SITE UNSEEN - INTRODUCTION

Reports:

6th January – Stevenage

Travelling up the A1 in the mid-winter afternoon gloom, junction 7 suddenly appears along with the large industrial site that houses part of the missile division of British Aerospace, now more discreetly called MBDA. Exactly ten years ago I came here to undertake a ploughshare action, breaking into the factory and using a simple hammer disarmed – or destroyed if you prefer – Hawk nosecones destined for Indonesia as well as other military equipment. That piece of direct action earned me a nine month jail sentence as well as a court-imposed civil injunction to stay off BAe property "for ever".

Ten years later a lot has changed. The arms industry has globalise and British Aerospace has dropped the 'British' for being too parochial and become BAE Systems – the global company! The company has hugely expanded , buying up its main UK rival in a £8bn take-over in 1999 as well as a slice of the American arms giant, Lock heed Martin. BAE has also internationalised setting up many joint venture companies with European and American competitors. Much of this change can be seen at the Stevenage site, the most obvious being that the company has merged its missile divisions with that of French, Italian and German missile companies to create Matra BAE Dynamics Alenia (or MBDA for short). BAE Systems owns 40% of the new giant company which had missile and missile technology sales of £1.2bn in 2001.

The site is also undergoing a £35m redevelopment with many buildings being demolished to be replaced with 4 purpose built three-storey office blocks and 8 production units. Despite all this building work, its business as usual on the site.

On this bitterly cold and gloomy afternoon just over half-a-dozen people turn out to hold banners and protest the utter madness of the international arms trade. Long lines of cars leave the factory with their occupants starring mostly blankly at us. A very few hurl a few words of abuse. But encouragingly we get quite a lot of supportive 'hoots' form other Stevenage residents driving past. Although we have brought leaflets to handout to which give more details hardly anyone walks by.

Stevenage is the Research and Development arms of MBDA and 2000 of the 3,100 employed by MBDA in the UK are based here. Current missile projects undergoing development, testing and initial production at Stevenage include Brimstone, an air-to-surface weapon being developed with the American giant, Boeing, which according to the company is already being sought by three other countries (although they won't name the countries); Meteor, a new 'beyond visual range' air-air missile which MBDA won a £1.2bn contract to develop and produce two days before Christmas. Meteor will also arm the airforces of Italy, Sweden, France and Spain; and Storm Shadow, a new 'stand-off' stealth cruise missile which has been ordered by the UK and will be exported to Greece, United Arab Emirates, France, Italy and probably others.

MBDA is also champing at the bit to get its teeth into George Bush's Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) project. In July 2002 at the Farnborough Airshow, Boeing announced that BAE Systems would be one of the European companies "collaborating" with it on BMD work once security clearance was gained. Fabrice Breger, the Chief Executive of MBDA said recently about the prospect of their involvement with BMD "We have some cards in the game at the moment, but we don't know exactly what game we are playing … but we have some aces." If BAe Systems/MBDA do take part in the BMD project its extremely likely that some of that work will be undertaken at MBDA in Stevenage.

At CAAT's public meeting in Stevenage later that evening, it was the prospect of 'star wars' work coming to Stevenage that stimulated a wave of enthusiasm for further action. Steve and Georgie Whiting, long time peace activists in the area mentioned that the local MP, Barbara Follett, although a new Labour stalwart had signed petitions and EDMs against Star Wars and so could be approachable. Others thought that most people in Stevenage didn't really know what occurred at the site and so they decided to produce a briefing based on CAATs material which could be distributed to local people. Others said they thought it had been quite difficult for them in the past to tackle BAe/MBDA because of the employment issue but information about the amount of subsides for arms exports put things in a very different light.

The Site Unseen tour had got an excellent start in Stevenage. During February and March we will be at seven other BAe Systems sites around the country and will be holding four public meetings (see box). If you are in the area, please do join at the protests or the public meeting or both!

4th Feb - BAe Stanmore and BAe-IFS in Uxbridge

Stanmore

The BAe Systems site in Stanmore, hidden along a quiet road in the middle of Stanmore Common, has been engaged in electronic warfare work for over 40 years. Despite the long history, several people on the protest who had lived in the area for many years, hadn't known about BAe's presence in their community until the Site Unseen protest. About ten people in all made it along for the cold, mid-morning and, towards the end snowy, protest.

The Stanmore site is engaged in electronic warfare research and production. Until 1999 it was part of GEC-Marconi until the take-over by BAe Systems . It is currently part of BAe's avionics division and is engaged in EW research, design and production. Mostly, as far as we can tell the work that is undertaken there is to do with electronic sensors and radar, electronic targeting systems, electronic jamming and missile warning systems.

Some of the work undertaken includes work on UK version of the Apache attack helicopters, the original versions of which was considered by 'experts' to be the best attack helicopter in the world, however this new version is "400% more lethal" according to its makers. The electronic warfare system is currently undergoing testing by MoD the results of which have been classified. Nevertheless the systems has been sold to Kuwait for their apache helicopters and Stanmore is also trying to sell it to Turkey for their attack helicopters.

For the Eurofighter - Europe's new fighter aircraft , BAe Stanmore is developing and producing DASS [Defensive Aid Sub Systems]. The initial contract is worth £300m and will equip just of 100 of these new fighter aircraft. A key design feature, according to BAe, is that the system can be carried internally in the aircraft thus freeing up another pylon to carry weapons. BAe stanmore has also been contracted to work on the Joint Strike Fighter electronic warfare systems with several US companies.

Other work carried out at Stanmore includes electronic warfare systems for the Harrier jet, the development of SIREN, a new navel EW system being developed for the Royal Navy and other overseas countries which BAE won't name. And Mentor, a system being used by Malaysian navy.

Two final snippets of information about BAe Stanmore. Firstly they came second in the most recent BAe inter-factory shooting competition (May 2000), and the BAe security guard, Raphael Bravo, who was arrested and convicted in 2002 for stealing documents relating to electronic warfare from BAE Stanmore was eventually sentenced to 11 years in prison.

UXBRIDGE

Moving on to Uxbridge I met up with my wife, Virginia, Claire and Jonathan, two of our children. We had a quick picnic lunch, a quick recce of the business park which is home to the BAe Uxbridge site and began our second protest vigil of the day. The BAE site in Uxbridge is infact a joint venture with Swedish software giant IFS. The operation, which employees around 200 people in Uxbridge, Sweden and South Africa, produces computer and software tools to enable military forces and arms companies to swiftly repair, upgrade and maintain military equipment around the word. Although not at the sharp end of the arms trade business, BAe systems certainly sees the venture as being important to its work.

Many people driving past our protest banners hooted in support many people from local shops and businesses came to take leaflets. We were delighted to be joined by a groups of twenty local Quakers who came to join us after holding a 'Stop the War' vigil at the local tube station.

Co-incidentally as we were holding our protest, the Defence Export Services organisation (DESO), the government agency that promotes arms exports, issued a press release about their presence at a major arms exhibition in India, due to start the following day. The delegation included Lord Bach, Minister responsible for arms promotion, government and military officials, representatives of 25 UK arms companies and an RAF band! BAE are seeking to win an export order for its Hawk aircraft estimated to be around £1 billion.

An evening public meeting on BAe and the arms trade in Harrow completed a successful day and the second leg of the site unseen tour.

Feb 14th - BAe Chorley and BAe Lostock (Bolton)

BAE Chorley

The BAe Systems (Royal Ordnance) site in Chorley is in the middle of a major change. Many of the main buildings have being demolished, piles of rubble are strewn around the site and re-builing work is underway. Whilst many local people are under the impression that BAE has left the area, the site continues to be a part of the BAe Systems empire.

With all the changes taking place at the site it is hard to know exactly what is happening there, but the BAE website lists the presence of three of their many companies: BAE Properties (no doubt involved in the land sell off); RO Defence - which until recently was the major part of their work at Chorley - the manufacture of munitions. This including artilery, rockets and mortars and warheads. CAAT has recetnley come across a unclassifed research and development budget document from the US DoD which lists payments to BAe Cholrey of $5.1m in 2001, $5m in 2002 and $3 allocated for 2003 for blast/fragmentation wardheads for the new american air-to ground weapon JSOW.

However Customer Solutions & Support International Programmes, seems to be the main actrivity now at BAE Chorley. According to BAE, CS&E International is about "cost-effective, minimum risk and fully integrated defence equipment and support packages, working in partnership with customers world-wide. Capabilities cover the full range of technical and managerial skills, including systems integration, systems engineering, programme and risk management sub-contract management and logistic support."

In other words, its about providing overseas customers with a full mamangemtn package for a particular military need. The best example of this is the Saudi deal, Al Yamamah, which BAe is the prime contractor for, providing not only aircraft, but maintenace, pilot training, building the hangars and the airbases and the runways.

Our presence at BAE Chorley was modest but we made oursleves known to passersby, workers and locals. We'll be watching out for developments at Chorley and we'd be grateful, if you live locally, for infomration and updates on what is happening at the site.

BAE (MBDA) Lostock

In the late afternoon, the Site Unseen protest convey moved onto the BAE site in Lostock, near Bolton. As the site is involed in missile production, it has been folded into the BAE's, jointly owned subsidiary, MBDA. As we have seen at several sites already on this tour, there are clear signs of the changes in the international arms trade. The massive production 'block' on the site have been shut and turned into a furniture warehouse. Nevertheless around 450 people work on the site, the UK missile productionfacility for MBDA. We were delighted that around 15 people joined us from Bolton Friends meeting House for the protest.

The main missile projects that MBDA are involved in are Asraam (advanced short range air-to air missile) is an air-to air missile originally conceived in 1980 for dog-fights with soviet aircraft - could be said to be obsolete already, but is now in full scale production in Lostock. Australia is also buying these.

Brimstone is being developed jointly with Boeing and is an air-to surface missile - designed to be anti-armour (i.e. tanks) but can be used against a variety of targets. At least 3 other countries besides UK are interested in buying Brimstone (company won't say who). Its currently moving between development at Stevenage to production here at Lostock. Just before Christmas the MOD awarded MBDA a £1.2 bn contract to develop and produce Meteor, a new beyond visual range air-to air missile system. When it goes into production in Lostock in 2008, it will equip UK, French, Italian, Spanish and Swedish aircraft. Finally, Storm Shadow is a new 'stand-off' stealth cruise missile that is being developed and produced by MBDA. So far 2,200 of these missiles have been ordered by the UK, Greece, Italy, France and UAE. Storm Shadow is being developed at Stevenage although I understand that when it goes into real production it will move to Lostock. When it goes into full production (at Lostock) in 2004, up to 30 a month will be produced. Lostock is also producing an air defence system for the Mayalsian armsed forces that BAe agreed to suppy in a £220m deal last April.

Feb 28th - BAe Bath and BAe Filton (Bristol)

BAE Bath

BAE Systems office building in Bath is an obscure building in the heart of the city centre. Having been there for over 18 years, however, on our arrival we discover that they have sub-letted their offices to a production company two months previously. Nevertheless, the work of that partiuclar section continues, almost certainly at BAe Filton, where we were visitng later in the day. The Bath office had been working on "providing a range of services to maintain warship capability" as well as naval combat systems. This includes refurbishing RN submarines to sell to the Canadian Navy, upgrade work on Tomahawk cruise missiles and design work for Brunei patrol vessels.

As BAe were still nominally 'present' at least in owenership of the building, we had a short vigil, and were photographed by the Bath Chronicle.

BAe Filton (Bristol)

Numbers were much reduced for a cold and wet protest outside BAe's massive Filton site, in the north of the city.

BAE Systems presecessors have had a presence out a Filton for a very long time - almost to the dawn of aviation. Whilst there is still a runway there, and Airbus - the civil aircraft manufacturer which is partly owned by BAe - continues to manufacture wings and fuselage sections for the airbus, military aircraft production/servicing has ceased at Filton as far as we know. However, that doesn't mean that Filton has stopped its connection with military work - far from it. Filton is a bit of a nerve centre for BAE in the country. Almost every component of its business has a presence at Filton, with around 6,000 people employed by the company as a whole on the site. Much of the work that is undertaken in Bristol is research, project management and customer support. What greatly surprised me was the amount of navel and sea work being undertaken at Filton - again not metal bashing but project and contract management. Just recently there has been a lot in the press about the two new aircraft carriers which the UK is ordering for £3bn. The contract was being fought for by BAe and Thales, and at the end of January, the government gave prime contratorship to BAe. The prime contract office is based at Filton. In addition the Prime Contractor Office for the Type 45 Destroyers, 6 of which are to be built at a cost of £4.3bn is run from Filton although the actually building work is being undertaken in shipyards on the Clyde, Barrow and the south coast.

Three other important things to say about BAE at Filton. Firstly Missiles, as I mentioned BAe's missile division have been folded into a European joint company called MBDA which BAe is a majority partner - MBDA at Filton is involved in software and systems development for a whole host of missiles. We also understand that there is already Ballistic Missile defence (BMD) research work is already being undertaken by MBDA at Filton - Bush's son of star war's dream (nightmare) but can't absoutely confim this.

Secondly, Filton is also home to one of 4 BAE 'advanced technology centres' - or specialist research labs which employee around 500 highly qualified scientists and engineers which are working on advanced and often classified military projects. We understand that the Filton laboratory is working on lasers, stealth and C4SRI: (command, control, communications, computers, surveillance, reconnaissance, and intelligence. ) In addition, Unmanned aerial vehicles - pilotless planes - are going to be an important weapon of the future. BAe Filton is working with Northrop Grunmman on UAV programme called watchkeeper.

Last, but not least, Royal ordnance, the small arms and ammunition business within BAe has an office on the Filton site. We have had no joy finding out what they do there - again presumably its management rather than maufacture - and thy have had a new "executive" suite of office installed recently.

In the evening a good meeting was held at the Quaker Meeting House in Redland, Bristol.

March 1st - BAe Glascoed

BAE Glascoed

St David's Day dawned dark and stormy and I feared the prospect of a good soaking at BAE biggest factory in Wales. However, the day brightened and the sun even shone for, what I'd have to say was the best Site Unseen protest so far.

Around 50 people took part in the protest, with representatives from Gwent Peace and Justice, Penarth Christian CAAT, Cardiff Anarchist Network and Plaid Cymru all present. Some attendees took the part of Weapons Inspectors and demanded access to the site. When BAe security stonily refused, some inspectors went over the fence, only to be ejected by the police

The Glascoed site is one of the Royal ordnance factories and its presence in Usk, goes back many, many years. BAe Systems took over Royal ordnance in 1987 and merged it with Marconi's Land Systems division to create Royal ordnance defence. ROD has 3,500 spread across 14 sites in the UK, the US and Europe. We understand that around 400 people work at RO Glascoed.

RO Glascoed's main activity is the filling and packing, and supplying of finished munitions. Of course in the language of the 'defence ' industry they are not bombs and shells but "lethal package technologies". In other words, several of the other RO and indeed BAe sites produce components or parts of weapons which are then shipped to Glascoed to be filled with explosives and fuses. Royal ordnance signed an exclusive deal with the UK MOD in 1999 to supply ammunition - its estimated that the company supplies around £100m of ammunition to the MoD each year - much if not most of that will pass through Glascoed. BAe also boasts on its website that it supplies munitions and small arms to more than 50 other countries although it is reluctant to say which these countries are.

The type of weapons that are assembled at Glascoed include tank shells, mortar shells, small arms ammunition, missile and torpedo warheads, (including Hellfire missiles used on the Apache Attack helicopters), depth charges and warheads for MLRS (such as RAYO - a 'poor mans version' being jointly developed by BAE with Chile - it was this system that Pinochet was coming to see when he was arrested a couple of years ago.

Should also say a word about Depleted Uranium. There has been a great deal of concern about the use of depleted Uranium ammunition. An army medical report from 1997 stated that inhalation or ingestion of even small amounts of dust from exploded or burned Depleted Uranium could lead to cancer. DU is suspected to be a contributor to "Gulf War Syndrome". Glascoed assembled the 120mm Challenger 2 Tank shells including the Depleted Uranium penetrator. DU is used because it is extremely dense and penetrates through armoured tanks. The problem is that tanks usually exploded and burn after that have been attacked and this cause the DU to burn and spread over a great distance and it can then be breathed in Academic reports suggest that around 400 tonnes of DU was used in Iraq in the gulf war of 91 and about 40 tonnes in Yugoslavia. As far as we can tell all UK DU penetrators would have come through Glascoed. BAe now insists that they are no longer manufacturing DU penetrator for the Challenger tank.

Whilst some of the other RO sites are being threatened with closure, it seems that BAE sees a bright future for Glascoed as it says it is investing significant sums of money in the site. To continue to produce "lethal; package technologies" for years to come.

Our public meeting in the evening went very well with local people planning an number of initiatives, including street stalls in Cardiff city centre, a further protest on Maundy Thursday and an investigation into the levels of safety surrounding the transportation of munitions to and from Glascoed site.

Site Unseen: Exposing the Arms Trade

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