Today, 9th May 2007, London hosted the Annual General Meeting of British Aerospace (BAE). Protesting outside the BAE AGM I meet Benny. He is from Papua New Guinea. He told me that in 1977 when he was a child his village was bombed by Indonesian BEA Hawk Jets. During a series of air raids on his and many other villages a large numbers of people where killed, injured and displaced. He was seriously wounded in the leg. He and others were forced to abandon their villages, he spent 5 years in the jungle where Traditional medicine helped him survive his injuries. He eventually found his way to the UK where his leg is now undergoing reconstructive surgery.

It is perhaps ironic that the UK taxpayers have guaranteed the sale of BAE equipment through the Export Credits Guarantee system. Under this system, if the country buying the weapons does not pay up, the UK tax payer pays off the debt, thus giving a risk free deal to companies like BAE. There is some justice in the fact that the UK tax payer is, after all these years, paying to repair the damage done to his leg.

The reason the British Hawks bombed villages in West Papua is unclear to me. Despite claims of the use of Hawk jets in 1977 against innocent villagers in West Papua, and later in East Timor, New Labour went of to approve the sale of more Hawks to Indonesia in 1997, 1999 and 2000.

The world of selling arms is a murky domain where ethical policies appear to be buried under huge piles of money. The investigation into the BAE arms deal to Saudi Arabia was dropped, by Blair and the Attorney General, in the interests of “national security”, there were no doubt huge sighs of relief from the boardroom of BAE. Cynical people might wonder if BAE was able to influence the outcome of this investigation?