Felllow Citizens:
"And British Prme minister Tony Blair is busy wondering as to why African Countries cannot achieve sustained economic development.
The answer, Mr. Prime Minister Tony Blair, is steering you right in your FACE... and you still cannot SEE IT!
In other words, Tony Blair's Britain has circumvented laws/controls placed on exports of weapons from Britain to countries such as Uganda. This in turn, has lead to unprecedented proliferation of weapons into conflicts area. ..result: wars and instability. ..and amidst wars and instability , there can be no meaningful sustainable economic development.
Matek
Uganda Beats UK Arms Ban - Report
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The Monitor (Kampala)February 28, 2004
Posted to the web February 27, 2004
Badru D. Mulumba & Agencies
Kampala International rights activists are calling on the UK to plug the loopholes Uganda has reportedly exploited to import arms.In a new report, Lock, Stock and Barrel, written by Oxfam on behalf of the Control Arms Campaign, the civil rights activists say that countries like Uganda have exploited a loophole that places weak controls on import of arms' components rather than full military hardware
Previously, Britain based its arms exports solely on human rights, conflict and poverty considerations.But in 2002, the Foreign Office reportedly introduced new criteria including weighing the implications for the UK defence industry in forcing it to discontinue existing contracts."
This means that British-supplied weaponry could continue to be serviced and updated by British companies, even if it were being used in the conflict," Amnesty says in a February 25 statement.Yesterday, army spokesman, Maj. Shaban Bantariza said: "That is their [UK] problem. What I know is that they tried to put difficulties in our way to purchase arms."The European Union had an embargo on the DR Congo and the countries involved in the crisis that has reportedly left up to three million people dead since 1998.A similar US embargo was lifted last year after Uganda pulled out of the DR Congo.
Oxfam, Amnesty International and the International Action Network on Small Arms jointly released the report on February 25."Components for deadly weapons are being sold to known human rights abusers," Amnesty (UK) media director Lesley Warner said."It doesn't take much to re-assemble them. And from there it takes even less to kill, to torture or to rape at gunpoint.
This loophole must be closed immediately."The report, allegedly the first of its kind, says that since 1998 the number of arms components licensed for export have increased eleven-fold from 1,600 in 1998 to 18,948 in 2002."The report reveals that the government is applying weaker controls to the export of components, compared to the export of full weapons systems," Amnesty says."
These double standards allow British-sold weapons components to end up in countries where they could ultimately be used to violate human rights."British military components are reportedly reaching countries like Zimbabwe, Israel, Indonesia, Uganda, Colombia, Nepal and the Philippines even though the sale of complete weapons systems to these countries is banned.Licences issued for the export of assault rifle components alone have reportedly risen from 10 in 1998 to 41 in 2002, including 23 "open" licences that allow multiple shipments.
In a statement reacting to Oxfam's report, UK's junior Foreign Office minister Baroness Elizabeth Symons said on Wednesday: "The report provides no evidence for its claim that we are not as tough on components of defence equipment as we are on complete systems."We simply would not issue a licence [for the export of a weapons component] where there was an unacceptable risk of it being misused or diverted."
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
