Ann Feltham - Campaign Against Arms Trade
www.caat.org.uk

Refugee Project parliamentary launch - summary of Ann's talk
The Campaign Against Arms Trade was set up in 1974 following the Middle East war the previous year. CAAT is working for the reduction and ultimate abolition of the international arms trade, together with progressive demilitarisation within arms-producing countries. It is non-party political, has no formal membership and welcomes support for any of its campaigns. A bi-monthly magazine gives details of these as well as providing information on arms exports and related issues.

War, conflict and human rights abuse cause people to flee and become refugees
Arms may not in themselves cause war, but can certainly prolong one and make it bloodier. Nor do arms necessarily lead to human rights violations, but they can assist them. Indeed, if it is a human right to provide everyone with the essentials of civilised life - housing, education, health care and the like - the massive global expenditure on military equipment is one of the biggest violations of them all.

However, some military equipment has more direct human rights implications. Over the years, CAAT has worked with refugee and exile groups from many of the countries to which the UK has supplied arms and where people have fled - Pinochet's Chile, Iran and Iraq, Indonesia, apartheid South Africa, Sri Lanka and Turkey to name but some.

Sometimes the equipment supplied is used
In the 1990's there was a major campaign to stop the export of Hawk aircraft and armoured vehicles to Indonesia. Despite the use of previously supplied aircraft and vehicles respectively to intimidate the people of East Timor and against protesters, the Conservative government granted an export licence and New Labour refused to revoke it.

There is an on-going struggle for independence in Aceh, in the north of the Indonesia. At the end of 2003, a human rights activist in Aceh now living in London with official refugee status, asked for a judicial review of the continued licensing of spare parts for Hawks and armoured vehicles, now known to have been deployed to Aceh. He pointed out where the equipment was being used in a way contrary to the Government's export licensing criteria. Unfortunately, the application for a judicial review was not granted as he could not show that the criteria had not been considered before export licences were granted. Arms can continued to be supplied to a country whose citizens have fled for their lives.

Credibility and international respectability
Arms exports don't just violate human rights directly. Such sales are used by governments of supplier countries as instruments of foreign policy, military equipment is sold to "friends", and with the equipment goes a message of political approval for the recipient government.

This argument is accepted when UK companies have not stood to lose financially. In 1991, for instance, an embargo on the sale of all military equipment was imposed on Burma, not a major customer for UK arms. There is no embargo, however, on Saudi Arabia - the biggest customer for UK arms - despite its poor human rights record and its current instability. If the government of Saudi Arabia falls, the UK tax-payer will foot a bill for £1,000 million. This is the amount of outstanding export credits for weaponry supplied there.

In July 2002, the Blair government even changed its rules to allow the export by BAE Systems of components for F-16 fighters being made by the US company Lockheed Martin and sold to Israel. F-16s have been used against Palestinian civilians. According to Jack Straw the licences had to be granted to maintain US-UK military industrial relationship. No mention was made of human rights, or the plight of the Palestinian people who might be killed or rendered homeless as a result of his decision. Ironically, on this occasion, the changes made no difference as Israeli-made components were used in the Israeli F-16s.

Who is responsible?
UK governments not only allow arms sales to happen - they support and promote such exports. The Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO), part of the Ministry of Defence, has 600 civil servants working to promote UK military exports. Military exports account for under 1% of all UK visible exports but get between a third and a half of the Export Credits Guarantees. A great deal of these guarantees go to one company, BAE Systems. The profits from the sales go to the companies, not the UK taxpayers.

The companies say the Governments are responsible for export licensing and that they behave in a legal manner. This, however, ignores the huge amounts of lobbying done by the companies and the very close links they have with Government.

I would like to end on an optimistic note. Arms exports and the Government's promotion of them are increasingly being challenged and I will give two examples of this. In one case, I was buying mail order goods on the telephone last week and gave CAAT's address for the delivery. The woman on the other end of the phone expressed her support for our work and wished us "good luck". Secondly, the Defence Manufacturers Association is obviously upset by the bad press the industry is getting. Its website has a whole section of "topical issues", most of them poor attempts to refute briefings prepared by CAAT and other groups working against the arms trade.

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