• Paul Walker ›ritish Aerospaci the BAe › (BAe) is Europe' largest manufacturer of weaponry, with military sales remaining steady at about £4 billion annually. About 75% of these sales come from the Middle and Far East.
As one of the world's most foremost arms suppliers BAe doesn't wait for armed forces around the world to come and beat a path to its door. It goes out and touts for business.
Such is the nature of the market economy that billions are made from weapons of mass destruction and the skills that could be used to the benefit of society as a whole - but consistently BAe has said no to any conversion of its military production to useful civil projects. Timor.
Instead BAe provided bombers that helped bomb Iraq flat and it is BAe Hawks that terrorise the population of East Timor.
British Aerospace arms the dictators who occupy some one else's country. It is time that they found out that this is not acceptable and that life was made a little more difficult for the big businesses that make money out of mass murder.
From February to April this year a spotlight will be put on BAe, beginning with a documentary that ex- The plains the role of Hawks in Converting arias tadores to produce other East Timor and ending with a campaigning presence at AGM which will call for arms conversion London. and point to BAe's support for Indonesia.
will be presenting an Death of a Nation?
A documentary by John Pilger "Death of a Nation" will be transmitted on ITV at 10.40pm on February 22nd. Filmed secretly in East Timor, it will tell all there is to know about the bloody repression occurring in East Timor and the questions. British Governments complicity in it.
It will also focus on the sale of arms to the Indonesian government by major weapons manufactures such as British Aerospace who supply Hawk fighter aircraft that are ideal for attacking liberation armies, such as FALINTIL, Outside the which is based in the mountainous areas of East Despite denials that the sian occupation. planes are used to repress East Timorese resistance all written statements by the Foreign Office on this be needed. issue refer to the Hawks not being used against the civilian population. This gives no guarantees as to its use against FALINTIL.
As a promotional sticker handed out by BAe at the Farnborough Airshow states the Hawk is "a lightweight fighter with a heavyweight punch".
Respectable BAe
1994 BAe Annual General Meeting will take RA Currenys 1977 John!) and let you feel. hings creates more jobs too Bala Kumar ook around. Fruit -and vegetables in our stores are harvested in Africa and the Caribbean. Our furniture is made from trees felled in SouthEast Asia and Scandinavia. Stereos, televisions and personal computers were designed in the United States but are built in East Asia. The music we listen to place on the afternoon of and clothes we wear are 26 April at the Marriot Ho influenced by West African, tel in Grosvenor Square, South Asian and AfricanAmerican cultures. Inside the AGM Cam- We live in an inter-depaign Against Arms Trade pendent world, "Al- regulated by the world marternative Report" to the ket. AGM and at a press confer- This global economy has ence which will call for BAe no concern for national to start converting from boundaries. military to civil production. It moves from country to country CAAT will have lots of re cheap labour and maxispectable looking people mum profits. asking lots of difficult NATO, UN & G7 The bosses and their Not So friends in government orRespectable ganise internationally. Their economic forum is Also inside there will be the annual Group of 7 ecoactions by much less re spectable looking people which will highlight for the press and media what the trade in military equipment means - it is death for sale.
AGM there will be a demonstration pointing to the role of BAe IDEAS United States ran disinvestment campaigns calling on their colleges not to