by René Lavanchy
THE Government’s trade promotion agency defended its role promoting the arms industry this week, as British-based defence companies joined delegates from Zimbabwe and Sudan at an international arms fair.
Land Rover, Rolls-Royce and rifle-maker RPA International are among the firms at the IDEAS arms exhibition in the Pakistani city of Karachi. They are being supported by a delegation from UK Trade and Investment and officials from the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces.
But Campaign Against Arms Trade accused the Government of “consorting with human rights abusers” after Pakistani media reported that high-level delegations from Sudan and Zimbabwe – including Air Marshal Perence Shiri, commander of the Air Force of Zimbabwe. Sudan is subject to a United Nations embargo on moving arms to the war-torn region of Darfur, while the European Union has banned all arms sales to Zimbabwe.
Symon Hill of CAAT said: “By consorting with human rights abusers at an arms fair, it gives the message that those atrocities are not taken as seriously as they should be.
By sending a government unit to an arms fair, the Government is giving out a message about how lightly it treats those human rights abuses.”
Although neither Zimbabwe nor Sudan have exhibition stalls at this year’s show, IDEAS has previously welcomed delegates from Indonesia, Burma and Saudi Arabia, who have all been widely condemned for human rights abuses. Pakistani defence firms – on whom Sudan increasingly relies for military hardware such as fighter planes – are the biggest exhibitors this year.
A UKTI spokesperson said: “It’s entirely a matter for the Pakistani authorities who to invite. We’re happy for British companies to be there. There’s nothing to stop them coming forward to us.”
They added that anyone who wanted to buy equipment from a British firm would have to apply for an export licence, and it was “extremely unlikely” that Zimbabwe or Sudan would receive one.
But Symon Hill responded: “While it’s unlikely that Zimbabwe would receive an export licence, the issue of export licences is extremely ill-regulated and many regimes receive them quite easily including Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Colombia.”
UKTI took over promotion of defence exports after ministers announced the closure of the Defence Export Services Organisation last year.
But CAAT, which organised a protest outside their offices this week, says that UKTI’s newly-formed Defence and Security Organisation employs some 200 staff, compared to just 130 in the civil sectors.
