shoalcollective

Targeting Brimar

A new anti-militarist campaign is brewing in Manchester against Brimar, a company involved in the manufacture of display units for military aircraft and vehicles that are being used by the US and Israeli military. Local activists have set up the Target Brimar campaign, aimed at forcing the company to end production of military components. In September, Target Brimar published a dossier entitled The Case Against Brimar’, which profiles the company and lists the campaign’s demands. (more…)

By shoalcollective, ago

Pittsburgh: A new testing ground for acoustic weapons

The mass mobilisation against September’s G20 Summit in Pittsburgh was met with a characteristically brutal response from US Homeland ‘Security’. In many ways, police repression of UK protests pales in comparison to American political policing, with activists being routinely arrested under various terrorism-related charges and local and federal law enforcement agencies rolling out military style operations, complete with temporary detention facilities and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars each. The Pittsburgh police, however, may well have distinguished themselves as hitting a new low in the erosion of US civil liberty. Alongside US police staples such as rubber bullets, tear gas and ‘flash bang’ stun grenades, the Pittsburgh authorities unleashed an acoustic weapon, one of a new generation of ‘non-lethal’ military devices, used not only to disperse and intimidate protesters, but to gain control over their behaviour. (more…)

By shoalcollective, ago

Volunteers needed to map the arm trade

Corporations have an ever increasing role in wars and conflicts around the world. The invasion and occupation of Iraq was carried out with the participation of corporations, such as arms and private military companies, and for the benefit of private companies hoping to exploit the country’s market and resources. Similarly, arms companies in the UK benefit from Israel’s continued assault on Palestine. (more…)

By shoalcollective, ago

Mapping the Arms Trade

Corporate Watch and Disarm DSEi have produced a map showing the locations of all 924 exhibitors at the Defence Systems and Equipment International (DSEi) arms fair. The map is intended to show that the arms trade is present in every community in the UK. The map also represents the first stage in Corporate Watch’s ‘Mapping the Arms Trade’ project aimed at creating a comprehensive interactive map showing locations of arms dealers across the UK. The map can be viewed at www.dsei.org. (more…)

By shoalcollective, ago

Veolia tries to bail out of one apartheid project; two to go!

In 2005, just after the publication of the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid, Palestinians began calling for an international boycott campaign against Veolia, a company involved in the Citypass Consortium, a scheme to build a tramline on occupied territory in the West Bank. Veolia is a huge multinational, that arguably has the biggest financial commitment of any international company to Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank. (more…)

By shoalcollective, ago

NATO and the AMN for Beginners

First Published in September 2009
by Jack Anderson, Anti-Militarist Network (AMN)
If you’re anything like me, it wouldn’t be exactly revolutionary to declare that this century’s anti-war activism hasn’t been all that successful.
Similarly, it wouldn’t take a great leap of imagination to argue that, despite being the face of ‘benevolent interventionism’, NATO has been and remains a de-stabilizing and dangerous source of ruling class violence. It was with both these facts in mind that a handful of activists in late 2008 in Edinburgh decided to put together the UK’s first Anti-Militarist Gathering. (more…)

By shoalcollective, ago

The Facade of Arms Control

Corporate Watch’s new project, ‘mapping the arms trade’, will map the physical locations of arms companies across the UK and examine the UK arms industry. It will also be necessary to unravel the web of contradictory government statements and figures about the arms trade through which the state gives an impression of control on arms exports. In this first article, Corporate Watch focuses on UK arms sales to Israel. (more…)

By shoalcollective, ago