[A-List] UK corporate state: exports success

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

MoD makes it easier to sell weapons

Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday November 25, 2002
The Guardian

The government has loosened controls on arms exports since the September 11
attacks, supplying weapons to countries seen as "on side" in the "war on
terror" even if they have poor human rights records, a new report claims.
Despite highly critical human rights assessments by the Foreign Office,
wide-ranging open-ended export licences have been granted to Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, says the report on Labour's foreign policy
record out today.

"The government has not explained the rationale for these exports," it says.
"Although open licences are supposed to be for countries with which the UK
has a long diplomatic relationship, a British embassy was only established
in Tajikistan in December 2001".

Uzbekistan's rights record is particularly dire, it notes. According to the
New York-based Human Rights Watch, "torture and other abuses in Uzbek
prisons and police precincts remain commonplace".

The report, The Missing Link in Labour's Foreign Policy drafted by the
Institute for Public Policy Research and Saferworld, says the government's
achievements on aid and debt relief have been harmed by a permissive
approach to arms exports.

It refers to the sale of Hawk jets to Indonesia, Hawk parts to Zimbabwe,
arms to India and Pakistan when both sides were on the verge of war, parts
for American F16 jets to Israel, and an expensive BAE-made military-grade
air traffic control system to Tanzania.

It also attacks as overstated the economic benefits of arms exports. It
points to a study by Ministry of Defence and independent economists which
says that while halving arms exports would lead to a loss of 49,000 jobs,
this would be offset by the creation over five years of 67,000 new jobs in
non-defence employment.

The government should introduce a "presumption of denial" for arms exports
to an agreed list of countries of concern, strengthen the commitment to
sustainable development in the licensing process, monitor the end use of
arms exports, and implement its manifesto pledge to control arms brokers and
traffickers "wherever they are located", says the report.

Export controls should cover components and weapons systems, public funding
for the MoD's defence export services organisation should be phased out,
British defence attaches abroad in countries of concern should end their
role of promoting arms sales, granting of export licences should be
conditional on companies agreeing to "no bribery" pledges, and the
government should introduce prior parliamentary scrutiny of licensing
decisions, the report adds.

Weakening arms export controls as part of the war on terror is
counterproductive, said Paul Eavis, director of Saferworld, adding that
Britain should learn the lesson of Iraq, which was armed by the west in the
1980s.