European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS)

The thorn in the flesh of the armaments giant Daimler/EADS is the organisation of Critical Shareholders and with them the activists of the DFG-VK (German Peace Society – United Conscientious Objectors). An armaments producing business which is a corporation offers an efficient basis for their peace work: according to the shareholders’ law, they have the right of speech, the right to obtain information and the right to make motions at the general assembly.

Mercedes/Daimler – Luxury Limousines for High Society and Military Vehicles for the Battlefields of the World

The Daimler Corporation is known throughout the world for the production of Mercedes vehicles. The Mercedes Car Group sold almost 1,3 million vehicles in 2007, from “Smart” to luxury limousines of the C, E and S class to the “Maybach” as well as more than 467 000 trucks and 328 000 vans and buses. The Daimler Corporation is one of the world’s leading car groups.

Finmeccanica is determined to become one of the world’s leading aerospace and weapons producers. The company, publicly traded but controlled by the Italian government, has spent the past decade forming a complicated web of alliances with Europe’s other players in this field, and now it has its sights set on the huge U.S. military market. It already got a foothold when one of its helicopters was chosen to become the new Marine One used by the U.S. President.

From the 31 of March to the 4 of April in Santiago, Chile , there was an arms fair: FIDAE, is a fair that focuses on the aerospace defence

area. FIDAE also welcomes civilian exhibitors but essentially the fair has a military focus. This fair is one of the biggest and most important of its kind in Latin America and is a mayor event for the arms traders to make business in the region. This year's fair hosted

the 11th edition of the meeting of Logistic Commanders of the Air Forces of South America.

EADS is a perfect example for our war profiteers of the month. As one of the biggest arms manufactures.

These last months have come with many new developments around campaigns against war profiteers. We have already announced some of them in previous issues of the WPN - for example that Reed Elsevier will not organise the DSEi arms fair any longer. Now this month comes with news from the UK and the closure of the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO). Also we learnt that AXA who was our War Profiteer of the Month in April, has started to disinvest partly from landmines and cluster munitions.

AXA Financial Protection is a French financial group, that offers to their customers - individuals as well as small, mid-size and large businesses – a wide range of product and services that include insurance, protection, savings, retirement and financial planning.

They provide a variety of services:

AXA Assistance:

An international network of assistance and services for Corporate and individual clients.

AXA Assistance is present in more than 30 countries, on

War profiteers depend mainly on government contracts. Imagine what Lockheed Martin would be without their Pentagon contracts! At the same time governments need an excuse for spending such huge sums of money e.g. "war against terror", "national security", "peace forces", etc. Since war profiteers depend on government contracts they need to be in the position to influence them. Through the years they have positioned themselves to have an immense political power within governments, and they enjoy privileged access to decision-makers that the general public can only dream of.

There are many ways to profit from a war. Some may say that even peace campaigns profit from it! The war profiteers we are talking about here are companies having strategies to make a killing from armed conflicts.

Conventional army suppliers Three main categories are distinguished here: arms traders, equipment suppliers, and companies offering services to armies.

Arms traders must not be forgotten.