Caabu welcomes UK government’s commitment to arms exports review

Caabu welcomes the Foreign Secretary’s confirmation in the House of Commons on 15 March that there will be a review of arms exports to various countries around Middle East.  He made the statement in response to a question from Caroline Lucas MP.  She had joined with a group of distinguished authors, academics, film directors, musicians, actors and other politicians in Caabu’s open letter to the Prime Minister published in the Guardian on 3 March. The letter urged him to suspend arms sales to regimes that engage in repression. Chris Doyle, the Director of Caabu, said that such a review was “a positive sign that the government was taking public concerns seriously but that the government needed to make clear exactly the extent of such a review and carry it out as a matter of utmost urgency.   In the interim, there should a moratorium on the approval of arms export licenses to all states under review during this period, to reduce the chance that Britain will see weapons to states that might use them for internal repression. Ultimately an effective review has to lead to a full and final end to the sales of arms to repressive regimes.”