At the Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) exhibition, the atmosphere was jovial. Men in cargo trousers and polo shirts hovered around the light arms stands, sipping G&Ts. Senior military officials, their badges flashing on their lapels, laughed and joked with top brass from other nations’ defence forces. If not for the extra security and the blacked-out Mercedes and Maybachs outside, you could have been walking into any other expo at the London ExCel Centre.

Inside, too, were the same enthusiastic company representatives, showcasing their newest and most impressive technologies to a ready and eager audience. But these were no ordinary products. There were tanks, rocket launchers, attack helicopters. A queue of excited businessmen in suits waited their turn to play with the rocket-propelled grenade launcher and its accompanying virtual reality screen, encouraging you to fire the RPG towards an enemy base and watch it go bang. In a country with some of the most stringent gun laws in the world, passersby could casually pick up and play with the latest pistols, sub-machine guns and assault rifles.

Wandering around the world’s largest arms fair, it would be easy to forget that these guns, missiles and bombs are being used to kill civilians, all around the world. 

Outside, the protesters certainly had not forgotten. The celebratory tone at the fair was in stark contrast to this very public backlash against the British arms trade. Some described the event as “disgusting”; others spoke of their determination to keep up their demonstration despite already racking up court dates in the process. All in all, more than 100 people were arrested throughout the three-day event. 

“A lot of the policing we saw [against peaceful protesters] was ridiculous and over-the-top, actually quite violent and repressive,” says Andrew Smith of the Campaign Against Arms Trade. “It was completely unjustified by the circumstances… almost like the Conservative government would be embarrassed by such a protest because many of their allies who are coming in would never tolerate such a thing in their countries.” 

Pubic disapproval for some of these allies – as well as the industry as a whole – is widespread. The capital’s mayor, Sadiq Khan told the arms fair’s organisers to “get out of London”, while a 2017 poll found that only a quarter of British people believed their government should actively promote the sale of domestically produced arms to foreign governments. The vast majority deemed it “unacceptable” to sell arms to Saudi Arabia (62%), Russia (70%). China (63%), Pakistan (68%) any country that violates international human rights law (71%) or even non-democracies (60%).

Despite this, the UK government has continued to sell a third of its arms to countries on human rights watchlists, most of which had a presence at the arms fair. The stands reflected a whos-who of high-profile human rights violations, international law-breakers and controversial conflicts, often situated in close proximity with no sense of irony. 

Pakistan and India’s stands, for example, displayed their brightly coloured missiles and bombs within spitting distance of each other. Saudi Arabia’s defence industry (SAMI) proudly showed off its products while elsewhere in the hall, both its neighbour Bahrain and mortal enemy Israel showcased heavy weaponry, alongside private British company BAE and US defence contractor, Raytheon. 

From an economic standpoint, it makes sense for London to host an event like this. Westminster is keen to promote the UK arms industry, which accounts for 3.5% of GDP and directly provides 135,000 jobs domestically. The UK is the world’s second-largest arms exporter, generating £14bn worth of sales in 2018 alone. 

Of course, there are some restrictions. The UK government can’t sell weapons directly to countries placed under international sanctions, which theoretically rules out potential customers like Russia, Myanmar, Libya, Venezuela and Iran. However, loopholes are exploited all the time. Military hardware that can be deemed “dual-use” gets a free pass, allowing the UK to continue furnishing the repressive Libyan government with military-grade surveillance gear. Earlier this year, a UN investigation revealed that UK company Veripos used an intermediary in Singapore to sell technology to the Myanmar military, which is currently involved in an ongoing genocide that has left tens of thousands of Rohingyas dead and created a mass refugee crisis in Southeast Asia. 

Meanwhile, despite a partial embargo blocking sales of “any equipment which might be used for internal repression” to China, it emerged in June that Hong Kong police shutting down pro-democracy, anti-China protests were using rubber bullets and tear gas manufactured in the UK. There is evidence, too,  to suggest that the UK sold Turkey the phosphorus is used in chemical weapons attacks on Kurds in Northeast Syria in October. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, before his leadership of the Conservative Party, even lobbied for the sale of bomb parts to Saudia Arabia in the days following a lethal airstrike that killed 14 Yemeni civilians. He claimed that, if the UK didn’t, someone else would. Privately, some industry insiders echo this argument, arguing that exporting British expertise along with the weapons improves accuracy and helps reduce casualties. Certainly, the Saudi Arabian presence at DSEI did little to inspire confidence in the Gulf Kingdom’s professional capabilities in this regard: on the SAMI stand, a very young representative in a very expensive suit was vague on technical details but excitedly asked, “do you want to see the big bombs?”.

Those critical of the UK arms trade are unimpressed by this take, however. Patrick Wilkin of Amnesty International describes the decision to continue licensing arms sales to Saudia Arabia and its coalition members as “appallingly, shockingly irresponsible”. By propping up the country’s air force “despite a wealth of evidence of incredibly serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law”, he says, the UK has helped facilitate widespread civilian casualties and the deliberate destruction of vital infrastructure such as water wells.

The Supreme Court agrees. In June, the Campaign Against Arms Trade won a landmark case preventing the UK government from approving any new licences for military equipment for sale to Saudi Arabia, on the basis that this was unlawful. This was an extremely significant step, but as Wilkin points out, doesn’t cover existing sales contracts. 

“It is a partial victory,” he says. “We’re continuing to challenge the UK government on that one, because it seems completely illogical that the court could rule that the decision-making process wasn’t lawful, but that extant licences can continue to operate and shipments can continue to flow to Saudi Arabia.”  

What many people don’t realise, too, is that they may be inadvertently funding the arms trade with their own money. In the UK, employees alongside their employers contribute part of their salary to their pension pot each month. This money is then invested on their behalf by pension funds, with fund managers selecting the investments deemed to deliver the strongest returns. Very often, that includes the arms industry.

“The likelihood is that, unless they’re a really big company with their social responsibility concerns, they’re not that likely to look in a lot of detail at how responsibly the pension is invested,” explains Rachel Haworth, UK Policy Manager at ShareAction, a charity that campaigns for responsible investment. She says many pension funds invest passively, simply tracking the FTSE 100 rather than making an active call about where to entrust their money. Worse, a facet of the industry’s “problematic culture” is a tendency to dismiss the concerns of the very people whose money these funds manage.  

That’s not to say that individuals who object to their money financing the arms trade have no say in the matter. Under UK law, on written request, a pension fund must disclose the general sectors and top 20 companies they invest in, giving people a chance to raise objections or pressure their employer to change provider. You can also decide to switch to the pension company’s “ethical fund” (if they have one) – although as Haworth points out, while these are likely to exclude arms investments, the fund manager ultimately decides what constitutes “unethical”. 

From protests to legal action to divestment campaigns, pressure is mounting on the British arms trade. While campaigners agree that there’s still a long way to go (despite vowing to respect the Saudi ruling, for example, the UK government admitted in September to breaching the new rules three times in their first three months), CAAT’s Andrew Smith is optimistic about the future. Prominent political figures and parties are increasingly willing to take a stand, he says.  

“Historically, Labour governments and Conservative governments and Coalition governments would have set an identical policy on the arms trade, one of uncritical support for the Saudi regime and so on,” he says. “But that does seem to be changing. We’ve seen the Labour Party, SNP, Liberal Democrats all taking a very strong line against arms sales. It has changed the political dynamic in parliament quite significantly.”

If these parties maintain their position on the issue beyond the upcoming General Election in the UK in December, this could create genuine political will to change one of the most prominent – and controversial – of any British industry.

L'articolo How the UK’s Defence Industry Continues to Defy Popular Criticism proviene da InsideOver.

On Wednesday, Sept. 4, the United Nations published a report saying that the United States, the United Kingdom, Iran and France – among other countries – may be complicit in war crimes by backing the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen with arms, intelligence and logistics.

The UN panel that made the announcement also established a list of 160 politicians and military officers – including those from Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – who could face war crimes charges. They also highlighted the role of western countries on one side, and Iran on the other, in fueling the 5-year-long war in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries in the coalition, entered the Yemen war in 2015 in efforts to restore the previous government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Haddi, a sworn ally of the monarchies, after the Iran-aligned Houthis toppled him in late 2014.

Since, the restless war only grew increasingly polarizing, as prospects of peace between the Loyalists and the Houthis remain out of sight. According to the United Nations, which called the war “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”, 24.1 million Yemenis – out of a population of 30.5 million – currently need assistance.

By the end of 2018, the war has seen 4.8 million Yemenis displaced, 60.000 injured and over 10.000 dead, according to Humanitarian Response, a digital service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

But if the United Nations has only pointed out the complicity of Western countries recently, numerous nonprofit organizations were already denouncing the coalition’s arms suppliers on the same accusations.

As the Saudi-led coalition often failed to spare civilians in its attacks, organisations like Amnesty International, Campaign Against Arms Trade and Human Rights Watch have condemned Western countries, insisting that the arms the coalition uses come from Europe and the United States for the most part.

In October 2016, a funeral ceremony was hit in a deliberate air raid that had left 140 civilians dead. In April 2018, 30 people died during a wedding feast, 13 of which were children. Later in October 2018, a US-supplied bomb dropped on a bus in the middle of a road, leaving 41 children dead among a total of 51 victims.

Besides, there were other cases of schools and hospitals being bombed  – as well as, in early September, a prison where 100 inmates died. When standing in the face of accusations, Riyadh merely deemed those incidents as “sad mistakes”.

The war in Yemen, which currently stands as the most impoverished country in the Arab World, is all the more stained by human rights abuses, famine, rape, murder, torture and the forcing of children to fight. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have worked on blocking humanitarian aid as a war tactic, worsening the famine that threatens the majority of Yemenis.

The two monarchies currently head the lists of numerous European and U.S. arms suppliers. To countries such as the United States, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden or even Bulgaria, ending the war in Yemen is equal to terminating highly profitable arms deals.

In his first overseas presidential trip, in 2017, Donald Trump headed for Riyadh where he sealed, with Mohammad Bin Salman, a “historical” arms deal worth nearly $110 billion – and $350 billion over 10 years. Last June, France declared it had reached deals worth over 1.3 billion euros with Saudi Arabia in 2018. The monarchy’s deals with the United Kingdom had reached over 1.5 billion euros in 2017, whereas those with Germany accounted for 477 million euros.

In Britain, a recent report has estimated that the United Kingdom earned eight times more from arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other members of the coalition than it spent on aid to help civilians living under the conflict.

Campaign Against Arms Trade, a UK-based organization standing for the abolition of the international arms trade, has long condemned Britain’s arms supplying in the Yemen war. On June 20, the Court of Appeal ruled that UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen were unlawful, after a legal action taken by the Campaign Against Arms Trade. (The UK government still sells arms to Saudi Arabia and other countries of the coalition.)

In France, 17 non-profit organizations have called for France to stop supplying arms to Saudi Arabia and the coalition, in response to the airstrike that targeted the prison and killed 100 inmates on September 1. In Italy, Rete Disarmo pleads for a similar aim.

In contrast to their governments’ reticence in discussing the conflict, a growing number of other European non-profit organizations have proceeded to legal actions before the International Criminal Court, as well as their respective national courts.

Making substantial profits from the deals, the accused governments often rationalise about their arms trade with the coalition. In France, a politician, Fabien Gouttefarde – who is also president of France-Yemen Friendship Group – went as far as stating that, somehow, Yemen was accountable for the Charlie Hebdo attack, the deals, therefore, being strategic and legitimate.

“We must not forget Charlie Hebdo,” he said. “Deadly terrorist attacks have come from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, with fallbacks in Yemen. There was indeed a terrorist threat that the coalition helped to fight.”

But even if for some the coalition is leading a counterterrorism war, many reports have shown that, in contrary, the coalition – far from worrying about terrorism – cooperated with Al-Qaida against the Houthis (see the Associated Press’ “U.S.-allies, Al-Qaida battle rebels in Yemen”, August 7, 2018).

In last February, a CNN investigation disclosed that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates transferred US-made weapons to groups with ties to Al-Qaida and a militia whose commander had served with a Yemen-based branch of ISIS.

The Arms Trade Treaty, having entered into force in December 2014 upon which it was ratified by 104 countries (save the United States, China and Russia), ensures that no arms trade is permitted if there is a “substantial risk” that could violate “international human rights or humanitarian law,” among other contents.

But anti-trade advocates and the concerned governments do not appear to be in the same wavelength on what could constitute the “substantial risk”. Whereas some denounce human rights crimes, with a patent involvement of the arms suppliers, the governments in question often talk of mere “collateral damages”.

Following the death, on October 2018, of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who fled to the United States in fear of retaliation to his outright dissent from Saudi Arabia, Germany was the first Western country to impose arms-trade sanctions on Riyadh. Other countries, like Austria, Norway, Denmark and Finland, later proceeded to the arms embargo as well.

But the monarchy’s major arms suppliers, namely the United Kingdom, France or the United States, remained engaged in providing Saudi Arabia and its war allies with arms, intelligence and logistics, bolstering their offensive in Yemen until present days.

The arms trade embargo appeared to represent a mere non-event to Saudi Arabia – the world’s second arms importer – and the coalition. Besides the continual support from their customary allies, the Gulf monarchies engaged in the Yemen war have recently seen a growing number of European arms manufacturers settling locally.

In recent months, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have increased announcements of launching joint ventures and opening plants in partnership with Europe’s biggest arms industrials – names as big as Thales, Naval Group, Leonardo, Cockerill Maintenance & Ingénierie, Navantia, Airbus, M.B.D.A. and others.

L'articolo UK, US and France may be complicit in Yemen war crimes – UN report proviene da InsideOver.