Current plans

From Tuesday 8 to Friday 11 September 2009, during the hours that the euphemistically-titled Defence Systems & Equipment International (DSEi) exhibition - the world's largest arms fair, owned by Clarion Events - is open for business for arms dealers from around the world at the ExCel Centre in east London, a Famine for the Victims of the Arms Trade will take place, based outside the Victoria offices of UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), the government department whose DSO ("Defence & Security Organisation") division exists purely to facilitate the trade in instruments of death and torture and provide official government support for the arms fair.

The UKTI office is located at Kingsgate House, 66-74 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6SW (past Westminster Cathedral on the right and just before you get to Westminster City Hall and Library on the left, coming from Victoria tube / train station (5 minutes' walk)).
Map: http://tinyurl.com/UKTImap

The 100-hour Famine (consuming only water / zero calorie beverages) will highlight the fact that while billions of men, women and children around the world starve and languish in poverty, their leaders are busy spending billions of pounds that could be used to feed, clothe and house them and provide clean water, sanitation, healthcare and social welfare on weapons to murder, maim, brutalize and torture them and invade or threaten occupied or disputed territories and other sovereign states.

Meanwhile, governments of major arms-producing countries like the UK and the USA are only too eager to support such activities as arms industry lobbyists exert unrelenting pressure on civil servants and politicians. Neither these governments nor certainly the corrupt and greedy arms companies themselves have any qualms about selling their wares to other goverments with a history of brutal repression and other serious human rights abuses, including Israel, Libya, Indonesia, Colombia, Morocco and Saudi Arabia; and the British government even extends official invitations to such countries to send official delegations to DSEi!

In addition to vigiling outside UKTI (and probably ExCel itself on Tuesday morning, as part of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) rally), there are plans to visit nearby sites of relevance during the four days of the arms fair / famine. These are likely to include:

- Parliament Square

- Downing Street

- Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Whitehall

- Ministry of Defence, Whitehall

- Buckingham Palace - Prince Andrew, the Duke of York is the Special Representative for UKTI and so it is part of his remit to promote the arms industry.

- BAE Systems - Britain's largest arms manufacturer, tainted by numerous allegations of corruption. Wants to make the next generation of nuclear-armed Trident submarines at their Barrow-in-Furness dockyard in Cumbria.

- Lockheed Martin, 22 Carlisle Place, Victoria - California-based firm that is one of the world's principal arms manufacturers. Makes and maintains nuclear warheads (at Aldermaston and Burghfield Atomic Weapons Establishments in Berkshire) and ballistic missiles (in the U.S.) for Britain's submarine-based Trident nuclear weapons system.

- Rolls Royce, Buckingham Gate, Victoria - No longer making luxury cars but increasingly focusing on the lucrative military sector. Makes the nuclear fuel plates and propulsion systems for Trident and other nuclear submarines at their Raynesway factory in Derby. Also makes engines for military jets.

(Legally-required police notification will be given, where necessary.)

People of all faiths and none are warmly invited to come and participate in some or all of the fast, or to come along and show your support, and to help publicise the event within your networks.

May thanks,
Dan