Editorial

This is the 10th issue of War Profiteers' News, and also the last one for the year 2007.
In this issue we look into economic conversion, with an article by Joanne Sheehan. One of the biggest challenges the antimilitarist movement faces is to work building alternatives to militarism not only opposing it. With this article we start exploring this aspect. We are interested in learning more from other experiences on economic conversion, to share and learn from each other. So if you or your group has done work on economic conversion please send us the information, and we would make it available for others to learn from it as well.

The War Profiteer of the Month in this issue is Rio Tinto Alcan corporation, just formed after Rio Tinto bought all the shares of Alcan. This makes Rio Tinto Alcan one of the biggest producers of aluminium in the world. Here we look at the connections between aluminium and the arms trade. It is important that in the movement against war profiteering we can cooperate with other movements, for example in this case with the movement denouncing the crimes from the mining industry – bringing displacement to local communities and huge environmental impacts. WRI is planning to organise a Seminar in December 2008 which will look at the issue of displacement produced by over/development policies, with a especial eye on the impact and responsibilities that mega corporations - including war profiteers – have in these crimes. We report one example of this in WPN, of what is happening in the Orellana Province in Ecuador. A province very rich in oil resources, and where a state of emergency has been declared. This state of emergency is mainly to stop the local community demonstrating to ask for better access to public services. Also to secure the interest of the oil corporations based in the region.

Also we announce a number of reports related to war profiteering that have come to our notice in the last month. They show how important it is to carry out good research in our work to stop the war profiteers.

Last but not least I would like to wish you all the very best for the coming year!
Javier Gárate