With Saudi Arabia as Western Economic Engine for Arms Trade there is no Margin left for Human Rights

Arms sales and human rights don’t mix, UK told
The Guardian – 23 October, 2012 – Richard Norton-Taylor

MPs have finally recognised what has been blatantly obvious for a long time: human rights and arms exports do not go well together.

This conflict always made a nonsense of the Labour government’s call for an “ethical dimension” in foreign policy though the late Robin Cook did his best to try and reconcile Britain’s role as one of the biggest sellers of weapons with its stated aim of protecting human rights around the world.

Now, the House of Commons foreign affairs committee has called on ministers to be “bolder in acknowledging contradictions between the UK’s interests overseas and its human rights values”.

The government should not be trying to assert that the two can co-exist freely, said the crossparty committee of MPs. It should instead explain publicly its judgments “on how to balance them in particular cases”.

The MPs pointed out that the Foreign Office human rights reports name Saudi Arabia a “country of concern” adding that there have been “incremental improvements” in the country’s human rights (albeit, as the MPs observe,”from a very low base”.)

Yet the FO does not include Bahrain as a “country of concern” despite the fact that significant number of people were killed there in 1911 in the violent repression of demonstrations which included widespread use of torture.

And despite being designated as a “country of concern”, Saudi Arabia is described by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), as being a priority market for UK arms exports.

The value of arms-related goods for which licences for export to Saudi Arabia were granted in 2011 was £1.7bn, greater than the value of comparable licences for export to any other single country, according to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

BAE, Britain’s biggest manufacturing company in terms of number of employees reeling from the failed merger with EADS, Europe’s biggest arms company, is currently trying to negotiate a £7bm arms deal involving the sale and maintenance of 48 Eurofighter/Typhoon jets to Saudi Arabia, for long one of the most lucrative markets for British arms.

The latest official figures show that Whitehall approved a further £8m military exports to Saudi Arabia in the second quarter (April to June) this year. It sold nearly £3m to Bahrain over the period.

It included some assault rifles and pistols. A footnote on the list now on the BIS website, states: “HMG exceptionally agreed to a number of firearms and associated accessories to Bahrain for personal sporting use. They are not for use by the Bahraini security services, law enforcement agencies, or armed forces.”

The government at least seems to be sufficiently “concerned” to negotiate conditions on the sale of arms to Bahrain. Indeed, so sensitive is it that when it signed a defence cooperation agreement with Bahrain earlier this month it did so with the absolute minimum of publicity. What publicity there was came from the Bahraini side with the Crown Prince, Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, hailing it as “mirroring deep-rooted historic relations bonding Bahrain and the UK”.

With friends like that… …source