Arms trade

On 3 March, Hove crown court accepted that the EDO Decommissioners can argue a war crimes defence at their trial. The trial takes place in Brighton on 17 May. The EDO Decommissioners caused over £250,000 damage to the EDO arms factory in Brighton in January 2009 in protest at the war on Gaza, Write to EDO Decommissioner Elijah Smith, still in prison after 15 months: Elijah Smith, A3186AM, HMP Lewes, 1 Brighton Rd, Lewes, Sussex, BN7 1EA.

Five people who blockaded the Heckler & Koch small arms office in Nottingham (see PN 2519) pleaded guilty and were fined between £40 and £195. One activist pleaded not guilty: his trial is at Nottingham magistrates court on 20 May at 9.45am.

On 5 February, a brief press release from the serious fraud office (SFO) announced that it had reached a settlement with BAE Systems, the UK’s largest arms company. Four months earlier, the SFO had made headlines announcing that it intended prosecute BAE for alleged bribery and corruption relating to arms deals in the Czech Republic, Romania, South Africa and Tanzania.

The settlement saw all charges dropped in regard to the first three countries, with BAE pleading guilty to…

Arms dealers from all over the world have been invited back to the biggest arms fair in the world at the ExCeL centre in Newham, east London for 13-16 September 2011. This vile event has been held at this venue every two years since 2001. They call it the “Defence Systems and Equipment International (DSEi)” Exhibition though the only accurate bit of that title is “international”.

When East London Against Arms Fairs started over a decade ago we knew that previous arms fairs had…

About 50 people braved the melting snows in mid-January to come to the first-ever Peace News Winter Gathering, at the Sumac Centre in Nottingham. The gathering was followed by street theatre focussed on Nottingham arms traders Heckler & Koch.

Gathering participants heard the legendary Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs; the equally legendary George Farebrother of NETLAP and World Court Project UK; as well as workshops on “Killer Drones” (by Chris Cole of FoR and Jim…

The arms manufacturers Raytheon are to end their computer software manufacturing operation in Derry following a concerted campaign by Derry Anti War Coalition (DAWC) and the Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign (FEIC).

DAWC occupied the offices of Raytheon three times: in 2003, together with FEIC, after 62 people were killed in a Baghdad marketplace by a missile that Robert Fisk identified as a Raytheon one. Then in the aftermath of the Qana massacre of 30 July 2006, the DAWC again…

Neither the Ministry of Defence nor British Aerospace properly accounted for nearly £1bn paid by the MoD to the arms company as part of the al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) investigation kept secret for 17 years.
The Sunday Telegraph published details of the NAO findings on 15 November, based on correspondence it had seen between the NAO and the MoD.
The NAO also criticised as “irregular” a £30.3 million management fee paid to BAe…

Brimar – a Manchester-based weapons manufacturer – is the latest armaments firm to feel the heat from campaigners. 17 October saw the launch of a new campaign “Target Brimar” with a colourful procession and Critical Mass bike ride to the company’s factory in Chadderton, where there were speeches, music, food and a children’s playspace.

Two of the EDO “decommissioners” – on bail for damaging equipment at the Brighton EDO weapons factory last January, during the Israeli attack on Gaza…

On 1 October, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced that it was taking steps to prosecute BAE Systems in relation to arms deals in Eastern Europe and Africa. This move again places the spotlight on the activities of BAE, Britain’s largest arms company.

BAE is alleged to have paid bribes in the form of commissions to “advisers” to clinch sales. The SFO began investigations several years ago into BAE’s alleged corruption and false accounting in the Czech Republic, Romania,…

On 13 July the UK government announced that it had revoked five arms export licences to Israel, reportedly on the grounds that the exports breached “Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria”.

These criteria state that arms exports should not be used for “internal repression” (although Gaza and the West Bank are not Israeli territory). These and other arms export licensing criteria have generally been ignored in relation to Israel, up till now.

The…

In May and June, five people were up on charges arising from the April 2008 “Carnival Against the Arms Trade” at the EDO-MBM arms factory in Brighton. At the carnival, 800 people marched through police cordons into the factory car park and smashed windows and the managing director’s car.

Four people were found guilty by Brighton magistrates of aggravated trespass for entering the premises, though the case for this was flimsy: no business was going on as the factory was shut, and…

Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) welcomed the ruling on 21 May, by the court of appeal, that the Metropolitan police broke the law in its routine surveillance of lawful and peaceful activity, including storing photographs on police computers.

On 27 April 2005, police officers openly photographed and followed CAAT staff and supporters after they had attended an AGM of a public company, Reed Elsevier, in their capacity as shareholders, to question directors about the acquisition of…

This book is about a campaign against an arms fair in Australia that included a two-week-long attempt – with a large measure of success – to blockade all three entrances to the site – not only during the arms fair but the week before, when exhibitors were arriving to set up. I would recommend it to anyone concerned about the problems of large demonstrations and meetings involving individuals and groups with a range of attitudes to nonviolence.

There are day-by-day accounts of what…

Between 8-11 September the ExCeL Centre in London’s Docklands hosted the Defence Services Equipment International exhibition (DSEi), the world’s largest arms fair.

The day before the arms fair proper began, a connected “UK Defence Conference” was held at the QEII conference centre in Westminster. Before this started, Christian peace activist Chris Cole sprayed “Build Peace, not War Machines” across the doors and “arms trade = death” on the steps. Chris, director of the Fellowship…

On 18 January 2009, as Israeli bombs – many of them containing British-made components – rained down on the people of Gaza, six people entered the EDO arms factory in Brighton, and proceeded to carry out a people’s decommissioning. Equipment used to make weapons’ components was smashed, and computers and filing cabinets were thrown out of windows. EDO claimed they had suffered £300,000 of damage – no mention, of course, of the damage being caused by their weapons in Gaza. All six were…