Arms Dealers, Dirty Oil and Pay: On Thursday 13th Jun 2013 a protest in the week before the G8 summit in Ireland targeted the offices of arms manufacturers in London. Unlike the previous day the protesters were not harassed and attacked by police and the protest remained peaceful.
Canadian prime minster Stephen Harper had been invited to address Parliament and there was a noisy protest against him over his support of the environmentally disastrous Canadian tar sands as well as a smaller group of Canadian Foreign Service Workers demanding equal pay with other Canadian government employees.
I also briefly photographed the continuing daily vigil calling for the release of Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo which I had written about earlier.
G8 Protest Against Arms Dealers
West End
Anti-G8 protesters continued their protests with a tour of the offices of companies making armaments in Central London. Today their peaceful protest, unlike yesterday’s, was not attacked by police, and there were no arrests.
As well as a group of protesters in black robes with ghost or skull masks and carrying mock scythes and a black banner with the message ‘Think we’re SCARY? You’ll find ‘ARMS DEALERS INSIDE‘, there were others calling attention to UK based arms companies including BAE and EDO and the huge DSEi arms fair held in London’s Docklands.
Some changed into white plastic overalls suitable for a ‘weapons inspection’ as the protest began outside the offices of UK’s largest arms manufacturer BAE in Carlton Gardens. BAE is the third largest arms company in the world and notable for several corruption cases – and they have been fined £48.7m by the US government for braking their military export laws. Speeches here gave brief details about their immoral and sometimes illegal activities.
The protest moved on to give similar performances outside the offices of other arms companies:
- Thales, the world’s 11 largest arms company with a wide range of surveillance equipment, drones, armoured vehicles, missiles and more.
- Lockheed Martin UK – the British arm of the world’s largest arms producer, making fighters, bombs, nuclear weapons and involved with the CIA and FBI.
- Northrop Grumman UK, one of the world’s largest defence contractors and the largest builder of naval vessels
- missile developer MBDA
- QinetiQ, a major defence contractor which manufactures drones and armed robots used in Afghanistan and Iraq.
They also protested outside Charing Cross Police Station where those arrested at the previous day’s J11 Carnival against Capitalism had been taken.
More on My London Diary at G8 Protest Against Arms Dealers.
Harper, we don’t want your dirty oil!
Parliament Square
Canadian PM Stephen Harper was invited to address the UK Parliament as he had a special relationship with UK PM David Cameron, both trying with the support of British Oil companies such as Shell and BP to force the EU to accept oil from the Albertan tar sands. And this protest took place as he spoke.
Canadian campaigners say Harper “has spent the last few years promoting the destructive tar sands industry, eroding Indigenous rights, weakening environmental regulations, muzzling scientists, and helping keep the world fixed on a collision course with runaway climate change by pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol.” They say his “government is currently mired in scandal and sleaze” and ask: “What was the UK thinking in extending this invitation?”
The protest was supported by all the leading environmental groups in the UK, and around a hundred protesters came to chanted in protest as this ‘climate criminal, addressed the UK Parliament shouting slogans including “Don’t say no thank you! Say No Tar!” and “Stephen Harper off our soil; We don’t want your dirty oil!”
More at Harper, we don’t want your dirty oil!
Canadian Foreign Service Protest
Abingdon Street
A few yards down the road from Parliament Square a much smaller group of protesters had come to greet the Canadian Prime Minister, mainly dressed in suits.
The Professional Association of Foreign Service Workers representing men and women working for the Canadian Government here and around the world had come to demand demanding equal pay for equal work. They say other Canadian government employees doing the exact same jobs as them are paid up to $14,000 a year more.
Canadian Foreign Service Protest
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