Peace Matters Index

ONLINE contents

- barbarians at the gate
- non sibi sed patriae
- chancers crooks and con men
- wanted: a new global paradigm
- iran in a calmer light
- human rights


- compled issue pdf

strange role models
BAE Systems one of the worlds largest arms makers and currently under criminal investigation, has offered £400,000 to sponsor an academy in Barrow-in-Furness, where the company builds nuclear submarines. The scheme would replace three local schools with a single academy and the council is expected to make a decision about whether to go ahead very soon.
BAE's chief executive, Mike Turner, insisted that the company did not intend to be ‘lead sponsors’ of the project. ‘There has not as yet been any discussion about how any recognition might be given to BAE Systems and what relationship we might have with the governors of the academy.’
But Nina Hill, a member of the local pressure group Our Schools Are Not For Sale, said: ‘The sponsor will have almost total control of any new academy, and will be the signatory to the binding funding agreement.’
Retired headteacher Roger Titcombe added: ‘We would like some clarification. There have to be some rules about how votes are allocated for the selection of governors.’
Atotal of £2m was being sought to provide an endowment fund for scholarships and for residential projects. BAE would be part of a consortium; It appears that Lord Rothermere, whose family firm controls the Daily Mail, is also in talks with government advisers about sponsoring an academy.

deso closing but...
Alan Garwood, the head of the Defence Exports Services Organisation until last year, was made a CBE in the new year honours list. He may be a little disappointed as most of his predecessors received knighthoods, thought unlike him they had not been interviewed under caution by the police during the Serious Fraud Office's investigation into allegations that BAE paid bribes to secure Saudi contracts.
In December it was announced following on from the Prime Ministers statement earlier in the year that the DESO will close and support for arms exports will be provided by a new Defence and Security Group. As of writing the DESO website is encouraging companies to find out more about the benefits of becoming a partner.
After 40 years of campaigning for the closure of the DESO it is something of an anticlimax as clearly the motives for closure have little to do with curbing the arms trade.
The closure is a Treasury initiative and part of the comprehensive review of spending across Whitehall in a climate of falling tax revenues. Treasury officials question why arms companies should not pay for the services the DESO provides and disputes the claim that DESO-backed arms exports reduce the cost of equipment bought by UK forces (for example Britain bought the over-priced Hawk trainer jet from BAE purely to help the firm's exports, when an Italian equivalent would have been vastly cheaper, more capable and easier to maintain) All arguments that have been made by campaigners over the years.
The Treasury analyses also point out that the reputation of the British government is damaged by ‘promoting arms exports to countries with severe developmental shortcomings and/or human rights concerns (such as China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia’). Which given the governments other foreign policies is a bit cheeky.

‘The business of selling weapons has probably attracted more chancers, crooks and con men than any other major enterprise.’

Peace campaigners have to be realistic as well as idealistic about their hopes. The goal of achieving disarmament and demilitarisation requires confrontation with the vested interests that will and do fight tooth and nail to stop peace breaking out. Recent events have highlighted the reality of the corruption entailed in the military industrial complex. This time the Government itself has been exposed acting against the interests of British tax payers, propping up corrupt arms deals with Saudi Arabia and stopping a corruption investigation by the Serious Fraud Office which was getting too close to the truth. The subsequent international outcry, and legal challenges from peace campaigners mean this issue is a live topic for the peace movement in 2008.

Patiently over many years the Campaign against Arms Trade (CAAT) has worked to expose the corruption of the defence sales industry and its government stooges. For its sins, CAAT has been infiltrated, investigated and threatened by various groups. Recently CAAT’s campaigns against BAE Systems ( formerly British Aerospace), and against the Defence Export Services Organisation (the arm of government responsible for promoting the sale of arms) have had some apparent unexpected success. The Government has announced the closure of the Defence Export Services Organisation (much to the disgust of the Chief Executive of BAE). However some of its functions are being transferred to the DTI (now renamed the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform), so this is not the complete end of government support for the arms trade, but certainly a welcome start.

CAAT has produced a pamphlet, Bribing for Britain, by Tim Webb, to explain the government’s past and current involvement in the arms trade and with BAE Systems, and to outline specific proposals for further action by the government to stamp out all corruption and end all subsidies for arms exports. This pamphlet provides a clear and useful explanation of these complicated issues and gives positive ideas to raise in political campaigning. Tim Webb is a former Assistant General Secretary of the trade union that was MSF (Manufacturing, Science, Finance) now called UNITE, and he dealt with the main defence companies for 25 years. His final suggestions would not go far enough for some of us, but are stepping stones on the way.

The pamphlet makes disturbing reading. I hadn’t realised quite how much bribery had been part of the governmental promotion of the arms trade since the start of the Defence Sales Organisation (its original name) under a Labour government in 1966. (Apparently the first head of the DSO wanted to disguise its purpose by calling it ‘Export International Relations’. Shades of Orwellian Newspeak.) It is alleged here that ‘one of its fundamental principles was that bribery should be an integral part of its marketing effort.’ Sir Donald Stokes who was asked by the government in 1965 to enquire into the setting up of a sales body for British weapons, was apparently quite clear from the beginning that ‘a great many arms sales were made, not because anyone wanted the arms, but because of the commissions involved en route.’ Internal MOD discussions show that ‘bribery and corruption were to be at the heart of Britain’s arms sales as a matter of policy’. The top civil servant said ‘Sir Donald Stokes had indicated that it was often necessary to offer bribes to make sales.’ The Official Secrets Acts would prevent people asking awkward questions.

But international anti-corruption laws have changed, and the UK is now under considerable pressure from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and ironically from the US government, to clean up its act. The Serious Fraud Office has been investigating BAE since 2004 until forced by the government to drop the investigation into the huge Saudi al-Yamamah deal (though still investigating BAE deals with Romania, South Africa and Tanzania).

‘The Saudi regime has had Britain over a barrel for over 20 years and the barrel contains oil.’

The enormous al-Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia signed in 1985 gave BAE over £40 billion worth of business. ‘The people of Saudi Arabia and Britain were kept in the dark over what should have been a transparent and openly discussed contract.’ Tim Webb explains that some of the planes and material sold were not even good, up to date or workable: ‘much of the expensive whizz-bang hardware sold around the world has no genuine military purpose. The Saudis have always depended on the Americans to fight their battles for them, in return for cheap oil. It has since become obvious that the deal was riddled with bribes, sweeteners and facilitation fees that benefited just about everybody who had a piece of the action.’

BAE is now trying to deflect criticism by appointing Lord Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice to lead an ‘independent’ committee to scrutinise its ethical standards – however only current and future ones, not the past. Of course it won’t just be BAE that is implicated in the ongoing investigations but the Ministry of Defence, whose deep involvement has been exposed in the media. Bribery corrupts all those involved, including the government.

BAE Systems are also fighting back by showing their caring, ‘green’ side: they are working on designing ‘green’ munitions, lead-free bullets and rockets with reduced toxins. ‘Lead in ammunition can harm the environment and pose a risk to people.’ Unfortunately they are not joking. Might the idea of ‘green’ munitions at last unite the peace and environment movements in opposition?

When the Labour government came to power in 1997 there were hopes not only that action might be taken to reign in and control the arms trade, but that the Defence Diversification Agency which was set up by them might lead to some genuine interest again in using the skills of the UK’s scientists and engineers not for military research and design but for useful civilian purposes. However the agency never amounted to anything, and it was actually closed down in April last year, an announcement I had missed. ‘The fact that the best potential hope of alternative employment for their members had been abandoned attracted no public protests from the unions. It may have escaped their notice.’ One of the proposals of the author is that the original purpose of the Defence Diversification Agency should be restored, in consultation with trade unions, employers, universities, local authorities and other interested parties. Surely something we can all support.

This is a useful, timely and challenging pamphlet. It provides the background needed for campaigning on the arms trade, and answers questions you may be asked. The defence industry is changing fast, jobs are now very insecure, and BAE is less and less a British company – in fact it is expected to move its headquarters to the USA. All the arguments used in favour of the arms trade such as the support for defence jobs here and British interests, have had the rug pulled out from under them. There is no longer any rational justification for the UK involvement in the arms trade, even from the pro-defence lobby. It is positively harming British interests and Britain’s international reputation. For a government led by a Prime Minister who puts so much stress on pride in Britain, the arms trade is an embarrassment. The government must continue to be embarrassed until it is brought completely to an end.

Lucy Beck

Bribing for Britain, by Tim Webb
Goodwin paper no.5 ISBN 978-0-9543329-8-3 £3.00