Jon Sharman - UK almost doubles arms sales to countries on governments list of human rights abusers
The UK nearly doubled
the value of arms sales to countries on the government’s list of human rights
abusers in the past year, figures reveal. Licences for arms
deals worth some £1.5bn were approved in Whitehall in 2017, up from
£820m a year earlier, according to figures compiled by the Campaign
Against the Arms Trade(CAAT) pressure group.
Sales were granted to
18 countries on the list, including China, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Israel, Egypt
and Pakistan,
compared to 20 different states in 2016. The value of sales to
Saudi Arabia, currently embroiled in a bloody conflict in Yemen against
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels where thousands of civilians have been killed and millions left in need
of aid, alone totalled £1.13bn, the group said.
Theresa
May’s government is “actively arming and supporting many of the regimes
that even it believes are responsible for terrible human rights abuses”,
CAAT’s Andrew Smith told The Independent. He added: “There is
little oversight in the system, and no controls over how these arms will be
used once they have left the UK. The arms sales being agreed today could be
used to fuel atrocities for years to come. Right now UK-made fighter jets
and bombs are playing a central role in the Saudi-led destruction of Yemen, and
the government and arms companies have totally failed to monitor or evaluate
how this deadly equipment is being used… read more:
