27th June 2007

The world's largest military Air Show, the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford (RIAT), will be 14th and 15th July this year. See Green party's comment.

The Show is sponsored by Britain's biggest arms company, BAE Systems, who yesterday saw more than £1bn wiped off its share price after it was forced to announce that the US department of justice has opened a criminal inquiry into the allegedly corrupt deals with Saudi Arabia.

Martin Whiteside, the Green Party's Parliamentary candidate for Stroud and a District councillor said: "The Tattoo is used to showcase weapons in all their 'glory' to large numbers of people. Whether or not any deals are made is irrelevant: this is about selling and making the use of force more acceptable."

Martin Whiteside said: "There is no doubt that for many people there is a real thrill to see aircraft fly at such high speeds, but I would urge people to think twice about viewing these killing machines while so many still suffer their effects. Some of the planes that will be at the show, have been used to help drop thousands of tons of cluster bombs and depleted uranium shells on Iraqis. This is hardly family entertainment while people continue to suffer and die from the illegal, unnecessary and immoral war in Iraq."

Martin Whiteside added: "The Fairford Air Tattoo will also result in many thousands of tonnes of CO2 emissions from the planes, plus a significant contribution from all the unnecessary road traffic that an event of this size generates. This single event will cancel out the valiant attempts that many tens of thousands of people have made across the country to reduce their emissions."

Profits from the Tattoo go to a charity (RAF Benevolent Fund) which helps RAF and ex RAF personnel and familles who fall on hard times. Martin Whiteside comments: "It would be interesting to know how much this celebration of destructive power costs the MoD and how much is raised for charity when this cost is taken into account. Would it not be cheaper to hand over the money direct or even to provide care for service personnel from Government funding?"

Need to tackle causes of conflict

Martin Whiteside concluded: "We must start to tackle the root causes of conflict. We fund one dictator after the other to keep our 'defence' industries solvent: clinching the £10 billion Eurofighter jets deal becomes more important than sending the message that Saudi Arabia's record on human rights is unacceptable. We armed Saddam to fight Khomeini, then fought him twice over oil. We subsidise arms exports by nearly £1 bn a year yet that money could be used to start a radical programme of conversion to renewable energy that would replace our need for this oil and drastically reduce climate change. Let us hope PM Brown starts to raise our ethical standards in business and diplomacy. "

Notes:

(i) A three-year British Serious Fraud Office inquiry which found £1bn had been paid to Washington accounts controlled by Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia was suppressed last December, after intervention by the attorney-general and Tony Blair. The SFO had found classified MoD files revealing government complicity in the transactions. The prime minister claimed that to go ahead with the inquiry would wreck relations with the Saudi royal family, and would endanger the lives of British citizens and soldiers if the Saudis cut off terrorist intelligence. BAE also claimed it was in danger of losing a lucrative new Saudi contract, to sell 72 Typhoon war planes. The DofJ investigation under the 1977 foreign corrupt practices act will include the Saudi deals, leaving open the possibility that Washington will also look at others of the many arms deals for which BAE is under investigation. Swiss federal prosecutors are conducting a money-laundering inquiry into payments made through Swiss banks and offshore companies. Swedish prosecutors are investigating BAE deals involving Anglo-Swedish Gripen aircraft sales in the Czech Republic. Austrian prosecutors are probing related deals, and so is a Hungarian parliamentary commission.

See more background here:
http://www.caat.org.uk/campaigns/controlBAE/index.php