With profound apologies to Mel Brooks, it’s springtime for Muammar in Libya, winter for Hugo Chavez! No, that’s not the latest lyric from a Broadway hit; rather it’s a reference to a notice of a final rule issued by DDTC that appeared in the February 7 Federal Register. Under the new rule, DDTC added Venezuela to the list of proscribed countries under section 126.1(a) of the ITAR while loosening the previous arms embargo that had been in place against Libya.

Libya was removed from the list of countries in section 126.1(a) subject to a general policy of denial. Under the new rule, Libya has been moved to its own new section — 126.1(k) — which still retains the general policy of denial with two major exceptions to be determined on a case-by-case basis:

(1) Non-lethal defense articles and defense services,

(2) Non-lethal safety-of-use defense articles (e.g., cartridge actuated devices, propellant actuated devices and technical manuals for military aircraft for purposes of enhancing the safety of the aircrew) as spare parts for lethal end-items.

If that language seems both familiar and opaque to you — at least as far as the meaning of “non-lethal safety-of-use defense articles” — it’s because these are the two exceptions that used to be in place for Indonesia. In that context, “non-lethal safety-of-use defense articles” was intended by DDTC to refer to things such as aircraft ejection seats. Personally I can’t wait to tell someone riding in a car with me to fasten their “non-lethal safety-of-use restraint items.”

Venezuela’s addition to the list of countries in section 126.1(a) of the ITAR shouldn’t come as surprise to anyone who hasn’t been stranded on an ice floe without a satellite phone for the past year or so. It probably didn’t help that Chavez made the whiff of sulfur remark at the U.N. last September, but the ball really had already started rolling for Venezuela on August 17, 2006, when the DDTC announced a general policy of denial for Venezuela and the revocation of all existing licenses. The addition of Venezuela to the list in section 126.1(a) doesn’t represent a substantive change in policy but is mostly a housekeeping matter.

Permalink


Copyright © 2007 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)