War Profiteers

Interpretation:The seminar languages will be English and Spanish. If you don't understand one of these languages you will need to tune to our interpretation system. For this you need to bring your own radio receiver, it can be a normal radio, a mobile phone with a radio, or mp3 with a radio. Please don't forget it!

The seminar will take place at the Salesian Residence Martí-Codolar.

Address: Avda. Cardenal Vidal i Barraquer, 15, 08035 - Barcelona.

HOW TO ARRIVE

On April 12, 2011, the International Peace Bureau (IPB) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) co-organized the first-ever Global Day of Action on Military Spending. We judge the Day to have been a great success, both in terms of the number and geographical spread of the activities undertaken, and the rich variety and inventiveness of the actions. We felt we accomplished our major goal of making visible the issue of military spending.

We’re on the eve of the first-ever Global Day of Action on Military Spending, and the turnout has already exceeded all of our expectations. There will be more than 100 actions in at least 35 countries. We have multiple events in Australia, New Zealand, and India. There will be actions in Okinawa, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and many parts of Europe. There will be flash mobs and demonstrations and speak outs and petitions and films and marches and much, much more.

Rosa Moiwend

Background

Papua is the western half of New Guinea, the world’s second largest island, located about 200 km from the north of Australia. When the Dutch colonised this territory, it called it Dutch New Guinea. The name of this territory has changed over time according to its political status. The Papuan political leaders then changed the name of Dutch New Guinea to West Papua when they prepared for the self-government of this territory in 1961. As soon as the Dutch left in 1962, Indonesia took over the territory, and then West Papua became one of the Indonesian provinces, called Irian Jaya. In 1999, the demand for independence from Papuans increased. In 2001 the Indonesian government granted a Special Autonomy status for Papua under law number 21, and accepted the original name of Papua. Yet, the autonomous status does not mean self-government. All development policies are still under the control of Jakarta, including the policy over investment in natural resources. Moreover, Papua is the only province of Indonesia which it is still identified as a conflict zone under the national defence policy after East Timor became an independent country in 1999 and after Acheh Province signed a Peace Agreement in 2008.

The events in the Middle East and north Africa have highlighted that the governments who have ignored human rights issues to support and sell arms to authoritarian regimes are not only hypocritical and immoral, but also short-sighted in terms of /realpolitik/. Politicians squirm yet remained shameless when pressed on shameful dealings in the not-so-distant past.

In the UK, the arms trade is in the spotlight. As revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East challenge authoritarian regimes, they also challenge the UK government's approach to arms sales.

On February 11, 2011, a group of Belgian peace activists blocked the entrance of the Israeli company Agrexco’s distribution centre at Liège Airport. The activists protested against the import of agricultural goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. The settlements are in violation of international humanitarian law. Agrexco facilitates the economical growth of the settlements by exporting their agricultural produce to the worlds markets.

On 11 March 2011, the Platform against the BBVA bank of Bilbao held a gathering and a protest outside the BBVA shareholders’ meeting held in the Palacio Euskalduna in Bilbao. Both were very successful. Participation in the protest was high and the action was carried out at the entrance of the thieves’ cave (as it has been labelled by many during the protests) without any incidents.

Cécile Barbeito & Josep María Royo

Coinciding with the celebration of the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona (Spain), several groups took action in order to raise awareness about coltan and its links with the electronics industry and the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).1

The World Mobile Congress, celebrated between the 14th and 17th of February, which 50,000 people attended, filling up 98% of the hotels in the city, is the most popular event linked to the mobile phone industry in the world. The main actor behind such a large scale event is the GSMA, the organisation which represents the interests of the mobile phone industry.2 Although the aim of the congress was to “Lead the transformation”, none of the sessions addressed issues of corporate social responsibility linked to the question of coltan.

Frank Slijper

After the bloody suppression of protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, the European Union (and the US) ordered an arms embargo that applies until today. From a human rights perspective this is fully justified: the situation remains appalling and attempts at democratic reforms are nipped in the bud. At the same time the embargo is also clearly politically motivated, to keep China as small as possible in military terms. While the economic relationship with China has grown, military co-operation rightly remains a thorny issue. Despite cracks in the embargo it won't be off the table any time soon. Yet it is a question how long the blockade will be maintained with China strengthening its power base.

Jordi Calvo

The uprisings in the Arab world have led to extreme violence in the country which has suffered the longest-standing and most repressive dictatorship of the Arab world. Due to the lack of information from the press, we suppose that the protests took place against repression on a smaller scale, perhaps at the hands of Libyan security forces who, when faced with the success of these uprisings, did not want to face their people. Therefore it is presumed that those who are using military strategies are mercenaries. It is very difficult to know where these soldiers are coming from and whether they form part of private military organisations, which are playing an increasingly important role in current armed conflicts. It is also difficult to know what arms we are talking about when we hear the news that fighter planes and helicopters are shooting at the civilian population. However, it is not impossible to find out this information.

In 2009, global military spending surged to an all-time high of US $1.53 trillion. Given the numerous crises facing the planet -- economic, environmental, health, diplomatic – it is vital to create a global movement to shift this money to human needs. Thousands of organizations, and millions of individuals, support this point of view. Moreover, because of the global economic crisis, some governments are even beginning to cut military spending.