Tag: cluster bombs

Land Mines and the Lea Valley – 2006

Land Mines and the Lea Valley: Fortunately these were two entirely separate events on October 14th 2006. The landmines were in Hyde Park in a display by Handicap International and after visiting this I took a walk across the Lea Valley from Holloway to Tottenham and Walthamstow where I was going to collect a set of my pictures which had been on show at Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum. Here is a slightly edited version of what I wrote in 2006 with a few of the pictures from the day – and a link to many more from the walk on My London Diary

Ban Landmines and Cluster Bombs

Handicap International, Hyde Park

Land Mines and the Lea Valley - 2006

Saturday in Hyde Park there were land mines. Fortunately they were mainly carefully marked as well as having been made harmless. For many people around the world they are daily hazard, the deadly and maiming residues of war.

Just as dangerous, if not more so, are cluster bombs. These are produced by the sophisticated weapons industries of many countries including Britain and America, and also used by our armies and air forces, dropped from aircraft or fired as artillery.

Land Mines and the Lea Valley - 2006

Each cluster bomb contains from a dozen to several hundred lethal bomblets, which are distributed over a wide area, intended to kill infantry or guerillas, but entirely indiscriminate in their action. Between 5-30% fail to explode on impact, usually getting buried in soil; those dropped over 30 years ago in Vietnam are still killing and maiming people, especially children, there. Almost 2,000,000 were scattered over Iraq in 2003-4.

Land Mines and the Lea Valley - 2006

I went to Hyde Park to sign the petition organised by Nobel peace prize-winning charity Handicap International to aim for a world-wide ban on these weapons.

Handicap International now has urgent appeals for Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan and invites you to join them in campaigning to “Fully implement the treaties banning landmines and cluster munitions without delay and encourage non-signatory states to sign their petition.”

Tottenham to Walthamstow

Land Mines and the Lea Valley - 2006
This stadium entrance had potential, but I couldn’t get myself into the right mood

After my brief visit to Hyde Park, I was on my way to Walthamstow to collect some of my pictures of the Lea Valley that had been on show at the Pump House Museum, and as it was a nice day, decided to walk the last few miles across the Lea Valley and take a few more pictures.

Land Mines and the Lea Valley - 2006
South Tottenham

I began my walk in Holloway, going post the Emirates Stadium and then across South Tottenham.

In King George V Park I found some graffiti artists at work, and took pictures of a few of the many murals, before heading down the Lea Navigation to Springfield and across to Walthamstow Marshes, a surprising area of open space so near to the centre of a major city.

Then I made my way between reservoir and waterworks to the Lea Flood Relief Channel and St James’s Park, surrounded with remarkably brooding lime trees.

There are many more pictures from the walk on My London Diary, but surprisingly I don’t appear to have taken a picture of the Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum on this occasion. I think I had stopped to take so many pictures on the way that I was in rather a hurry to collect my pictures which had been on show for Open Heritage Day there and get home.

More pictures from the walk on My London Diary

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Disarm DSEI – City of London 2009

Disarm DSEI – City of London: on Tuesday 8th September 2009, the day that year’s DSEI Arms Fair opened at the Excel centre in East London, campaigners came to protest outside the city offices of companies heavily involved in the arms trade.

Disarm DSEI - City of London 2009

There were also protests outside the Excel Centre, but the protest in the City would be seen by many more people and was more likely to receive coverage in the media. Later in the day protesters from CAAT (Campaign Against the Arms Trade) also came into central London for a protest outside the government offices of UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) in Westminster. Their Defence and Security Organisation provides financial, political and logistical support for the arms fair, channelling our taxes to help private companies to profit from making the arms used to kill people.

Disarm DSEI - City of London 2009

The protest in the City of London was by Disarm DSEI, who had provided an excellently produced and well-researched ‘infopack’, 4 A4 pages with a map listing over 25 companies – including arms traders, law firms, institutional investors and banks with heavy involvement in the arms trade and which I quoted from extensively in my post on My London Diary. But Disarm DSEI stressed that the protest had no organisers but that those present would together decide on what it would do.

Disarm DSEI - City of London 2009

There were also people who had come prepared to speak at the stops the protest made about the activities of the companies, and after meeting outside the RBS in Aldgate (“the world’s leading creditor to the arms industry … over £44.6 billion in the last ten years including loans to producers of cluster bombs and depleted uranium munitions” we went on to Barclays “the largest investor in the global arms trade with £7.3 billion in shares.”

Disarm DSEI - City of London 2009

From there the protest moved on to Schroders and Lloyds TSB, the “principal banker to BAE Systems and QinetiQ” and who have made loans “to produces of of cluster bombs and depleted uranium munitions.”

Disarm DSEI - City of London 2009

When we reached the BT offices, some protesters made a rush for the door and managed to push their way into the atrium, with others following them for a short protest inside – with staff and visitors to the building gathering on the balconies to watch.

Apart from a little possible damage to the door and from jumping over the security gates I saw little if any deliberate vandalism and no attempt to attack any of the people inside. “BT hold £59 million worth of shares in the international arms trade.” And after making their point, the protesters simply walked out.

Things got a little rougher at AXA Investments (“£2,259 million worth of shares in the UK arms trade and &6,207 million investment in the international arms industry”) where some smashed the glass with a reinforced banner, but the protest then moved away to the Stock Exchange (“where all the dirty dealing gets done“) – where after a short protest the banners were put away and the protest ended.

Police had not tried to stop the march and seemed to just stand back and watch, though there was a FIT team taking photographs. The ‘infopack’ had advised protesters to ‘mask up’ and many did as you can see in my photographs.

From there I took the tube to Westminster, where CAAT had brought a white elephant with doves on it along with a petition calling for an end to the support of the arms trade by the UKTI Defence and Security Organisation. Another banner had the message “Civil Servant … Or Arms Dealer” and accused the government of handing out arms export licences to repressive regimes – some of whom also sell arms as well as buy them at DSEI.

This year, 2025, the government made a highly publicised statement about not inviting the Israeli government delegation to the DSEI arms fair – but failed to mention that Israeli arms manufacturers will still be selling their weapons there, selling them as being “battle-tested” after their use in the long series of attacks on Gaza, killing Palestinians in the ongoing genocide.

Among those at protest outside the UKTI was peace activist Dan Viesnik on his 100 hour Famine for Victims of the Arms Trade at various government offices and other locations around the city.

More about these protests and many more pictures on My London Diary at Disarm DSEi and CAAT: Close UKTI DSO.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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