In These New Times

PressTV

19th February, 2011

British Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt has recently said London is to annul more than 50 arms sale licenses for Bahrain and Libya and is considering more such actions for other regimes in the wider region over their crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations.

However, the British government did not confirm reports that the bulk of ammunition it has already sold to such regimes are being used to kill pro-democracy protestors.

Security forces in Bahrain have so far killed at least four demonstrators and wounded some 290 others while the Human Rights Watch said the Libyan army has killed at least 24 protestors over Wednesday and Thursday in the country’s second city Benghazi.

This come as the main purpose of London’s withdrawal of arms licenses seems to be avoiding the damaging implications of helping tyrannical rulers in their crackdown on democratic movements rather than human rights concerns.

It goes without saying that London has not come to identify the anti-democratic nature of regimes in Libya and Bahrain among others over night.

Indeed, London has been well aware of the autocratic nature of the regimes in Bahrain and Libya as it was aware of the dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt, both major customers of British arms.

Earlier this month, British activists called for the government’s explanation over a report by the European Union, which said Britain and several other EU nations have significantly increased their arms sales to several dictatorships in the Middle East and North Africa over the past years.

In the context of the report, the main question which arises here is how effective can the cancellation of licenses be after the British government has helped such totalitarian regimes build up a massive stockpile of ammunition, while knowing they could be used to crush popular movements.

Analysts believe Britain’s move on licenses can also be connected to the embarrassing situation the country was entangled in after popular movements against the dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt led to the ouster of the African countries presidents.

The repressive regime of deposed Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali killed hundreds of people in its onslaught on the country’s popular uprising before yielding to people’s democratic rights last month.

The ripple from Tunisian movement later spread to Egypt where toppled president Hosni Mubarak’s regime killed hundreds of demonstrators before losing its 30-year grip on power earlier this month.

Britain has also exported the engines for the drones the Israeli regime uses to target Palestinian territories.

Back in January 2009, Amnesty International unveiled evidence that showed Britain is supplying the regime with the especially-designed engines it uses on its drones.

The international human rights body called on London at the time to “suspend all military exports to Israel until there is no longer a substantial risk that such equipment will be used for serious violations of human rights”.

The body said the Israeli army is using the unmanned aircraft to target civilian homes, hospitals and shops in airstrikes that led to “significant civilian casualties”.

There has been so far no move by the British government to revoke arms sales to the Israeli regime, which is another proof for the emptiness of London’s claims that they are cancelling ammunition exports to the mentioned African and Middle Eastern states over human rights concerns