Tony Blair’s “deal in the desert” with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2003 opened the way for the deals that really mattered – British contracts in oil, construction and arms.
Tribune
1 May 2011
The popular uprisings in the Middle East and the subsequent repression of protesters with arms supplied by the United Kingdom and the European Union has raised questions of why such weapons were sold to dictatorial regimes in the first place.
The report of the Parliamentary Committee on Arms Export Controls in early April castigated the Government for “misjudging the risks” that arms would be used for internal repression. The savage war in Libya, where Nato planes fire on EU manufactured weaponry, has added an ironic twist to an already deeply dishonourable relationship.
Why and how did this situation develop? Successive British governments have been enthusiastic promoters of arms exports. The infamous Al-Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980s set the standard, whereby arming a deeply repressive regime was deemed not just acceptable but something to be celebrated.
The fact the deal’s chief beneficiary, British Aerospace (now BAE Systems), was quickly connected with allegations of corrupt practices seemed of little weight compared to the supposed gains in contracts and jobs.
While the Saudi deals are by far the largest in the region, the UK has also pursued smaller countries. There are long-standing military ties with Jordan, Bahrain and Oman. North Africa is a newer area for British arms exports. Both oil-rich Algeria and Libya are designated as “priority markets” by the Government’s arms export unit, UK Trade & Investment Defence & Security Organisation.
The Government claims that it follows a “responsible” policy whereby arms will not be licensed for export if their destination country cannot pass certain, limited, tests.
Guidelines state that arms will not be sold to countries if they are likely to be used in human rights abuses, for internal repression or external agression. Because the overriding policy is to support arms exports and guidelines are vaguely worded, they can be easily overridden.
A state may be considered a major human rights abuser, yet may also be a key market for arms exports. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s 2010 Human Rights and Democracy Report, released on March 31 2011, lists 26 “countries with the most serious human rights concerns”. They include countries to whom Britain is more than happy to sell arms and invite to arms fairs, such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Israel and Russia, as well as Libya.
For many years, Libya was treated as a pariah state. Tony Blair’s “deal in the desert” with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2003 opened the way for the deals that really mattered – British contracts in oil, construction and arms.
The British wooed the Libyans. UKTI DSO set up a permanent office in Tripoli to facilitate arms company activities. Libyan top brass were invited to attend Farnborough International Airshow in 2010 and Defence Security Equipment International arms fair in London in 2009.
In turn, British arms companies exhibited at arms fairs in Libya. Britain had the largest pavilion at Tripoli’s Libyan Defence and Security Exhibition in 2010. The arms began to flow, albeit intermittently. Cerainly, 2005 was a good year, with £41 million worth of deals, but most years were much leaner.
In truth, the big British arms deals that had been hoped for never quite materialised. It turned out that the crafty colonial liked to play would-be suitors against each other.
For EU arms exporters, Libya was a new opportunity, made sweeter by the fact that the United States, the world’s largest arms exporter, kept out of the picture because of domestic political considerations (Lockerbie and its aftermath).
In 2009, EU arms exports to North Africa doubled from 985 million euros to two billion euros. In Libya, they reached 343 million euros (compared to 250 million euros the year before). The main suppliers in the five years 2005-09 were Italy, France and the UK, but smaller countries also enthusiastically joined the scramble for Libya. Military planes, small arms, ammunition and fuses, electronic equipment, tear gas and other chemical equipment: EU states were happy to offer all these to the Gaddafi regime without caring how he might use them.
In February 2011, as anti-Gaddafi protests were being brutally suppressed, the British Government announced that it had revoked eight arms licences previously approved for Libya, together with licences for Bahrain. That British arms were being used for “internal repression” seemed to surprise British politicians. Yet they had been exporting such material for years and continued to do so up to weeks before the crackdown.
For example, in the third quarter of 2010, equipment approved for export included wall and door breaching projectile launchers, crowd control ammunition, small arms ammunition, tear gas/irritant ammunition, training tear gas/irritant ammunition. Ammunition comprised £3.2 million of the £4.7 million worth of military items licensed. In the final quarter of 2010, almost half a million pounds of small arms were exported. Not one individual licence was refused.
So is the the end for UK and EU arms sales to Libya? It hardly seems likely. The Nato action itself provides a showcase for weaponry, including the new and vastly expensive Eurofighter Typhoon, flying in combat for the first time. According to Reuters, Libya ordered an Italian air force version of the aircraft in 2009 – a purchase vetoed by Britain and Germany.
No doubt the arms dealers are waiting in the wings, ready to offer their wares whoever comes out in top in Libya.
Kaye Stearman is media co-ordinator of Campaign Against Arms Trade, which works for the reduction and ultimate abolution of the international arms trade
