Ethical Foreign Policy

pipnasty · May 22, 2007

Really good article, as per usual, from Mark Curtis in The Guardian and I agree / disagree with it's content.

"Yesterday's report by the NGO Saferworld documents the £45bn worth of arms delivered by Britain in the past 10 years, making us the world's second-largest arms exporter. In the past three years, arms have been exported to 19 of the 20 countries identified in the Foreign Office's annual human rights report as "countries of concern". The Colombian military and its paramilitary allies have killed thousands of people in the country's civil war. Yet last year Britain exported armoured all-wheel-drive vehicles, military communications equipment and heavy machine guns, alongside a military aid programme. Indonesia has received more than £400m worth of military equipment since 1997, while using British military equipment for internal repression on a dozen known occasions."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,,2085083,00.html

http://www.saferworld.org.uk/publications.php?id=264

The full report can be found here and included is a section detailing £130 million of arms sales to Iraq since 2003 including a delivery of 21,000 semi automatic pistols.

SkippyjonJones · May 22, 2007

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