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Blood money: UKs 12.3bn arms sales to repressive states
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: July 23rd, 2013
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blood-money-uk...
The [UK] Government has issued more than 3,000 export licences for military and intelligence equipment worth a total of 12.3bn to countries which are on its own official list for human rights abuses. The existence of one licence to Israel and the Occupied Territories [is] worth 7.7bn. The scale and detail of the deals emerged after a forensic investigation by a committee of MPs, who also discovered that strategically controlled items have been sent to Iran, China, Sri Lanka, Russia, Belarus and Zimbabwe all of which feature prominently on the Foreign Offices list of states with worrying civil rights records. There are even three existing contracts for Syria, notwithstanding the fact that the UK is sending equipment to rebels fighting the Assad regime and is considering arming them. There are also 57 for Argentina, which is not on the list, but which remains in confrontation with Britain over the Falklands. The Government had stated that it would not issue export licences for goods which might be used to facilitate internal repression or might provoke or prolong regional or internal conflicts. However, the report by the Committees on Arms Export Controls found there were 62 licences for selling to Iran, ... overwhelmingly cryptographic equipment. This also features heavily in the 271 licences for Russia, along with biotechnology equipment, sniper rifles, laser weapons systems, weapon sights and unmanned air vehicles (drones).
Note: For more on war profiteering, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
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