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Arms pushers to close!
Campaigners celebrate victory
Symon Hill
Anti-arms trade campaigners
are celebrating a historic victory following the prime minister's announcement that he will close the infamous
Defence Export Services
Organisation (DESO), a unit
of the Ministry of Defence
that promotes sales for private arms companies.
DESO has long been seen as a
channel through which arms
dealers exercise excessive influence over government.
The news follows decades of
activism against DESO, with a
particularly high-profile campaign in the last two years.
Lower budget
Arms exports will now be promoted with civil exports through
UK Trade and Investment, with
a budget likely to be much lower.
DESO's closure is expected to
remove arms dealers' easy access
to ministers and knock a considerable dent in their influence.
The Campaign Against Arms
Trade (CAAT) has declared its
delight with the news, arguing
that this must be the first step
towards ending arms companies'
undemocratic influence in the
corridors of power.
CAAT will monitor developments carefully, keeping a close
eye on the resources given to
arms exports under the new
arrangements. However, CAAT
has no doubt that this is a massive breakthrough.
Fellowship of Reconciliation
(FoR) Director Chris Cole similarly insisted that: "The closure
of DESO will have a real and
significant impact on the UK
arms trade."
BAE "fury"
Anyone who doubts this need
only look at the reaction of arms
companies, described in the
media as "furious".
BAE boss Mike Turner fired off
an angry letter to Gordon Brown,
demanding a meeting. Tory
defence spokesperson Gerald
Howarth referred to the plan to
close DESO as "outrageous".
The anger of BAE and its
friends is unsurprising to anyone
who has examined DESO's role.
Despite being staffed with civil
servants and funded by taxpayers,
DESO's first loyalty is to arms
companies. The head of DESO
receives both a civil service salary
and a "top-up" payment from the
arms industry.
When asked if this caused a
conflict of interest, his predecessor Tony Edwards said: "I'm
working for them [the arms com-
panies] openly and overtly any-
way."
Campaign countdown
Countless people deserve praise
for their contribution to this
campaign. Many have campaigned for DESO's closure for
decades and laid the foundation
for more recent work.
Last year saw a build-up of
opposition to DESO, with 35
organisations signing a statement calling for it to be shut. In
March this year, the Treasury
received a petition with over
10,000 signatures.
On the same day, a speaker at
DESO's annual symposium stated that their trade was threatened by "public pressure from NGOs like CAAT".
In June, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Stephen
Timms MP, met with campaigners' representatives to hear the
case against DESO.
Early July saw a flurry of leak-fuelled media speculation about
DESO's future, and on 25 July,
Gordon Brown declared that
DESO would be closed by the
end of the year.
There can be no doubt that
arms dealers will do everything
they can to maintain their influence over Government through
other means.
CAAT and other campaigners
will keep up the pressure to prevent this happening, and will
not celebrate final victory until
the arms trade is abolished all
together.
Nonetheless, the news of
DESO's closure has taught the
UK's astonished arms companies
that they can no longer expect to
have things all their own way.
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