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Sun April 15th, 2007
Racists against
African-Americans
A video has been posted on the internet showing a German army instructor ordering recruits to shout insults against African-Americans during a shooting exercise.
Stern news magazine said in its online edition on Saturday that the video was shot in July 2006 in army barracks in the northern city of Rendsburg.
Excerpts from the video were shown on German television.
A barracks spokesman confirmed the existence of the video and said the instructor shown had been posted elsewhere.
Racist abuse
The video, which has been viewed by AFP, shows the instructor first telling recruits to imagine they were fighting plane hijackers. At the end of the exercise he congratulates them, saying "That's good, the terrorists are dead."
He then tells them: "Now you're in the Bronx. A black truck stops in front of you. Three African-Americans get out and insult your mother grossly." The recruits are then told to pull the trigger after abusing the African-Americans.
The junior soldier is then shown executing the order, shouting the required obscenity before each shot, encouraged by his superior.
In Bonn, an armed forces spokesman said the army had launched an internal inquiry into the incident, possibly leading to disciplinary measures against two instructors.
The German army is already being haunted by other scandals.
In the northwestern city of Muenster, 18 German soldiers are on trial for alleged mistreatment of 163 recruits with electrical shocks.
Last year, German soldiers were photographed in Afghanistan, posing with human remains.
An inquiry involving 20 soldiers was launched, and six have already been suspended from duty.
German army acts over skull row
Fri Oct 27th, 2007
Germany has suspended two soldiers in connection with macabre photos showing German troops posing with human skulls in Afghanistan.
Four other soldiers - no longer in the army - are also being investigated over the images, which have shocked Germany.
The pictures were published on Wednesday in the popular daily Bild.
Since then photos of similar, separate incidents have emerged. RTL TV showed images of a soldier kissing a skull, and of skulls mounted in a pile.
The six soldiers identified are being investigated in connection with the Bild photos.
Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said on Friday the two soldiers still serving "will no longer be a part of the German army".
Prosecutors have said the six could face charges of disturbing the peace of the dead, which carries a prison sentence of up to three years.
Backlash fears
There is concern that the photographs could spark a backlash not only against German troops serving in Afghanistan, but against the entire Nato-led mission there, says the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Berlin.
Germany has warned its embassies in Afghanistan and the Middle East to tighten security measures in case there is a violent reaction to the scandal, Reuters reported.
"Such grave misconduct is bound to endanger the safety of the soldiers serving in Afghanistan. These pictures will of course be published in the Islamic world and will be used against us by the Taleban and al-Qaeda," a spokesman for the main army union, Bernard Gertz, said.
So far, however, there has been little reaction from the Muslim world.
Germany has extended its mission in Afghanistan
The first pictures to emerge dated from 2003, the Bild newspaper said.
They included an image of a soldier holding a skull next to his exposed genitals, and of soldiers placing it on the bonnet of their jeep.
RTL said the second batch was taken in 2004.
The chief of staff of the German army, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, denied that a second, separate incident suggested such behaviour was common.
"It is another isolated case," he said. "It is individuals who have been led astray and haven't understood what they are doing."
'Germany's Abu Ghraib'
The images might not be as shocking as the infamous Abu Ghraib photographs showing US troops abusing Iraqi prisoners, but they have sparked widespread revulsion, our correspondent says.
Some newspapers are already calling the scandal Germany's Abu Ghraib, he adds.
Senior figures have called for a review of training given to the armed forces.
The Roman Catholic bishop assigned to the German military, Walter Mixa, said the scandal was "a warning signal" and that training for foreign deployments "must be improved".
The scandal coincided with a German announcement that its deployment in Afghanistan would be extended, and with a review of military doctrine that said Germany should take part in more overseas missions.
German troops 'had WWII symbol’
A German magazine has published a photograph showing a wartime symbol on a vehicle allegedly used by German troops bound for Afghanistan.
The defence ministry is investigating the photograph, published on Thursday in the weekly magazine Stern.
It follows the recent scandal of photographs of German soldiers posing with human skulls and skeletons.
Six servicemen were suspended over the first case, and a total of 23 are being investigated in connection with it.
At the end of last month, the German government announced a grand new role for the country's military.
It decided that more troops would be sent abroad on peacekeeping missions and Germany would expand its efforts to maintain international security.
New scandal
But the army has been embarrassed and shamed by a stream of photographs in German newspapers.
First were the images of German troops desecrating human remains, taken in Afghanistan.
Now a new photograph in Stern shows a vehicle with a palm tree and an iron cross painted onto it.
The symbol is reminiscent of that used by the German Wehrmacht commander General Erwin Rommel - the "Desert Fox" - in North Africa during World War II.
The defence ministry has promised another investigation.
The recent scandals have sparked a fierce debate in Germany about whether the army here is ready to take on a greater role abroad.
esinislam.com + BBC + Agencies
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