Arms trade

“Is peace for wimps, whereas real governments sell weapons?” So asked George Monbiot recently in The Guardian.

His comment highlighted the government's drive to maximise British arms exports and exposed the activities of the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO), a government agency focused on identifying potential opportunities for arms sales and then pushing for deals. The 500 taxpayer-funded civil servants working for DESO are placed entirely at the service of arms…

Farnborough International sells itself to the public as an airshow and family day out. However the public days are preceded by a full trade exhibition for aerospace and military products. The event is organised by the UK's Society of British Aerospace Companies, with international invitations managed by DESO (the Defence Export Services Organisation) which is funded by the tax-payer.

Farnborough takes place every other year and is a major date on the international arms fair calendar…

According to press reports, the MoD is refusing to comply with the Information Commissioner's ruling that they should release details of the 500 civil servants employed to promote British arms exports because “they could be harassed by pacifists”.

Well, it's no wonder really. Everyone must have noticed those marauding hordes of militant pacifists, flaunting their white poppies, giving out leaflets about Gandhi, even trying to sell copies of Peace News - they're so…

As reported in last month's PN, `twas the season for AGM-related protests. Here's a quick roundup of protest at three of the worst companies' annual junkets:

Albert Beale writes... The AGM of Britain's biggest purveyor of armaments - BAE Systems - was as usual a target for anti-arms trade activists, both inside and outside the meeting on 4 May.

The Campaign Against Arms Trade's street theatre outside, showing members of the government as poodles…

Warfare has dramatically impacted forests throughout history. Between 2000 and 1200 BC, the ancient Assyrians burned woodlands as a military tactic, as did the Greek and Roman armies. Techniques changed little until the twentieth century, when more sophisticated and destructive technology was rapidly developed and deployed.

France pioneered the aerial bombardment of forests with incendiaries in the Rif Mountains of Morocco during the 1921-26 uprising, and napalm, supplied by the US,…

Those pesky horticultural pioneers were at it again when they visited the Ericsson Microwave arms factory in Mo”lndal, near Gothenburg in Sweden, on 14 April. Best known for their mobile phones, the Swedish company also produces components and systems for military and border control purposes.

Continuing with their professed “non-protest” approach, six of the group were arrested inside the factory, after using ladders to hop the fence and proceeding to “planting an orchard” in its…

After months or torturous legal proceedings, harassment and imprisonment, good news from Brighton's SmashEDO as, in March, the legal cases brought against them began to crumble.

Two anti-war activists have had a temporary injunction against them lifted and indemnity costs awarded to them by a High Court judge who issued a damning indictment of EDO MBM's conduct of the trial. Mr Justice Walker accused arms manufacturer EDO of “woeful neglect” of the issues in its preparations towards…

Campaigners against Brighton arms dealers EDO MBM gained two major court victories during February. Firstly in the magistrates' court - as a trial charging three activists with “illegal assembly” collapsed - and secondly in the High Court - as the injunction which created an exclusion zone outside the factory crumbled.

EDO MBM, who manufacture parts for the Paveway bomb system, the most-used guided munition in the air assault on Iraq, and unmanned combat air vehicles, much loved by…

Since October 2003, the bank-watch organisation Netwerk Vlaanderen, and the peace organisations Vrede, Forum voor Vredesactue and For Mother Earth, have been running a campaign against Belgian bank groups' investments in weapons. Under pressure from the campaign “My Money. Clear Conscience” (see PN2458), four large bank groups have since scaled down their investments in weapon producers.

At a political level, Belgium is also the first country to forbid investment funds…

In October 2005, the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) relaunched its University Clean Investment campaign with the revelation that nearly half of all UK universities invest in the arms trade.

Using the newly introduced Freedom of Information Act, we discovered that these 67 universities held shares in one or more of the largest six UK-based arms exporting PLCs. The trade in weapons fuels conflict, undermines development and, as a whole, receives #890 million each year from the UK…

Members of Brighton's SmashEDO campaign (see various PNs) have engaged in a unique open-letter negotiation with the local police, informing them of their planned demonstration against the EDO weapons plant on 10 December, International Human Rights Day. The letter was posted on UK Indymedia and, rather bizarrely, an open dialogue between members of SmashEDO and an officer of Sussex Police appears to have been taking place on the site.

The application for an…

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Smash EDO!

The campaign against weapons makers EDO MBM, based in Home Farm Road, Brighton, began in spring 2004.

Its objective is to nonviolently close down EDO's arms factory or, alternatively, convert its premises to civilian use. Despite having an arms company in the area Brighton Council receives funds as a “UN Peace Messenger city”.

There have been regular noise protests outside EDO since the campaign began, and several…

On Friday 30 September, District Judge Peter Ward returned a verdict of guilty to the charges of Aggravated Trespass brought against six campaigners who had held a peaceful protest at Lancaster University more than a year before (see PN2462).

Dismissing the prosecution's and the University's claims that the six had intimidated University staff and conference delegates, Judge Ward nonetheless found them guilty because they had momentarily disrupted the conference. He also…

This is a piece of academic research geared towards producing an internationally acceptable methodology for assessing the effects of the arms trade on sustainable development in developing countries.

Its aim is to persuade all arms exporting countries (mainly in the "first" world) to apply sustainability criteria to all applications for arms export licences. It is not, therefore, against the arms trade per se, but neither does it confine itself to the banning of arms sales to…

As PN went to press, activists were gearing up for a week of direct action against the largest weapons fair in the world: DSEi (Defence Systems and Equipment International). Undeterred by reports of a planned exclusion zone around the London's ExCeL centre where the heavily-policed event is to take place, thousands are traveling to the capital from around Britain and Europe in a determined effort to shut down DSEi. In a bid to get you all out of your armchairs and off to the arms fair, Emily…