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British Defence Secretary Liam Fox is to praise the role of British arms firms in a conference in London and to give his support to the country´s arms and defence industries.
In a speech to mark the opening of the world´s biggest arms fair, Defense & Security Equipment International (DSEi), Fox is expected to say he is “proud” that Britain is ranked as the world´s second biggest arms exporter and that the British government will help the arms manufacturers to prosper more.
He is to say that the firms are playing a key role in promoting foreign policy goals that results in what he describes as "enlightened international engagement.”
Fox´s results came after the shocking news admitting that British government has invited 14 authoritarian regimes including Bahrain to DSEi arms fair taking place at ExCeL centre in East London´s Docklands.
Fox will also claim Britain´s export licensing is regarded as one of the toughest in the world. But he has evidently failed to notice that Britain has already supplied repressive and human rights abusing regimes with its killing technologies. For instance tens of licenses to trade arms between Britain and Bahrain were open in January this year, just weeks before the February fourteenth uprising. Around that time, a licence to sell seventy five thousand pounds of small arms ammunition to the country was also approved. And arms sales to Saudi Arabia, who helped to clear Bahrain´s capital Manama of protesters, reportedly increased by fifteen percent this year.
The anti-war activists condemned the coalition government´s move to demonstrate its enthusiasm in promoting arms exports to the repressive regimes. They considered London arms fair as being insulting since hundreds of thousands of civilians have lost their lives during the bloody wars across the world.
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Last Updated: 14 September 2011
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