Shameless UKTI plans arms trade missions to Libya and Saudi Arabia

The conflict in Libya has only just ended but already the UK government is preparing to sell arms to the new government, just as it did to the Gaddafi regime. Business, Innovation and Skills Minister Mark Prisk has revealed that UK Trade & Investment Defence & Security Organisation (UKTI DSO) would send a trade mission to Libya in February 2012.

Answering a question from Teresa Pearce MP just days after the death of Colonel Gaddafi, Mr Prisk also said UKTI would be sending trade missions and be participating in arms fairs in 24 foreign countries during the remainder of the financial year. Several destination countries have poor human rights records, including Colombia, India, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Kaye Stearman for Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) said:

The UK government is mounting a trade mission to sell arms to Libya as it emerges from a brutal and destructive conflict, even as it proclaims professes to support a democratic and peaceful Libya. UKTI is shameless in its desire to sell arms, whatever the consequences might be.

If we want to help a new government, we should offer to assist in disarming the population and collecting and destroying the weaponry that the UK and other countries so stupidly sold to Gaddafi.

Notes

1. Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) in the UK works to end the international arms trade. The arms business has a devastating impact on human rights and society and damages economic development. Large-scale military procurement and arms exports only reinforce a militaristic approach to international problems Around 80% of CAAT’s income is raised from individual supporters.
2. 1.The full answer by Mark Prisk is listed as Column 222W in Hansard.
3. The government’s arms sales promotion unit is UK Trade & Investment Defence & Security Organisation (UKTI DSO). UKTI now employs 160 civil servants to sell arms, which represent only 1.5% of exports.
4. The UK continued to licence arms exports to Libya until mid-February, when the government began to revoke licences. Up till February 2011, and the UN arms embargo, UKTI DSO listed Libya as a priority market country, and had a team resident in Tripoli. Libya was routinely invited to UK arms fairs, including Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) 2009 (although it did not attend). The UK had by far the largest pavilion at Libya’s arms fair LibDex in 2010, and was supported by a team from UKTI DSO. In late September 2011 Lord Green, Minister for Trade and Investment, visited Libya and announced that the Export Credits Guarantee Agency (ECGD) would resume cover for UK exports to Libya.
5. Saudi Arabia has been a major buyer of UK weaponry since the 1960s. UKTI DSO lists Saudi Arabia as a priority market country, and has a team resident in the country. The UK routinely invites Saudi Arabia to attend UK arms fairs, including DSEI 2011.
6. UKTI has organised two trade missions to Saudi Arabia, in November 2011 and March 2012. The November trade mission is co-organised with ADS, the arms industry trade body, to co-coincide with IFSEC Arabia in Riyadh on 20-22 November, where UKTI will have a stand. The trip is advertised as an opportunity to meet the decision makers of the major Saudi organisations active in Saudi Arabia’s Defence and Security sector.
7. UKTI DSO has also planned a trade mission to Qatar in March 2012 and will be exhibiting at the Dubai Airshow in November 2011 and the Gulf Defence & Aerospace arms fair in Kuwait in December 2011, plus arms fairs in Dubai (UAE) in January 2012 and Qatar in March 2012.
8. Recently released government figures for the period March-June 2011 figures for the period March-June 2011 revealed that the UK government continued to issue licences for arms exports to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other authoritarian states in the Middle East and north Africa, even as popular protests swept the region. There were no sales licensed to Libya in this period as it was under a UN arms embargo.
9. Members of the government have aggressively promoted arms exports. David Cameron was accompanied on his visit to the Middle East in February by the representatives of eight arms companies but insisted the UK has nothing to be ashamed of.Gerald Howarth, Minister for International Security Strategy, stated at a fringe event at the 2011 Conservative Party Conference:
   

   In the British defence industry we have a world beater… And what I’ll try to do is work flat out to try to get export orders for the Hawk… We liberated the Iraqis from a tyrant, we liberated Libya from a tyrant, frankly I want to see the UK business benefit from the liberation we’ve give to their people.

10. The annual report of the parliamentary Committees on Arms Export Controls published on 5 April 2011 was highly critical of the government’s arms export policy and stated that successive governments had misjudged the risk that arms approved for export to certain authoritarian countries in North Africa and the Middle East might be used for internal repression. It also posed the question of how the government: intends to reconcile the potential conflict of interest between increased emphasis on promoting arms exports with the staunch upholding of human rights. A parliamentary debate on arms export controls was held on 20 October 2011.

ENDS