In response to growing concerns that Birmingham University has become a fertile recruitment ground for arms dealers and their supporters in the oil trade, B*U*S*T the War and People & Planet were today forced to investigate.

A team of weapons inspectors found two fanatical recruiters from the notorious BAe Systems attempting to brainwash an encouragingly small group of engineering students into joining their shadowy organisation. BAe Systems, a quasi-legal group with a long track record of supplying weapons to known terrorist regimes, had apparently gained access to these potential recruits with the assistance of the University, which has persistently ignored calls to cease all forms of support for such groups.

Meanwhile, on another part of the campus, a team of observers from People & Planet infiltrated another University-sanctioned gathering of oil-traders attempting to recruit yet more young people into their lethal business. This group were from the particularly ruthless Esso/Exxon Mobil grouping, which uses disinformation to throw investigators off the scent and is known to collaborate with some of the most oppressive terrorist regimes on the planet.

The teams were able to inspect the premises whilst informing the assembled students of the grim track records of the groups with which they were becoming involved. They questioned the recruiters about their motivations and handed out alternative career leaflets to the students, explaining that there were better things to do with your life than devoting it to these fanatics whose only pursuit is profit, with blatant disregard for human life and ecological destruction.

The inspectors were forced to withdraw when the regime sent in security guards to interrupt their work. Despite the hostile environment, the inspections will continue. Such groups are jealous of our freedoms. They wish to see us capitulate to a fundamentalist totalitarian regime where liberty and justice are sacrificed to the interests of corporate power and consumerist greed. These groups, and the regimes that support them, must not be allowed to continue unhindered in their pursuit of power.

We will not rest until these rogue elements are eliminated and young people are safe once again to continue their studies without interference from these reactionary elements intent on the destruction of our world.


Birmingham University againST the War
( http://students.bugs.bham.ac.uk/bustthewar)

Birmingham University People & Planet
( http://students.bugs.bham.ac.uk/peopleandplanet)



Notes for Editors:

BAe Systems

“According to BAE Systems' effusive preliminary results, "2001 was a year of changes in the marketplace, most notably in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 in the United States." These "changes" were greeted as "a boon for the defence industry" (Jane's Defence Weekly, 03/01/02), accompanied as they were by a 32.6% increase in profits from 2000, and a 30% increase in BAE Systems' share price within a few weeks of the attacks.

“Similarly, the day NATO started bombing Serbia in March 1999, shares in the company rose faster than any others on the index. Three weeks later they were still on the rise as the war dividend, fuelled by relentless bombing, began to bear fruit.

“These human catastrophes have aided BAE Systems in its quest to become "one of the dominant global players through this period of change", as its acquisition of Lockheed Martin's Aerospace Electronics Systems (now BAE SYSTEMS Information and Electronic Systems Integration Sector) made it the world's largest arms company (The Economist, 02/12/00).”

 http://www.caat.org.uk/campaigns/clean-investment-campaign/baes-2002.php


Esso/Exxon Mobil

“Our weather is careering out of control, fuelled by greenhouse gases released by burning oil, coal and gas. More violent weather threatens savage storms, severe droughts, unnatural flooding, species extinction and an increase in disease. And it's happening now.

“In the 1960s there were 16 climate related natural disasters. In the 1990s there were 70.

“But as the world heats up, instead of investing in renewable energy, Esso just keeps on looking for more oil. Even worse, Esso has helped sabotage international action on climate change. They publicly oppose the Kyoto Protocol, the ONLY international agreement aimed at stopping climate change. Esso donated more money than any other oil company to get George W. Bush into the White House. They got their payback soon after he became President when he pulled the USA out of the Kyoto Protocol - despite the fact that the USA is responsible for a QUARTER of all greenhouse gas pollution.”

 http://www.peopleandplanet.org/stopesso/