Universities and the arms trade


Campaign ends Exeter’s ‘unethical investment’

A SOCIALIST Students member at Exeter University, JIM THOMPSON,
recently started a campaign against the University’s investment in the
arms trade. Already angered by the recent closure of the Chemistry and
Music departments, students were further disillusioned to learn that
their place of learning was financing the arms industry!

Exeter Students Union then took up the campaign and arranged a
meeting with the University’s Executive. Shortly afterwards, the
University released a press statement agreeing to meet with their
financial advisers and to end investment in arms-producing companies.

Jim Thompson reports: "Now Exeter Socialist Students have held
another meeting to re-launch the campaign. Although they were defeated
by the student campaign in November, the university authorities have
still not sold off all their shares.

"We also discovered that Exeter University Staff Pension
Benefits scheme was investing in companies which were involved in arms
production and trading.

"At our meeting, Tim Street from Campaign Against the Arms Trade
(CAAT) outlined how Britain’s arms industry had flourished under New
Labour, with Tony Blair acting like a glorified travelling salesperson.

"The meeting ended on a high note, when the Vice-President of
the Guild (our student union) said that after further discussions and
under pressure from campaigns such as ours, the university were in the
process of selling all the BAE and Rolls Royce Shares.

"However the battle is not yet won. We want the pension scheme
to invest ‘ethically’ straight away. Secondly our campaign must hold the
universities’ new moves for ‘ethical investment’ to account – students
and staff should have a say where their fees and pensions are being
invested."


A deadly, profit-driven trade

RECENTLY STUDENTS across Britain have been outraged to hear that
their universities and colleges have been funding the arms trade.
Universities such as Cambridge, Liverpool and Leeds are investing in
companies such as BAE Systems and Rolls Royce that produce weapons used
in the imperialist invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.

Jim Thompson

Although such companies may also produce products which are not used
in conflict, the universities are well aware what they are investing in.
BAE is Britain’s largest arms manufacturer and the company is currently
being investigated over claims that it funded Chile’s former military
dictator and mass-murderer, Augusto Pinochet.

Many students were surprised by this discovery. However the Socialist
Party and Socialist Students have been pointing out that the creeping
privatisation of universities would inevitably lead to such ‘unethical
investment’.

The government has been implementing a policy which means
universities are no different to businesses, with shareholders and
full-scale private investment. The outcome of this is a lower quality of
services and a rise in the price of university, not just in fees, but
also in accommodation, canteen, library and IT services.

Private businesses have been invited into the universities to provide
"sponsorship" which gives unelected, unseen shareholders a
deadly grasp over education.

As part of this commercialisation of education, university
bureaucrats have invested in companies to make even more money, and
university staff and students will not see a penny of it. This
investment is done purely on profitability grounds with no thought of
‘ethically investing’.

While the arms trade may be a new investment to the universities, it
is an old and thriving business, and a trade based purely on the
business of killing and repression. Capitalist governments may offer
excuses, saying that these arms are used to protect freedom and
democracy, but in fact they are being used by the British government in
the imperialist invasion of Iraq.

BAE produces the American Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the British
Challenger II tank, while Rolls-Royce produces engines and power systems
for the Eurofighter and the Harrier jump-jet fighter, all of which have
been used in Iraq for repressing the population and stealing oil by the
barrel-load.

These companies also sell arms to such repressive regimes as Saudi
Arabia, Israel and Turkey. Britain is the world’s second biggest weapons
dealer and the New Labour government spends millions of pounds a year
subsidising the weapons companies.

When Blair, Brown and Co. say they don’t have enough money to provide
adequate pensions, better education facilities or for the NHS, they are
showing their true, ruthless capitalist colours.

New Labour exposed

The Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) group recently uncovered
the fact that since New Labour came to power, Britain has supplied the
Indonesian regime with £323 million worth of military material, that’s
83% of all Indonesia’s weapon imports.

Britain has long been an arms supplier to Indonesian governments,
especially supporting the regime of former military dictator General
Suharto. British-built weapons were responsible for the mass killings
and repressions of thousands in East Timor, Ache and West Papua.

This is not an isolated case. Britain’s arms trade thrives on war and
fighting, selling weapons to countries engaged in serious conflict such
as Angola, Colombia, Russia and Sierra Leone. The arms trade frequently
sells to both Pakistan and India, helping to build tension in the region
with no thought of the consequences for the masses in the sub-continent.

Campaigns against "unethical" companies may present some
kind of step forward but, in the long run, they provide no real
alternative for the world-wide poor and working class. Under capitalism,
all trade is unethical, because it relies upon the exploitation of
workers’ labour, labour which is used to line the pockets of the rich,
while the workers are only paid a small fraction of the company’s
profits.

We must unite with others who call for the end of the arms trade, but
this must be backed up by the demand for a socialist world that can
replace capitalism. The arms trade is the foulest, most grotesque form
of capitalism – these companies will sell their weapons to anyone as
long as they get a ‘fair price’, i.e. make big profits.

In a world which is run precisely for such profits and not for the
people’s needs, the arms trade companies gain most at the expense of
people’s lives.

The companies, and the fat cats who control them, prove that
capitalism cannot be transformed or made a nicer system. As long as
capitalism remains, the working class and poor throughout the world will
be exploited, and the arms trade is just one of the many ways the
capitalist class exploits us.

Many people argue that Britain’s arms industry produces a wealth of
jobs for British workers. But in a socialist society those valuable
skills that workers possess – together with the advanced machinery in
the factories – would be put to use ethically.

We don’t want to see thousands of workers losing their jobs, so while
the arms industry must be stopped, the factories should be
democratically run by the workers and put to use by manufacturing
socially useful goods, which could be used to help the world’s working
class and poor, instead of exploiting and oppressing on a massive scale.

The arms trade will not end until the world sees the end of
capitalism. Only under a society which is planned, and run for the good
of the oppressed layers of the world, can global industry be put to
decent, ethical use. Being anti-arms trade isn’t enough. A socialist
alternative is essential if we are going end this disgusting
profit-driven trade.


Military spending

  • Global military expenditure is now nearly $1 trillion every
    year. It is the largest item of government spending in the world.
  • George Bush recently asked the US Congress for a record
    $439.3 billion (£252 billion) for the military in general – for
    years US imperialism has spent more on the military than all its
    enemies combined.
  • As world trade globalises, so does the trade in arms. In
    order to make up for lack of domestic sales, newer markets must be
    created.
  • USA, Russia, France and Britain are the biggest arms traders
    in the world.
  • In 1997 alone, half of all US aid was related to military
    aid/trade.
  • In modern conflicts over 80% of all casualties have been
    civilian. 90% of these were caused by small arms.