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UK arms exports examined - a thread
Our research from @murrayreports has found that Britain has approved exports of military goods to 80% of the countries on its own embargoed or trade restricted list in just over five years /1 https://aoav.org.uk/2021/uk-approves-military-exports-to-80-of-countries-on-restricted-list/
Our research from @murrayreports has found that Britain has approved exports of military goods to 80% of the countries on its own embargoed or trade restricted list in just over five years /1 https://aoav.org.uk/2021/uk-approves-military-exports-to-80-of-countries-on-restricted-list/
2/ More than 4,800 licences were approved in 5 years, worth £2.6 billion-many for high-value aircraft. But flying under the radar are £300m-plus worth of approved sales of small arms, explosives and crowd control equipment, going to dozens of nations on the DIT’s embargo list.
3/ Countries face trade restrictions on UK weapon exports for many reasons. Some are subject to specific UN or EU embargoes, others are regional like the ECOWAS convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons. Others are UK-specific, like a ban on supplying the Argentine military.
4/ Inclusion on the 73-strong list signals the UK government’s distrust of the nation's security/ human rights situation. Yet, 14 countries on the 30-strong Foreign Office “Human rights priority countries” list also feature in our 58 restricted receivers. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/human-rights-priority-countries-autumn-2020-ministerial-statement/human-rights-priority-countries-ministerial-statement-january-to-june-2020
5/ In fact, five of the UK’s human rights priority countries feature on the DIT’s ‘key markets’ directory for potential arms sales (Bahrain, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia). https://caat.org.uk/challenges/government-support/government-arms-promotion-unit/priority-markets/
6/ Trade does seem to trump human rights concerns. UK export licences for small arms and ammunition have been approved to 31 destinations on the restricted list, including assault rifles, pistols, sniper rifles and shotguns.
7/ Many of these sent to areas that have recently suffered from violent conflicts or state oppression, including Kenya, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Togo, Oman, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Pakistan. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jun/09/they-have-killed-us-more-than-corona-kenyans-protest-against-police-brutality
8/ Military items specifically designated for use by armed or police forces have been approved by the UK government to 30 nations that face arms trade restrictions.
9/April 2020, weapon sight exports were approved to law enforcement in Nigeria, despite the long record of fatal police brutality that led to the #endSARS 
protests breaking out in October last year after nearly 1500 were killed by police in year preceding. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-52317196
protests breaking out in October last year after nearly 1500 were killed by police in year preceding. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-52317196
10/ In 2017, 3000 assault rifles were approved for Kenya for “government end use”, worth £9.5m. Kenyan ‘security forces carried out enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and torture with impunity, killing at least 122 people’ in 2016 (Amnesty). https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/POL1048002017ENGLISH.PDF
11/ In 2017, a licence for two sniper rifles was approved for military use in India, meaning it’s possible that Indian and Pakistani forces could be sniping each other over Kashmir with British-sold rifles. https://thewire.in/security/indian-army-snipers-loc-feature
12/ 960 ‘machine guns’ were also approved for export to Trinidad & Tobago, with four licences over four years issued worth over £1million. It’s unclear which models these were as the UK does not currently produce any machine guns.
13/ This may have been the sale was of surplus Sterling SMGs, standard issue within the British military until 1994. According to the Bonn International Center for Conversion, the weapon is still used in 63 countries, including by the infantry in T&T
https://salw-guide.bicc.de/en/weapon/view/19/sterling-mp-l2a3
https://salw-guide.bicc.de/en/weapon/view/19/sterling-mp-l2a3
13/ Whether the weapons sent are secure in their hands is questionable; a 2009 report (p24) found that there had been “many cases” of Trinidadian police leasing out their guns, with fees based on “the size of the anticipated earnings from the crime" https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/117610/WP8-Gangs-Guns-Governance-Trinidad-Tobago-2009.pdf
14/ Sales of crowd control equipment such as riot shields, tear gas, projectile launchers and sniper rifles to the Hong Kong Police Force were repeatedly rubber-stamped, up until March 2019 – the same month thousands took to the streets to protest the draconian extradition law
15/ In 2015, a £2.3m export to armed forces in Lebanon was approved for 48 sniper rifles,+ silencers, night sights. The military would later be instrumental in repressing anti-corruption protests in October 2019, even firing on peaceful activists (Amnesty) https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/lebanon-protests-explained/
16/ A common feature of intl arms embargoes is a prohibition of “any equipment that might be used for internal repression”. Yet exports of deadly weapons have been authorised to police forces in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Mali - all implicated in attacking protesters in2020
17/ @MurrayReports: "If any of these exports are justifiable, the licenses are so opaque that an independent examiner simply cannot know what’s going on. The government shouldn’t be given the benefit of the doubt just because they fail to be transparent." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/26/uk-sells-arms-to-nearly-80-of-countries-under-restrictions-shows-report
