Development

Money spent on arms is wasted; it is fundamentally unproductive. Arms do not promote education, health, housing or improve the water-supply. Two recent UK deals that stand out as being tailor-made for companies rather than people, are those to South Africa and Tanzania.

South Africa

In 1998, European companies obtained contracts worth $4.8 billion from South Africa for advanced fighter and trainer aircraft, utility helicopters, warships and submarines. South African organisations concerned with development, the environment and human rights, as well as church bodies, have opposed the deal. They are concerned that it will severely undermine their country's economic and social development, and will further aggravate the poverty of most South Africans. Many live in shacks, whilst the provision of clean water and electricity remains a luxury for all but the elite. Perhaps most urgently, South Africa is facing horrific problems as a result of HIV/AIDs.

Tanzania

In 2001, the UK government granted an export licence for a £28m military air traffic control system to the Tanzanian government. Tanzania has eight military aircraft. Many papers were highly critical, with several using cartoons ('Fight poverty with a BAE Systems weapons deal', suggested Steve Bell in The Guardian) and running opinion pieces. Criticism of the proposed export had already come from the World Bank, which said that the system 'is primarily a military system and can provide limited support to civil air traffic control purposes. The purchase of additional equipment would be required to render it useful for civil air traffic control'.¹ A civilian air traffic control system, costing a quarter of the price, would have met Tanzania's needs. However, the system had already been built by BAE Systems on the Isle of Wight.

Chancellor Gordon Brown and International Development Secretary Clare Short were against the deal, which would add to Tanzania's debt burden and do nothing to help the half of its population lacking clean water, or the one in four of its children who, because of poverty, die before the age of five. However, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, and Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, were said to have argued for the deal. Blair obviously having forgotten the commitment he made at the previous Labour Party Conference to tackle poverty in Africa.

UK export licensing

The UK does have an export licensing criterion (Criterion Eight) that states that account will be taken of the 'compatibility of arms exports with the technical and economic capacity of the recipient country', with this information to be gathered from bodies such as the World Bank and the IMF. Clearly, the adverse information gathered concerning Tanzania and South Africa did not overcome BAE Systems' lobbying and the Prime Minister's predilection to sell arms.

DSEi

BAE Systems and other companies involved in the South Africa deal will be exhibiting at DSEi, and both Tanzania and South Africa have received invitations.

1 World Bank technical study, quoted in Guardian, 21.12.01