As the war on Libya continues in its path of death and destruction, the dusty streets of the cities and villages and the yellow sands of the desert turn red with the blood of Libyans while the doctors and nurses struggle night and day with the maimed, wounded and traumatised.
What is the moral argument to stop these wars?
The UN Security Council must agree to stop selling arms to dictators running corrupt regimes that repress opportunity for its citizens to speak their mind. The UN Security Council must also have a mandate that states that any democratic country that wages war on its neighbours or engages in deliberate inflicting of suffering on its neighbours or another country loses the right to import or export weapons.
The Security Council could also follow the US constitutional model. No country can export or import arms with a leader who has remained in office for more than eight years. Politicians cling to power. Every country in the UN should have an opportunity to vote on this.
Why can’t the UN sign such a mandate to stop export of weaons?
The Permanent Members of the Security Council of the UN consists, China, France, Russia, UK and the USA, will not allow such a mandate.
What countries are the biggest sellers of arms?
China, France, Russia, UK and the USA.
Weapons do not grow out of the sands of the desert. We sell authoritarian regimes warplanes, missiles, tanks, aircraft canons, assault rifles, sniper rifles, sub-machine guns, armoured carriers, tear gas and crowd control ammunition. We continue to sell the entire infrastructure for the arms, such as surveillance technology, architecture for prisons and interrogation centres. We sell training in methods of interrogation, personal security, and spying equipment. Brutal regimes continue to send their personnel for training in the West to control protests on the streets. Colonel Gadaffi received his training in the UK prior to organising a military coup at the age of 27.
UK Defence Equipment Minister, said: “There will be a very, very, very heavy ministerial commitment to (arms sales). There is a sense that in the past we were rather embarrassed about exporting defence products. There is no such embarrassment in this Government.”
In February 2011, Prime Minister David Cameron visited the Middle East, accompanied by eight high-level arms trade representatives, to sell more arms to authoritarian regimes.
How much money is involved in selling arms to the Middle East and North Africa?
USA has signed to provide Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman with $123 billion worth of arms. Saudi Arabia is set to receive $67 billion worth of weapons in the largest weapons deal in US history. In 2009, the UK sold almost £1.7 billion worth of arms exports to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is a totalitarian regime. The Saudi Arabia government has ordered the beheading of more than 100 citizens per year for murder, rape, drug trafficking and armed robbery. Some beheadings are public. The government orders amputations of hands and feet, corporal punishment through flogging; sometimes inflicting hundreds of strokes. The government does not permit freedom of the press or freedom of speech. Only 5% of women work in Saudi Arabia. The government punishes relationships of the same sex, bans women from driving and does not recognise religious freedom. It is the only country in the world where the government has banned women from voting. Saudi Arabia has the world’s oil largest reserves and is the by far the largest exporter of oil to the West.
In 2009 alone, European governments – including Britain and France – sold Libya more than $470 million worth of weapons, including fighter jets, guns and bombs. When NATO has destroyed the Gaddafi regime and its weapons, our arms manufacturers will expect arms contracts with the next Libyan regime for billion of dollars as Libya seeks to rearm starting from scratch.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute documented that Washington accounted for 54 percent of arms sales to Persian Gulf states between 2005 and 2009. Before the war on Libya, the Obama administration had agreed to export another $77 million in weapons to Libya.
Is there a case to ban arm sales to countries with a democracy?
Yes. NATO employs weapons of terror in its wars on Arab nations. USA sells cluster bombs to Israel used to kill and maim citizens in Lebanon and the Gaza, as well as sell white phosphorous used to burn civilians and set fire to homes, factories and offices. Israel has imported from the USA, and employed, weapons with depleted uranium. Last week, UK Prime Minister refused to confirm in Parliament the use of missiles with depleted uranium on Libya, even though depleted uranium can cause cancer if civilians inhale tiny particles of such exploded missiles.
Until we make our governments stop supplying arms, the biggest world trade, then men, women and children worldwide will continue to suffer. A ban on selling of arms would constitute the biggest step forward ever for human rights in the entire history of humanity.
As the major suppliers, the Permanent Members of the UN are as guilty of human rights abuse as much as the dictators that they collude with for arms sales.
Arms dealers are like drug dealers. The suppliers must be stopped. The sellers of arms and the buyers of arms mutually engage in an obscene, corrupt and violent trade.
Feel your outrage. Protest