SchNEWS 321, Friday 6th September 20 (Fwd)

["glr" <glr.y at iol.it>]

This is SchNEWS, the weekly direct action newsletter 
published by Justice' in Brighton, England. 

This week's SchNEWS: http://www.schnews.org.uk/
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Published in Brighton by Justice' - Brighton's Direct Action collective
ISSUE 321, FRIDAY 7th September, 2001

ALL THE GUN OF THE FAIR

"The price of one British Aerospace Hawk Jet is roughly the amount needed to
provide 1.5 million people in the third world with fresh water for life." -
Campaign Against the Arms Trade.
"It is the trade in weapons that allows exploitation and murder to continue
around the world - On the 11th we are setting our sights on the arms trade." -
Disarm DSEi.
Every second the arms industry and global war machine continues to kill people
and destroy lives around the world. 2,000 children are killed or disabled by
weaponry every day - without counting those left without parents or homes.
According to the UN Human Development Report, in 1999 the world's governments
spent an estimated £450 billion to run their military machines. This is 14 
times more than is needed to eradicate 'absolute' poverty from the world.

Robin Cook - now about as trustworthy as a snake in a cage of hamsters - said
back in 1978 (when he was a lowly MP on the up): "Wherever weapons are sold
there is a conspiracy to conceal the reality of war... It is a truism that every
war for the past two decades has been fought by poor countries with weapons
supplied by rich countries." Any hint of integrity he may have had was soon
wiped out when Neo-Labour came to power in 1997 - Cook and his cronies lied
about their 'ethical foreign policy', but then signed papers to export weapons
in every class banned by European legislation.

UK arms companies thrive upon deliberately supplying opposing states, stirring
up conflict and making a killing. For example, in 1997 under the pretext of
setting up an aid programme to stabilise conditions in Lebanon, British firm
Alvis sold the Lebanese 3,500 rifles for £300,000. This after the rifles had
been sold as surplus to Alvis for £195,000 by the MoD, who suggested giving the
first 500 rifles free of charge as a sweetener! At the same time Israel, who
occupied large parts of Lebanon - were also buying weapons from British firms.
Or take the Iran-Iraq war, which saw 1million deaths, again Britain armed both
sides. The same thing is happening now in the escalating conflict between India
and Pakistan.

Bombs R Us

"In no other export sector is Britain so successful as in the arms business,
which is cosseted like no other industry" - John Pilger, 'Hidden Agendas'
While 1in 4 children in the UK grows up in poverty, arms exports are subsidised
to the tune of £420m, and the industry as a whole for as much as £4.25 billion.
British weaponry companies employ loads of Research and Development (R&D)
scientists to make their nasty machinery. SchNEWS wonders if these boffins 
could do something constructive instead.

In 1976, 13 unions in Lucas Aerospace put their heads together and composed a
"Combine Plan." They proposed that instead of military hardware they could make
useful products like kidney machines. The plan was ignored. We are now in the
ridiculous situation where there is a subsidy of £4,600 per arms export job. If
the R&D of £570m is included, this would rise to £11,000 a year. So you are
paying the salaries of defence workers. And what are the effects of this work?
"The boy near me died and I was thrown a metre in the air. The boy who died was
14 - he had his head cut off." - A 13 year old boy, who lost both legs,
describing the effects of playing with an unexploded cluster bomb, dropped as
part of NATO's 'humanitarian' bombing campaign in Kosovo.

Cluster bombs are one of the most indiscriminate weapons around, forget all the
'precision bombing' bullshit you see on the telly. Cluster bombs disperse a
whole load of 'bomblets' over an area up to three football pitches in size.
These bomblets can be anti-armour weapons, incendiary devices or fragmentation
bombs (effectively nail bombs) designed to maim rather than kill. The sale of
anti-personnel landmines is banned, but to get round it anti-vehicle landmines
with anti-handling devices are produced - sensitive enough to be detonated by a
human. And who ensured this loophole was included? No prize for
guessing it was UKplc.

Excel in Death

You might have missed the news (maybe cos there's been none), but the UK govt is
holding an arms fair in London next week. The Defence Systems and Equipment
international (DSEi) is the largest arms fair in Europe, and attracts arms
dealers from oppressive regimes such as Indonesia, Burma and even the US. Guns
of all deadly shapes and sizes, Hawk jets, warships, tanks, etc will be on sale,
making that boring old job of keeping peasants in line that little bit easier.
Kick-off with a neighbouring state over borders, religion or water? This is the
place to get seriously tooled up. Britain is the world's second largest arms
exporter, after the US of course. DSEi is taking over the entire EXCEL Centre in
London's Docklands.

         * Since WW2 there have been more than 250 major wars in which over 23
         million people have been killed.

         * There are an estimated 500million small arms and light weapons around
         the world, responsible for 500,000 deaths a year.

Breach the Peace

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----- 
Giorgio Ellero 
<glr.y at iol.it> - <glry at libero.it> 
http://digilander.iol.it/glry   
-----