Arming the torturers
01 March 1995
As the world waits for the Scott report, evidence was broadcast in January of collusion in illegal sales of torture equipment by government departments, including the Scottish office and the Department of Trade and Industry. A Channel 4 Dispatches programme used an actor posing as a middleman for a middle Eastern government to expose the manufacture and export of electric shock torture weapons by British, Irish and German companies. The "buyer" was given contacts and helped round export-licence regulations by a salesman for Royal Ordnance (now part of the privatised British Aerospace), who claimed he had DTI and Scottish Office support in selling torture equipment to countries violating human rights such as China.
The salesman promised access to the Royal Ordnance global procurement network to ensure that the order for 30,000 electro-shock batons and shields could be met. The "buyer" was taken to a secret torture trade fair, the Covert and Operational Procurement Exhibition (COPEX), held at Sandown racecourse, to which delegations from Algeria, China, Colombia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and Turkey had been invited. And he "bought" the illegal weapons from ICL Technical Plastics in Scotland.
The batons, capable of discharging shocks of 50-120,000 volts, are described as the "common denominator of torturing states" by Amnesty International, and although their manufacture, sale and use were banned in the UK until 1988 after criminals started using them in robberies.
The revelations provoked a demand by Amnesty International for a full investigation and for safeguards against the export of military, security and police equipment to repressive regimes. Amnesty's demands were taken up in an early day motion signed by 40 MPs on 17 January, and by the European Parliament, which passed a resolution on 19 January requesting statements from the governments concerned, urging support for Amnesty International's demands, and calling on the Commission to propose safeguards against the export from Europe of such equipment.
Far from responding positively, the UK government ignored the protests and, in early March, added insult to injury by announcing the sale of about 100 tanks and armoured vehicles to Indonesia. Board of Trade president Michael Heseltine said that it was "not likely" that the vehicles would be used for internal repression in Indonesia or East Timor.
Rebuffing the victims
No one can deny that the states most eagerly sought after as customers at trade fairs such as COPEX are precisely those with the worst human rights records: otherwise they would not be looking to buy such equipment. But, while turning a blind eye (at least) to the sale of illegal repressive technology, the UK is turning an increasingly deaf ear to the victims. The increasingly hard line on recognition of refugees revealed in the latest asylum statistics (see Statewatch Vol 4 no 6) means that the Home Office is telling Bosnian Croats to return to Croatia, Chinese to go back to China, Colombians to Colombia, Tamils to Sri Lanka, Kurds to Turkey, Zaireans to Zaire.
In September 1994 an immigration adjudicator, hearing the appeal of a young Tamil man against the refusal of political asylum, commented that:
"I am prepared to accept that he suffered some maltreatment during the period of his detention and, indeed, it would be unusual bearing in mind the circumstances in Sri Lanka if he were not maltreated to some degree."
The young Tamil concerned had his appeal against refusal of refugee status dismissed. The Immigration Appeal Tribunal upheld this refusal in February 1995. A similar attitude was displayed by the Court of Appeal, in giving the Home Office the green light to deport refugee Karamjit Singh Chahal to India, where he undoubtedly faced torture. And at the European level, the Ad Hoc group of ministers said in July 1992 of refugees that "individuals are not entitled to protection under the Geneva Convention merel