Arms giant BAE Systems was grilled this morning (19 July) by the House of Commons International Development Committee over the methods by which it proposes to pay almost £30 million in “reparations” to the people of Tanzania ordered by the court in December 2010 between the company and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) has denounced the process by which BAE Systems, the wrongdoer, is planning to distribute the funds, bypassing the government of Tanzania and disregarding the advice and expertise of the UK’s Department of International Development (DfID).

DFID told the Committee that funds should be distributed in accordance with an agreement between itself and the Tanzanian government, with money spent by schools on teaching materials and improved classroom facilities, including 4.4 million textbooks and 2 million desks, and teacher accommodation. 

The Committee urged BAE to think again on this and distribute the money fully in accordance with the plan before the Committee’s report is completed in early October.

Full press release

The owners of this fair are Clarion Events, who also own the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEi) arms fair, a biennial event that takes place in east London, where countries with dubious human rights records are invited to buy the latest weapons.

London CAAT will be bringing the message that Clarion’s involvement in the arms trade is unacceptable and incompatible with their organisation of family-friendly events such as the Spirit of Summer Fair. Summery items, including a paddling pool, will be used to visualise the anti-arms trade message.

London CAAT will be at the show from 11am till 1pm on Saturday 14 May – the show takes place at the Olympia exhibition centre.

More info

They demanded a fundamental shift in the UK’s approach to arms sales: an end to the government promotion of arms exports and no more sales to repressive regimes and areas in conflict. A samba band played, while one of the protesters scaled the entrance to BIS to hang a banner above the entrance.

Read the full press release from Campaign Against Arms Trade

Magistrate Catherine Tubbs today gave permission for the plea bargain settlement agreed between the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and BAE Systems to be heard at Southwark Crown Court in London on Monday 20 December. At this unprecedented hearing a judge will be asked to confirm the final settlement.

More info here

While negotiations for an Arms Trade Treaty take place in New York, Coalition Government ministers will be participating in trade days at Farnborough. Vince Cable, Business Secretary, with overall responsibility for the government arms sales unit, UK Trade & Investment Defence & Security Organisation (UKTI DSO), will be there on Monday 19 July. Defence Minister Liam Fox, who has explicitly stated that arms sales should be a foreign policy tool, will attend on Tuesday 20 July.

But campaigners at Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) have hit upon a novel way to bring these alleged corporate criminals to justice. A website, BAE:The People’s Jury has been set up to invite members of the public to air their views on BAE’s activities.

The website includes useful information on BAE’s activities and invites comments from interested members of the public. It already features hard-hitting contributions from prominent US academic Mike Koehler and the anti-corruption campaigner, former ANC MP, Andrew Feinstein whose blog details how BAE’s dealings have undermined South Africa’s fledgling democracy.

BAE: The People’s Jury is open to everybody and all are invited to contribute their thoughts.

CAAT is also hoping that supporters will join them on 5 May, the day of BAE’s AGM. A People’s Jury will chase an effigy of BAE Chairman Dick Olver from the headquarters of the government’s arms sales department (UKTI DSO) to the AGM venue at QEII Conference Centre in Westminster.

Campaigners hope that the People’s Jury campaign will result in a major embarrassment for BAE’s board as campaigners pose tough questions at the AGM.

More details on the day’s events are available on BAE: The People’s Jury website.

For further information or an interview please contact one of CAAT’s Campaigns Co-ordinators, Sarah Waldron or Anne-Marie O’Reilly on 020 7281 0297. Email addresses are sarah@caat.org.uk or anne-marie@caat.org.uk

While the acceptance of guilt in relation to Tanzania is welcome, the investigations related to other countries including South Africa and the Czech Republic were far more significant. SFO investigations of deals with several countries were continuing up until today, and only last week the SFO charged a former BAE agent with corruption in relation to deals with several European countries.

The SFO settlement was announced in conjunction with the US Department of Justice whose fine concerned BAE’s deals with Saudi Arabia. While the combined fine is more significant, the UK penalty of £30 million is a tiny price for BAE to pay to see the end of the investigations that had been gathering evidence for years and were coming to a head.

Kaye Stearman, spokesperson for CAAT, says:

“CAAT is outraged and angry that the allegations about BAE will not be aired in a criminal court and that the Serious Fraud Office has accepted a plea bargain relating only to the smallest deal. After the Government stopped the SFO’s inquiry into the company’s Saudi deals, it was even more important the truth about its dealings in central and eastern Europe and Africa was made public. One day a former BAE agent appears in court charged with corruption, the next BAE is let off for an accounting misdemeanour.”

Nicholas Hildyard for The Corner House says:

“Given BAE’s admission of guilt today in the US concerning the Al-Yamamah contract, the UK should re-open its own Saudi Arabian investigation immediately. The company’s admission obviously calls into question its repeated denials of any wrong doing. Far from drawing a line under the allegations, today’s announcement simply raises far more questions and creates yet further demands for justice.”

Background

In December 2006 the SFO dropped its corruption investigations into BAE’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia, following pressure from BAE and the Saudi regime and a direct intervention from then Prime Minister Tony Blair. The decision was subject to severe criticism and prompted CAAT and The Corner House to launch a Judicial Review of the decision. In April 2008, the High Court ruled that the SFO Director had acted unlawfully by stopping the investigation – a decision subsequently overturned by the House of Lords.

The SFO began drawing up the legal papers for the recommended prosecution against BAE on 1 October 2009, following its six-year investigation into alleged bribery in BAE arms deals with several other countries (Chile, Czech Republic, Qatar, Romania, South Africa and Tanzania). BAE is alleged to have paid bribes, often in the form of commissions to “advisers” on the deals, to clinch the sales.

On 29 January 2010, the SFO charged Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly with conspiracy to corrupt in connection with BAE’s deals with eastern and central European governments including the Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria. On 4 February he appeared in Westminster Magistrates Court where he was released on bail under conditions. The next day the SFO dropped all charges “in the public interest” and Mensdorff-Pouilly left the UK.

For further information or an interview please contact:
Kaye Stearman of CAAT, on 020 7281 0297 or 07990 673 232
or Nicholas Hildyard of The Corner House on 01258 473795

On Tuesday 2nd February 2010 in London, there will be a discussion of the growing anti-militarist movements in Latin America, featuring activists Pelao Carvallo, a Chilean living in Paraguay, and Rafael Uzcategui from Venezuela. This event will be presented by War Resisters’ International and hosted at Housmans radical bookshop, and will be conducted in English and Spanish, with interpreters.

Housmans has been selling radical books for fifty years, and is one of the last remaining radical bookshops in London. The biggest threat to independent bookshops is Amazon, which imposes poor conditions on its workers, and whose near-monopoly allows it to squeeze small publishers. Housmans recently launched its own online bookshop, with half a million titles, to provide an ethical alternative to Amazon.

The event will begin at 19:00, and the address is 5 Caledonian Rd, London N1 9DX (nearest tube King’s Cross).

Arms company Heckler & Koch has been in the news this week. It seems that H&K, whose international sales office is located in Nottingham, is still in the business of arming regimes that are well known to commit gross violations of human rights. Notts Anti-Militarism looks at three examples from around the world.

Manipur, India

Victims of police violence: a pregnant woman and an unarmed suspect, executed in a crowded market in Manipur, July 2009.

Ever since the state of Manipur was annexed by India in 1949, there has been armed conflict between separatists and the Indian government. In 1958 the Indian government passed the notorious Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), which gives military personnel powers to arrest or kill anyone they want within a so-called “disturbed” area.

The state of Manipur was declared a “disturbed” area, and was heavily militarised, with land across the state being confiscated to set up army camps. There followed decades of grievous human rights abuses, with Indian police and paramilitaries inflicting beatings, rapes, torture, forced labour, disappearances and extrajudicial killings, all the while protected from prosecution by the AFSPA.

Here’s one example: In 2004, Indian troops raided the home of a 32-year old woman called Manorama Devi, whom they suspected to belong to a separatist group. They arrested her and took her away. Her bullet-riddled corpse was found the next day outside a nearby village. She had been tortured and raped, and then shot in her vagina at close range.

Far from quashing the insurgency, this brutal repression has only made it worse. The government’s solution? Buy better guns! And this is where Heckler & Koch comes in. A senior police official has revealed that Manipur police commandos will soon be equipped with 1000 Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns, at a cost of around £850000.

Heckler & Koch cannot be unaware of the gross human rights abuses of its latest customers. The situation in Manipur has been documented for many years. However, that would not appear to be an impediment to business.

The Philippines

To discover the connection between Heckler & Koch and the worst ever atrocity against journalists, we have to go to South-East Asia and the Philippines. This archipelago nation has a terrible human rights record, with state security forces practising vigilantism, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

Filipino soldiers armed with modern Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles.

The Philippines has also been one of H&K’s best customers. Over the years the Filipino police and military have been equipped with a variety of H&K assault rifles, sniper rifles and submachine guns.

The endemic corruption of the Filipino security forces provides one of the many routes by which H&K weapons flow from the legal arms trade to the black market. Last year, several high-ranking military and police officials were arrested for taking 72 H&K submachine guns from a police depot and selling them to a Taiwanese-led gunrunning syndicate.

The President of the Philippines is Gloria Arroyo. Until very recently, her chief ally in the south of the country was the Ampatuan clan, which ruled province of Maguindanao. The Ampatuans delivered many votes for Arroyo in the 2004 and 2007 General Elections, which were marred by widespread fraud and violence. In return, the Arroyo administration tolerated the Ampatuan clan’s internecine chainsaw murders.

The scene of the Ampatuan massacre

On 3rd November 2009, local politician Esmael Mangudadatu sent his wife, accompanied by a convoy of journalists, to file his intention to run for governor against the Ampatuans. The convoy was stopped by police and Ampatuan militiamen, and everyone in it was abducted and killed. Several of the women were raped and then shot in the vagina. More than 30 journalists were slaughtered, making this the deadliest recorded attack on journalists.

In the aftermath of the massacre, an arms cache was discovered next to the mansion of the Ampatuan regional governor. Among the weapons recovered was a Heckler & Koch HK11 machine gun.

Once again, there can be no way that Heckler & Koch is unaware of the state-sponsored violence and corruption in the Philippines. And yet the company has continued to arm the regime with the latest in assault weapons.

The US Marine Corps

During the US-led “War on Terror”, the US Marines have committed numerous war crimes and serious abuses of human rights. Among those that have come to light:

US Marine with H&K submachine gun

• During the 2004 offensives against the Iraqi city of Fallujah, US Marine snipers deliberately shot civilians and medical personnel and vehicles, killing thousands. The Marines’ tactical siege and destruction of the city amounted to collective punishment, which is a war crime.
• In November 2005, a US Marine unit went on a rampage in the Iraqi town of Haditha, using guns and grenades to slaughter 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians including women, children and old people. When interviewed, US Iraq war veterans described such acts as common, and said they often go unreported and almost always go unpunished. The Marines are responsible for similar massacres in Afghanistan.
• There has been widespread torture and abuse of detainees by US Marines in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo. Documented abuses include beatings, electrocution, burning, sexual abuse and mock executions.

Of course, none of this matters to Heckler & Koch, which stands to profit a great deal from the Marine Corps. H&K already supplies the Marines with submachine guns, and it was announced this week that H&K is almost certain to win a contract to supply the Corps with thousands of state-of-the-art automatic rifles in a deal worth millions of dollars.

Conclusion

In one week, three separate news stories have illustrated how forces that are well known to commit serious human rights abuses, war crimes and crimes against humanity are continuing to be armed with modern Heckler & Koch weapons.

These are only the latest examples in a disgraceful history of arming the world’s oppressors. If there is one lesson to be learned from 60 years of Heckler & Koch, it is that the company should not be allowed to reach 61. It should be shut down and its employees held to account for the abuses that they have knowingly profited from.

There is a campaign against Heckler & Koch based in Nottingham called Shut Down H&K. There have been monthly pickets at the company’s Nottingham warehouse since May 2008.

Join CAAT supporters from around the country for a day of speakers, discussion and inspiration!

The event will include workshops on topics from arms fairs to corporate mercenaries to challenging the arms industry’s jobs argument, and offer the opportunity to hone your skills in making the most of the media, lobbying to win and more.

With an election looming and BAE Systems taking advantage of the recession to claim they invest ‘more and more in UK manufacturing’, this year’s event will provide the facts, skills and passion you need to challenge government support for the arms trade and tackle the arms industry’s spin.

Book your place online or contact Julia by e-mail or on +442072810297.