Confronting the Arms Companies

Arms companies always deny any responsibility for arms exports, arguing that the government alone is responsible; whilst the government must take its share of the blame, so too must the companies themselves - after all, it is they who promote the trade and bank the profits. Here we suggest three ways to challenge arms companies in your area.

Research

It is almost certain that within a short distance from where you live there is a company involved in some way with the arms trade. If you are interested to know what companies in your area are involved in the arms trade, call or email Anne-Marie at the CAAT office (annemarie@caat.org.uk).

However, we are not able to track every company and need local people to help us undertake research. This can include everything from watching out for information about the company in your local press to undertaking some basic research about the company in your local library. It's amazing how much information a local library has on local companies. You could also approach the company directly for information. A good guide to company research has been produced by Corporate Watch on their website, www.corporatewatch.org.uk.

Protest!

CAAT believes that it is important to directly challenge UK companies involved in the arms trade. One way to do this is through organising a protest at a site of one of the companies. This has the effect of letting the company know that many people do not think that the arms business is an ordinary, acceptable business. In addition, a protest can quite often generate a lot of publicity which will raise awareness about the company and the arms trade in general.

CAAT is a non-violent organisation and any protest organised under the name of CAAT needs to be non-violent (please see the panel for guidelines).

The CAAT office will always be available to help you organise a protest, but some tips for organising a successful one include:

• Prepare some visual banners or placards;
• Have some leaflets to hand out explaining what you are doing and why;
• Agree a start and end time.

 
Non-violent direct action

Whilst not everyone agrees with undertaking non-violent direct action (NVDA) or civil disobedience, CAAT believes that, if properly organised and if people are properly prepared it can be a good way to take the campaign forward. Whilst CAAT was campaigning to end the sale of Hawk aircraft and other military equipment to Indonesia, many people got together in small groups and undertook civil disobedience against the main company involved. Examples range from people standing on the runway at BAe's test facility in Warton to prevent the company test flying the aircraft, to people disrupting the company's AGM.

Participation in CAAT actions is conditional on accepting CAAT's non-violent direct action guidelines.

Universal Children's Day: Not business as usual

On 20th November - Universal Children's Day - a small group of activists protested outside the BAE Systems main office in Edinburgh. We started at 7.3Oam and eight people blockaded the two main entrances. People used 0-locks to join themselves together and red paint was thrown on the ground to symbolise the blood of the victims of the arms trade.
We believed that the workers at the Edinburgh offices should take responsibility for the actions of the company in supplying weapons to regimes such as Indonesia, Turkey and Colombia. The action caused a significant amount of disruption to BAE - it wasn't arms business as usual and lots of leaflets were given out to the workers explaining what we were doing and why we were doing it. Then the police came but were quite happy about us blockading and after two hours we called it a day and went for some tea. The local paper, the Edinburgh Evening News, carried a good piece about the protest.    Roz Bullen