Cameron is Traveling Arms Salesman for UK Weapons to Middle East fascist markets of repression

David Cameron Under Fire Over Gulf Arms Deals With UAE, Saudi Arabia
The Huffington Post UK – 5 November, 2012

Saudi Arabia, David Cameron, Polls, Campaign Against Arms Trade, Gulf States, Arms Trade, Dubai Arms Deal, UAE, UK NEWS, Uk World, UK Politics News

The Prime Minister has been accused of acting like “a traveling salesman for the arms industry” as he begins a visit to Gulf states aimed at selling British-made jets.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph as he arrived in Dubai as part of a three-day tour of the Gulf and the Middle East, David Cameron said: “We do believe countries have a right to defend themselves.

“And we do believe Britain has important defence industries that employ over 300,000 people and so that sort of business is completely legitimate and right.”

Cameron has been open about his desire to sell arms to the Saudis, the UAE and Oman.

But anti-arms campaigners have taken aim at the prime minister for the deals done with states that routinely abuse human rights.

British arms have been in the centre of some of the bloodiest conflicts of the last few years, with weapons exported to Libya under Colonel Gaddafi and to Bahrain, where the government responded with extreme violence against anti-regime demonstrators.

Amnesty International UK’s Head of Policy and Government Affairs Allan Hogarth said: “Selling arms to countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE should only be considered if there are absolutely watertight guarantees over them not being used to commit human rights violations.

“Saudi Arabia has been the recipient of record-breaking arms deals involving the UK, yet these have been highly secretive and there’s been little or no follow-up over how the weaponry was used.

“For example, in 2009 the Saudi air force used UK-supplied Tornado fighter-bombers in attacks in Yemen which killed hundreds – possibly thousands – of civilians.

“In one attack conducted by Saudi forces on the town of al-Nadir in November 2009, so many were killed in just one extended family that witnesses say the family ‘had to create a cemetery for themselves’.

“More than two years ago we called for the UK government to urgently investigate Saudi Arabia’s involvement in this episode and meanwhile suspend any further arms supplies to Saudi Arabia. …more