Amnesty says EU arms controls are ineffective

[dArKeR]

BRUSSELS , BELGIUM
Saturday, May 15, 2004,Page 7

Arms export controls in the EU are "dangerously ineffective" and stringent new regulations must be put in place to protect human rights in the developing world, Amnesty International said yesterday.

In a 107-page report released hours before a meeting of the bloc's arms control committee, the watchdog catalogued mostly secret transfers of weapons, technology and expertise from EU member states which have been used for human rights violations.

These included the involvement of an Italian company in the manufacture of vehicles used as mobile execution chambers in China and the export of components from Britain for Chinese military aircraft engines despite an EU arms embargo on Beijing.

It said the Netherlands had failed to control transit trade to Israel of armored vehicles which are used against civilians, while new EU member states Poland and the Czech Republic transfer surplus weapons to governments such as Yemen with a history of diverting arms to third countries.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/05/15/2003155585

Blood on the hands of corporations and politicians.

[AP]

1. The RW'ers who get kicked out of office in Europe go to work for arms

manufactures.

Many of the arms dealers selling shit to Milosevic in the late 90s were Tories who got booted from office in 96.

[ze_dscherman]

2. The EU last year became the biggest arms manufacturer/dealer world wide

This is a major item - many EU countries are complicit in mass murder world wide. The AI report can be found here: http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGACT300032004