War Profiteers

In Canada, a court in British Colombia has rejected an appeal by Nevsun Resources, a large Canadian mining company accused of relying on modern slavery at it’s Bisha Mine in Eritrea.

Sam Walton and Rev Daniel Woodhouse were recently found not guilty of criminal damage by a judge in the UK, after breaking into BAE Warton to disarm planes bound for Saudi Arabia.

Using leaked documents, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has disclosed details of an extensive “weapons laundering scheme” involving Ukrainian companies and authorities.

In 2016 the European Union took the unprecedented step of setting up a military research programme worth 90 million euros, the so-called Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR).

In October, groups in New Zealand and South Korea have taken direct action against arms fairs and weapons expos taking place in their Auckland and Seoul.

Aimpoint is a Swedish company, manufacturing red-dot magnifying optic sights for a wide range of military, law enforcement, and commercial hunting weapons. Aimpoint was formed in 1974 and is based in Malmo, Sweden. Militaries all over the world, including the US military and NATO member countries use the company’s sights, and they are available from suppliers on every continent.

Since 25th August, over half a million members of Myanmar's Rohyinga community have been driven out from the north Rakhine state, with security forces torching homes, crops and villages in so called “clearance operations” the UN high commissioner for Human Rights has described as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

October 7th marked sixteen years since the start of the US War in Afghanistan – America’s longest war. In an effort to justify the continued and expanded presence of US troops in the country, President Trump is seeking a plan to have US companies extract minerals from resource-rich Afghanistan.

From 11 to 15 September, Geneva will be hosting the Conference of States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty. The world’s third largest purveyor of armaments, France has a privileged relationship in this area with Saudi Arabia and its allies. According to hitherto undisclosed data revealed to Orient XXI by the Observatoire des Armements, the French government used a contract for weapons ostensibly meant for Lebanon to prepare for the Kingdom’s war in Yemen and speed up delivery at the height of that conflict.

Since 2008, the Klong Sai Pattana community in Thailand have been resisting the encroachment of a large palm oil company - Jiew Kang Jue Pattana Co Ltd. The company has illegally occupied and cultivated palm oil trees, and the community believes it is behind escalating violence that has led to a number of deaths, in a campaign of intimidation they believe is being waged to drive them from the land.

In London, thousands of protesters have been taking direct action to shut down one of the world’s biggest arms fairs.

In September 2017, hundreds of weapons companies gathered in London for the Defence and Security Equipment International arms fair, to meet representatives from militaries all over the world. WRI produced a booklet profiling some of the companies attending.