BYM blasts UK arms trade in inquiry
Quakers have made a submission to a parliamentary inquiry
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has made a written submission to a parliamentary inquiry into UK policies towards autocratic states.
The submission, co-written by Daniel Jakopovich, BYM’s peace and disarmanent programme manager, and Tobias Wellner, BYM’s East Africa programme manager, provides evidence in favour of active nonviolence for the Foreign Affairs Committee to consider. The committee aims to scrutinise both direct foreign policy relationships with autocracies and the ways in which autocracies interact with the rules-based international system.
The submission emphasises that ‘a good end cannot sanctify evil means’ and says: ‘While we acknowledge the attempts to put in restrictions as to who Britain can sell weapons to, we are distressed by the UK government’s policy of selling arms to, and otherwise supporting, many autocratic regimes. We are also dismayed by attempts to influence political outcomes in other countries through military action.’
Citing sources such as a 2015 study by Physicians for Social Responsibility, it asserts that ‘as many as two million people may have died since the beginning of the so-called “War on Terror”’, including fatalities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, where ‘there has even been a return to open slave markets’.
The submission also lambasts the UK government’s approach to the arms trade, saying ‘the desire to secure the sale of arms to other countries has led the UK government to turn a blind eye to violence and brutality in those countries’. Referring to research from Campaign Against Arms Trade, it highlights that in 2017, the UK approved arms export licences to eighteen out of the thirty states that were deemed to be of ‘priority concern’ by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office due to their human rights violations. Particular mention is given to Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the effects of the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen.
The submission also refers to Quakers’ nonviolence programmes in Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi, and points to ‘a number of studies’ that have shown ‘nonviolent action is far more conducive to creating a more peaceful social order than the use of military action’. Recommendations include: supporting ‘nonviolent approaches to conflict resolution and transformation’ and ‘local grassroots organisations based in autocratic states that are using nonviolent campaign tools’.
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