"In armed conflicts since 1945, 90
percent of casualties have been civilians compared to
50 percent in the Second World War and 10 percent in
the First...
Governments and national
leaders are often the most horrific perpetrators of
violence. Torture occurs in more than 100
countries and is carried out as part of government
policy in at least 40. And governments form a crucial
part of the military industrial complex that is
responsible for churning out the weapons and methods of
war.
The United States is the
world's biggest arms exporter - and supplies around 40
percent of the developing world's arms. Its
military budget is as large as the next ten top
spending countries combined. Its troop strength is 2.4
million. It is involved in escalating numerous
conflicts outside its own borders, and on average the
US has used arms abroad every year for the past 200
years. Its current rationale for high spending on
defence includes declaration of 'war on terrorism'.
Since 1980, on average, fewer than 10 Americans have
been killed by terrorists per year.
Britain is the world's second
largest arms exporter with a 25 per cent share
of the legal global export market. Its military budget
is the fifth largest in the world, with a troop
strength of 240,000. Between 1990 and 1994, it supplied
13 percent of the total arms exports to sub-Saharan
Africa - while at war from 1987 to 1994, Angola
received $7.3 billion worth of British arms."
Meanwhile Reuters reported on 25 March
1999:
"Britain on Thursday released its
first annual report on arms exports in line with the
government's pledge not to sell guns to regimes that
may use them for repression.
The Labour government has pledged not to issue arms
export licences for sale to regimes that might use
them for internal repression, human rights abuses or to prolong existing conflicts.....
The report detailed exports licenses granted by the
government between May 1997, when it took power, and
the end of that year....
Pressure groups such as Saferworld say Britain still
sells arms to countries with blemished human rights
records.... "The committees should, therefore, raise
questions about exports of small arms to countries
with poor human rights records, such
as Bahrain, Sri Lanka, Turkey and
Zimbabwe.''
The government figures showed it signed 19 standard
individual export licences for arms sales to Bahrain
in its first eight months in power, 47 to Sri
Lanka, 111 to Turkey and 30 to
Zimbabwe...."
