaddy article irrawaddy.com/from-the-archi… 6/6