Uni students protest against arms trade in national day of action

Students at five UK universities held co-ordinated protests on a day of action against the arms trade. The day of action on 6 March aimed to challenge the arms companies that are present in universities and local communities. Protests took varying forms, from occupying company offices to taking action against arms company recruitment, but all carried the same message: The arms trade is not welcome in our community.

Protests took place at:

• Students mobilised in Swansea when they heard that the university had organised a careers event with Marshall Aerospace. They planned a leafleting action to raise awareness of what the company does. The careers event was then cancelled.
• Weapons out of Warwick occupied the reception of General Dynamics, and blocked the doors with hazard tape warning arms trade at work. They highlighted General Dynamics’ indiscriminate sales of arms worldwide, including to General Gaddafi’s regime in Libya.
• Lancaster students staged a die-in on the Preston campus to protest against university shareholdings in BAE Systems, one of the world’s largest arms companies. BAE has close links with the university – the Lancaster University Management School (LUMS) runs a BAE specific course, the BAE Systems Certificate in Management.
• In London activists leafleted passers-by outside the offices of Lockheed Martin, possibly the world’s largest arms company, to raise awareness of the presence of arms companies in central London.
• Sheffield students staging a die-in in front of a Thales recruitment exhibition at a careers fair were manhandled off the premises by security guards. Thales is France’s largest arms company and is involved in manufacturing drones and missiles.

The day of action was organised by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) Universities Network. It took place six months before Defence Systems & Equipment International (DSEI), one of the world’s largest arms fairs, is scheduled to open. Activists have vowed to peacefully protest again in September when 1,300 arms companies head to London for DSEI

Beth Smith, CAAT’s outgoing Universities Co-ordinator, said:

Across the UK, students have shown that arms companies will not go unchallenged but will be met with resistance. This is particularly important in the run-up to the DSEI arms fair where arms companies will be flogging their wares to military delegations from repressive regimes and conflict zones.

ENDS

Notes

1. CAAT Universities Network exists to help students and staff in higher education to campaign to break the links between universities and the arms trade.
2. Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) 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. In 2012, CAAT was awarded a Right Livelihood Award, the Alternative Nobel Prize for its innovative and effective campaigning against the arms trade.
3. CAAT’s arms trade map of the UK enables people to learn more about the activities of the often secretive arms industry and to take action against the arms companies on their doorstep.
4. The DSEI arms fair, one of the world’s largest, takes place every two years. In 2011 it hosted delegations from Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and seven other authoritarian regimes. Delegations were also invited from countries involved in armed conflict, including Colombia, India, Iraq, Pakistan, Peru and Turkey.