South Korea 2011 Peace & Disarmament Exhibition “Let's Talk about Peace Now ”

The Seoul International Aerospace & Defence Exhibition (ADEX) was held from the 18th to 23th of October, 2011 at a Seongnam airbase.

Many organisations including; Weapon Zero Team Korea, World Without War, and PSPD Center for Peace and Disaramament hosted the 2011 Peace & Disarmament Exhibiiton “Let's Talk about Peace Now” at the Bosingak Square during the Seoul Adex, from 22th to 23th.

The event was hosted not just by Peace Groups but also by 33 members of Parliament, human rights groups, and environmental and aid organisations for North Korea.

This is the second year of the Peace & Disarmament Exhibition which was designed to raise awareness about increasing armaments, trading and developing weapons in the name of national security.

The exhibition aims to highlight the routing of funding towards militarisation and away from investment in safety and peace initiatives for citizens.

Enormous quantities of citizens' taxes are being spent facilitating production and development of various weapons with fatal destructive powers and a high degree of accuracy but disregard the vicious circle of conflicts that contributes to loss of human life and global instability.

There were various programs, including exhibitions of many different weapons, the problems of a defense budget that recieves disproportionately high levels of funding compared to education and welfare, the seriousness of Jeju naval base, nuclear power, materials aimed at children, peace movies, open forums for discussion, a peace concert and theater. Attendees particularly enjoyed the films on nuclear power, the theme of the first day of the event. The second day's focus Jeju naval base attracted many citizens.

Seoul ADEX (Seoul International Aerospace & Defence Exhibition)

SEOUL ADEX is a defence exhibition, held every two years and celebrated its 8th birthday this year. The Seoul ADEX attracted 314 enterprises from 31 different countries including Agusta Westland(Italia), Boeing(US), Lockheed Martin(US), General Electric(US), Raytheon(US), Elbit Systems(Israel), IAI(Israel), SAAB(Sweden), Rolls-Royce(UK), TAURUS(Germany), MBDA(France/UK/etc). The total value of orders domestic companies were awarded during the official business days (from 18th to 21th) was approximately 650 million USD. The government also came to assist the Seoul ADEX actively. The prime minister was a honorary chairman of the organising committee and the Minister of National Defence, Knowledge Economy and Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs were a vice-president of it. The Ministry of National Defence offered the Seongnam Airbase, a billion won and 1,400 troops, and got 74 important figures of the world of military from 42 countries visited to Seoul ADEX.

It was estimated that 250,000 people visited the Seoul ADEX during the public day. Defence Acquisition Program Administration invited 60 children from the Community Child Centre in Seongnam region and the children watched the aerial acrobatics by T-50 supersonic jet trainer, an export contract was signed with Indonesia.