No 7 / June 2007
War Profiteers' News
The email newsletter of WRI's Global Initiative against War Profiteers || español | Index of past issues
Editorial
With this issue we celebrate the first year of the War Profiteers' News - an effort by War Resisters' International to provide resources for and about campaigns against war profiteering. We hope you find it a valuable resource.
One of the main sections of the newsletter is the “War Profiteer of the Month”. In this past year we have profiled:
- a company providing services to the military - Sodexho;
- big arms manufacturers - Lockheed Martin and Alliant Techsystems;
- a corporation profiteering from the Colombian conflict - Monsanto, fumigators;
- mining corporations with dirty hands in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – the Forrest Group; and
- a financial institution investing in arms production- AXA.
In this issue we focus on the a rapidly growing business - private military contractors who provides “professional” killers.
Through all these profiteers we can show how far-reaching and diverse are the activities of corporations that depend on war profits.
With our section “The Campaign of the Month” we have shown the different strategies used by the resistance to these corporations. The campaigns so far presented use various strategies. Some focus on boycotts, but that only works with corporations who produce goods for civilian consumption. Other organise direct action trying to disrupt the functioning of the corporations. Others present public reports to get media attention, to make the public aware and damage the corporations images. A successful campaign will benefit from a combination of these, plus tactics we have not yet covered. We hope that we can learn from each others work.
In the last two issues we have provided tools for the development of campaigns against war profiteers, with resources on how to carry on research on the companies you are or want to campaign against, and also looking at how to develop campaign strategies.
We have also had an issue focusing on war profiteering in the DR Congo, and have brought reports from conferences and meetings of the network where we meet to work against war profiteers. The newsletter with its section “Upcoming Events” has promoted these different events organised by the network - for that we need you constantly to keep us informed about what you are doing for us to include it, so please write to us.
We hope this coming year will be full of good news to report of successful campaigns, like those we report in this issue - that Reed Elsevier will stop organising the DSEi arms fair.
Finally let me mention our response to the AXA statement. After we sent AXA the May newsletter, they asked for the right to reply and for us to publish their statement. This we are doing, together with our response to the statement. Their statement comes as an attachment: I encourage you to read it and judge for yourself.
Thank you
Javier Gárate
Upcoming Events
Shut down DSEi
11TH SEPTEMBER 2007
ONE DAY – MANY ACTIONS
Blockade? Party? March? Infiltrate? Invade? Picket? Clown? Dance? Light candles? Lock on? Vigil? Disrupt?
YOU DECIDE!
From 11-14 September, DSEi (Defence Systems Equipment International), the world's largest arms fair, returns to East London's ExCeL Centre.
29 and 30 July 2007
Two Days, Many Actions
In the run up to DSEi 2007, DISARM DSEi is calling for two days of autonomous actions against the arms trade. There were 1,201 exhibitors at the last DSEi, find out which is the nearest to you. Take action and say no to death and destruction on your doorstep.
For more information:
WRI Seminar and Council 2007 in Israel
The annual WRI seminar and Council meeting will take place in Israel in 2007,from 23-26 August. The theme of the seminar will be on militarism and gender. Please contact the WRI Office if you are interested in participating, and want to be kept informed.
More information is available on the WRI website.
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Email newsletter of War Resisters' InternationaI's Global Initiative on War Profiteers
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War Profiteer of the Month
Blackwater
The following is from their own website, so you can see how they promote themselves!
"Blackwater was founded in 1997 from a clear vision developed from an understanding of the need for innovative, flexible training and operational solutions to support security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere.
Our founder is a former U. S. Navy SEAL. He created Blackwater on the belief that both the military and law enforcement establishments would require additional capacity to train fully our brave men and women in and out of uniform to the standards required to keep our country secure.
Blackwater USA consists of nine separate business units: Blackwater Training Center (the largest private firearms and tactical training center in the U. S.), Blackwater Target Systems, Blackwater Security Consulting, Blackwater Canine, Maritime Security, manufacturing of custom Armored Vehicles, Parachute Jump Team, Aviation, and Raven Development Group. We also have relationships with our strategic partners, Aviation Worldwide Services and Greystone Ltd.
We are not simply a "private security company." We are a professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations firm who provides turnkey solutions. We assist with the development of national and global security policies and military transformation plans. We can train, equip and deploy public safety and military professionals, build live-fire indoor/outdoor ranges, MOUT facilities and shoot houses, create ground and aviation operations and logistics support packages, develop and execute canine solutions for patrol and explosive detection, and can design and build facilities both domestically and in austere environments abroad.
Blackwater lives its core values of excellence, efficiency, execution, and teamwork. In doing this, we have become the most responsive, cost-effective means of affecting the strategic balance in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere." hurrah!!
Blackwater is one of a growing number of private security contractors, the company and its secretive, mega-millionaire, right-wing Christian founder, Erik Prince, position Blackwater as a patriotic extension of the US military, and its employees are required to take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. They are hiring military veterans for jobs previously assigned to the military. 15,000 private security agents from the United States, Britain and countries as varied as Nepal, Chile, Ukraine, Israel, South Africa and Fiji were employed in Iraq during the time of the attack.
In March of 2004, it was reported that Blackwater had flown a group of about 60 former Chilean commandos, many of who had trained under the military government of Augusto Pinochet, from Santiago to its training camp in North Carolina. From there they were taken to Iraq.
In an interview with the Chilean newspaper La Tercera, a former Chilean army officer, Carlos Wamgnet, 30, who was going to Iraq, said: "We are calm. This mission is nothing new for us... in the end, this is an extension of our military career."
John Rivas, 27, a former Chilean marine, said the work in Iraq would provide a "very good income" that would allow him to support his family...I don't feel like a mercenary," he added.
According to Gary Jackson, President of Blackwater USA:
"We scour the ends of the earth to find professionals - the Chilean commandos are very, very professional and they fit within the Blackwater system.
In one of the most infamous incidents of the war in Iraq: On March 31, 2004, four private American security contractors get lost and end up driving through the center of Falluja, a hotbed of Sunni resistance to the US occupation. Shortly after entering the city, they get stuck in traffic, and their small convoy is ambushed. Several armed men approach the two vehicles and open fire from behind, repeatedly shooting the men at point-blank range. Within moments, their bodies are dragged from the vehicles and a crowd descends on them, tearing them to pieces. Eventually, their corpses are chopped and burned. The remains of two of the men are strung up on a bridge over the Euphrates River and left to dangle. The gruesome image is soon beamed across the globe. For most people, the gruesome killings were the first they had ever heard of Blackwater, one of the biggest and deadliest private military contractors in the world.
Please go to their website it's incredible what they say!
Campaign of the Month
BBVA without Arms
Following the success of the campaign “My Money Clear Conscience” against banks investing in arms producers in Belgium, the Catalan organisation, member of the European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT), Centre De las d'Estudis per la Pau and other organisations have launched a new campaign against Spanish financial institutions and with a special focus on the financial corporation BBVA.
In their campaign manifesto they state: “The numbers of arms conflicts, the unjust wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, the violation of Human Rights under the excuses of the fight against international terrorism and the growing devastation of non renewable natural resources, made the following organisations decide to promote a campaign to create public awareness and denounce de financial institutions that invest in the military industries and seriously change the life of communities.” This campaign demands the authentic respect for human rights and the environment, by the banks entities and the BBVA Corporation in particular, under the title “BBVA without Arms”.
The campaign has been launched by Justicia i Pau ( Peace and Justice) that hosts the Centre De las d'Estudis per la Pau (Centre for Peace Studies) and El Observatorio de la Deuda en la Globalizacion ( The Observatory of the Debt in Globalisation) a network of researchers coordinated from the Catedra UNESCO.
The aim of the campaign is to create public opinion that favours a change of attitude in the financial institutions and the BBVA Corporation in particular, and this way cancel their investments in the corporations that manufacture arms.
Why the BBVA
A common practice of all financial systems is social corporate irresponsibility. Far from taking a Social Corporate Responsibility policy it acts against the environment, and erodes the life of communities in other territories, and favours enterprises like arms production, conflicts and wars in diverse areas of the planet. The BBVA financial corporation is not an entity unconnected to these practises.
BBVA's Conduct:
- Irresponsible through the participation in the military industries, as a shareholder in companies providers to the Defence Sector.
- Irresponsible against the environment, financing projects that highly pollute, such as the pipeline for oil in Ecuador or the cellulose factory of ENCE in Uruguay.
- Irresponsible against the countries of the South, through buying politicians or cleaning money from dubious origins.
Investment of BBVA in Arms:
Until April 2006, BBVA had investments in GAMESA Aeronautica, manufacture for EADS of the fuselage, plane wings for the A400M and helicopter blades. Indirectly through both IBV with a 25,78 % (a 50% of IBV is of BBVA) Iberdrola a 17% (a 6,01% also corresponds to BBVA)
Until 1998 BBVA through IBV had ta 2 % of Industrias y Turbopropulsores (ITP) participants of the creation of the Eurofighter.
The BBVA financed in 2006, exports of Italian arms for a value of more than 53 millions Euros. Malaysia and Israel were some of the destinations for these arms deals.
BBVA is one of the main financial entities exporting Italian arms. In the year 2002 it had the first place in the classification by volume of finances. And in 2006 has financed exports of arms to countries that don't follow the code of conduct of the European Union. And also in 2006 it financed the export of Italian arms for a value of more than 53, million Euros.
How to collaborate with the campaign?
- Go to their website http://www.bbvasinarmas.org/ and sign their Report- Manifesto
- If you are a client of BBVA print a letter of protest and deliver it by hand to the manager of your local branch
- Download and promote the leaflet of the campaign
Reports from Annual General Meetings
BAE
Albert Beale reports...
May 9 - Questions about corruption dominated the questions to directors at the recent annual shareholders' meeting of Britain's biggest weapons merchants, BAE Systems. In addition to some nominal shareholders organised by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), several "real" shareholders also embarrassed the board with related questions. Outside the meeting too, street theatre by CAAT activist featured in the financial pages of most serious papers the next day. The biggest of the suspects deals - with Saudi Arabia - was investigated by the Serious Fraud Office until the SFO was ordered to drop its corruption enquiry late last year. CAAT and Corner House are still trying to win a judicial review of the decision to drop the case, and now legal authorities in Switzerland and the USA are investigating aspects of the same deal.
For more information:
www.caat.org.ukShell
May 15 - Peaceful protest took place outside and inside Shell's AGM both in The Hague and London. The focus was the culmination of four years campaigning by the Iraq Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU). Demands range from bread and butter issues such as land allocation, unpaid wages, holidays, health and safety and full-time status for temporary workers, to wider political issues which have been the founding bedrock of the union: protection of Iraq's oil wealth from foreign companies and a say in the future of the oil industry. Shell is one of the companies that the union has cautioned against entering Iraq "under the guise of so-called production sharing agreements".
Halliburton
May 16 - During Wednesday's shareholder meeting, Halliburton said its finished selling off its controversial subsidiary KBR, and had no comment on allegations of fraud and overspending in Iraq. Opponents of war profiteering threw Halliburton a send-off party at its annual shareholder meeting with the theme Take the Money and Run. Activists came from all over Texas to participate.
Corpwatch just released a report, "Goodbye, Houston," critical of the company's sordid way of making money through fraud and overcharging on government contracts in Iraq. It outlines suggestions for more transparency in how the it spends billions in taxpayer dollars. Halliburton may be linked to missing oil Iraqi oil.
For more information:
http://houstonglobal.org/CAT
Joe Carr reports...
June 14 - For the fourth year in a row, Palestinian rights activists made Caterpillar's sales to Israel the number one issue during their annual shareholders meeting in Chicago. Because of previous demonstrations, this year's meeting was moved from downtown Chicago to an hour outside the city in a secure complex called the Q Center. Using disruptive action, activists forced the meeting to end 20 minutes early. About 30 people picketed the facility's entrance while others went inside. Four of us had obtained proxy tickets from sympathetic shareholders and dressed in our finest business attire. CAT distributed two color booklets to the shareholders entitled “Relentless” and “Endless”. We'd made stickers in advance that changed our booklets to say “Relentless Murder”, “Endless War”, “Relentless Destruction”, and “Endless Occupation”, and snuck in some Palestinian flags... Matt Gains of the Stop CAT coalition, stood and raised his Palestinian flag and started our chant. Two others and I stood and joined in, “Take responsibility, do the right thing”, over and over again. Everyone was confused and didn't know what to do, so the CEO immediately called the meeting to a close (20 minutes early) and we were briskly escorted out by security. The action was concluded without incident, save a $25 parking ticket given to Matt by a local cop as he stopped briefly in the road to unload demonstrators. It marked another chapter in our campaign that has raised vast awareness about CAT's ties to Israel, and furthered the broader movement for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
For more information:
www.lovinrevolution.orgBite the Bullet: War-profiteering Education & Action Network
We invite you to help launch Bite the Bullet: War-Profiteering Education & Action – an emerging network in the USA of organizations committed to dismantling the war economy and replacing it with one that prioritizes people over profit.
Why Bite the Bullet? Why Now?
As you well know, nearly every industry in today's economy is connected to the "military industrial complex."
- Corporations such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop derive up to 50% of their annual profits from military-related production.
- Military service providers such as Halliburton and its subsidiaries receive billion-dollar contracts to support military operations around the world, unfortunately making war a profitable enterprise.
- Universities and other non-profit security "think thanks" receive large government grants and corporate funding for military research and development.
- At least 181 private military and security companies are presently operating in Iraq.
Yet while opposition to the war in Iraq (and increasingly, to Afghanistan) has finally made its way to Capitol Hill, debate over current troop levels and occupation timelines fails to address the larger problem of a war economy that pushes the US toward war.
Mission
We seek to motivate and empower a broad-based movement to educate, agitate and organize against the military industrial complex through creative, nonviolent and democratic means. To that end, we support efforts that:
- Educate others about war profiteers and the military-industrial complex
- Grassroots campaigns that pressure universities to divest all monies for military-related research or production.
- Partner with communities most impacted by militarism to convert their economies to those that promote peace.
We Need Your Help! Plug into the Network…and the Network into your work!
Contact: bitethebulletus@gmail.com
Reed Elsevier to stop organising arms fairs
It was announced on Friday 1st June that Reed Elsevier will pull out of the arms trade and will no longer organise arms fairs around the world. The decision follows a high-profile campaign, coordinated by CAAT, which highlighted the incompatibility of Reed's involvement in the arms trade and their position as the number one publisher of medical and science journals and other publications. In a statement, Chief Executive of Reed Elsevier Sir Crispin Davis, said "it has become increasingly clear that growing numbers of important customers and authors have very real concerns about our involvement in the defence exhibitions business. We have listened closely to these concerns and this has led us to conclude that the defence shows are no longer compatible with Reed Elsevier's position as a leading publisher of scientific, medical, legal and business content."
For more information:
Profile of AXA in War Profiteers' News No.6 (April 2007)
Statement by AXA
This statement is available as a PDF file by following this link:
http://wri-irg.org/news/2007/Com VA AIHI 050307.pdf
Response to the AXA statement
This communication by AXA on investments in producers of antipersonnel landmines and cluster bombs offers no concrete news on the point of view of AXA. The facts behind and within this communication are still shocking :
AXA is only disinvesting from antipersonnel mine producers with money from its own account. This is a decision that has been taken in the beginning of 2006. It's good to hear this commitment taken by AXA is fully applied. Although it would be good to hear from AXA which are the companies they considered as antipersonnel mine producers.
But AXA doesn't want to take any responsibility concerning third-party customer investments. This means that AXA investment funds offered to their clients still include anti personnel mine producers' stocks. Other companies like KBC, ING, Dexia, Fortis have removed antipersonnel mine producers from their third-party customer investments. A Belgian law, voted in March 2007, bans investments in antipersonnel mines and cluster munitions. This ban includes investment funds as well.
AXA is not disinvesting from cluster munition producers at all (not for their own-account investments and not for third-party customer investments). A 2006 report from Netwerk Vlaanderen (http://www.netwerkvlaanderen.be/en/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=262&Itemid=243) revealed US$ 5,5 billion investments by AXA in 13 cluster munition producers.
These facts clearly show that AXA is lagging behind when it comes to taking up responsibility on their arms investments. Even the most controversial weapons are not yet out of their portfolios. Antipersonnel mines and cluster munitions are weapon systems violating international humanitarian law. For that reason antipersonnel mines have been banned by more than 150 countries. A process to create an international ban on cluster munitions is running. Recent research by Handicap International has revealed 98% of cluster munition victims are innocent civilians.
The cruel investments by AXA in these weapon systems cannot be masked by communication and PR efforts including :
- AXA pays attention to the questions concerning its investments….,
- AXA manages those investments responsibly….
- AXA calls for a broad reflection….
- AXA is currently pursuing the analysis of the issue of cluster bombs…
- AXA commits to improve the communication…
Yeah well, until now AXA is still complicit to the atrocities committed with antipersonnel mines and cluster munitions. So no discussion : AXA fully deserved the May trophee as War Profiteer of the Month.
Christophe Scheire (Netwerk Vlaanderen)
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