Report by Frank Slijper of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (Campagne tegen Wapenhandel)

“Five years into the financial and economic crisis in Europe, and there is still an elephant in Brussels that few are talking about. The elephant is the role of military spending in causing and perpetuating the economic crisis. As social infrastructure is being slashed, spending on weapon systems is hardly being reduced. While pensions and wages have been cut, the arms industry continues to profit from new orders as well as outstanding debts. The shocking fact at a time of austerity is that EU military expenditure totalled €194 billion in 2010, equivalent to the annual deficits of Greece, Italy and Spain combined.”

To read the full report, click here.

Also see the excellent infographic!

The post Guns, Debt and Corruption: Military Spending and the EU appeared first on Global Day of Action on Military Spending.

Compiled by Peace Movement Aotearoa

According to the budget appropriations released yesterday, military spending has increased by $536,416,000 from last year to a total of $3,259,537,000 this year – an average of more than $8.9 million a day, a figure you can readily use to compare with the level of whatever area of social / human rights / environmental protection spending you are interested in.

We have put together some initial comparative facts and figures illustrating some of the government’s spending priorities in the year ahead, covering:

• Military spending / Official Development Assistance;
• Veteran’s pensions / Domestic Purposes Benefit; and
• Government Communications Security Bureau and Security Intelligence Service / Agencies tasked with human rights protection and promotion, and environmental oversight.

This message includes: a graph with the comparative levels of spending, the amount allocated for each (attached), and links to where this information is available on-line.

Links:

Graph: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=518517844862256&l=6b525793ad

Document with amount allocated for each area: http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/budget2013.pdf andhttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=518331208214253&l=600e19c371

The post New Zealand Budget Report 2013: Facts and Figures of Military Spending appeared first on Global Day of Action on Military Spending.

by Merci L. Angeles

 Type Smokey Mountain Philippines in your computer search engine, and you will see the images of the mountain of trash, the squalid shanties built on top of the dumpsite, naked children playing and scavenging. It has even become a tourist attraction; for those who want the pleasure of seeing how the poorest of the poor in the world live, you can go on a Smokey Mountain tour.

The original Smokey Mountain in Tondo, Manila, Philippines was a 2,000,000 ton garbage heap, which served as the waste disposal facility for Metro Manila for over 40 years. The dumpsite got its name from the continuous oxidation of decomposing waste and refuse fires. The garbage dumpsite was home to a huge squatter community of around 30,000, who scavenged through the garbage for survival. Read more…

Merci Llarinas-Angeles is the founder and lead convener of Peace Women Partners (PWP), a network of women working for peace and security. PWP is based in the Philippines with members in 20 countries.

The post Beyond the Mountain of Trash: The People Of Smokey Mountain Continue Their Struggle appeared first on Global Day of Action on Military Spending.

La aritmética es una ciencia exacta, pero los números cada cual los hace cuadrar según sus criterios e intereses. Esto es lo que pasa con las cuentas del gasto militar, hay quién hace las cuentas de una manera y otros las hacen de otra. Así, por ejemplo, un Centro de prestigio reconocido como el SIPRI, introduce unos criterios con todos los supuestos que envuelven el gasto militar, donde se tienen presentes las clases pasivas militares, las contribuciones a organismos militares internacionales, los cuerpos paramilitares, la R+D militar, el personal civil a cargo del Ministerio de Defensa. Pero a la hora de mostrar las cifras, para hacer comparable el gasto militar entre todos los países del mundo, el SIPRI acaba aceptando lo que los gobiernos de los países declaran, a pesar de que los criterios que indican inducen a pensar que el gasto militar real es muy superior. Read more…

Summary: The economic crisis has set, at least in terms of military spending in western countries, a clear trend towards reduction. In this sense, the role of the USA is particularly important, because the reduction of its military spending encourages the rest of the world to do the same.

However, the emerging powers are increasing their military spending. But they don’t seem to do so in order to compete militarily with the great powers/United States, which is impossible. It is not a military escalation to dominate the world from a military standpoint; they do so because they seek to modernize their armed forces, which are not well prepared to achieve their current main objective — to ensure control of supply sources and transport routes for energy resources deemed necessary for their development.

Pere Ortega is a Contemporary History graduate and postgraduate public funds from the University of Barcelona. Professor of conflictology at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia) and President of the Centre of Studies for Peace JM Delàs. He is an investigator and analyst on issues of peace, non-violence, disarmament and conflicts and a frequent contributor to various magazines and newspapers.

The post La crisis y la inevitable reducción del gasto militar appeared first on Global Day of Action on Military Spending.

As the third Global Day of Action on Military Spending, 15 April 2013 approaches, it is time for Malaysians to ask: Who are Malaysia’s enemies and what appropriate weaponry do we need? One would think this is the first question the Ministry of Defence should ask in the multi-billion decisions to procure armaments now that the arms merchants are here again for LIMA 2013 (Langkawi International Maritime & Aerospace Exhibition). Yet our National Defence Policy has never even been properly debated in parliament.
Just a few months ago, the defence ministry would not have said that Malaysia’s enemies were among the Suluks who have been coming back and forth between southern Philippines and Sabah all these years. After all, hadn’t we helped to train MNLF fighters there against Marcos in the seventies? Wasn’t this the reason why the Home Minister Hishamuddin said that the invaders at Lahad Datu were “neither militants nor terrorists” during the two or three weeks that they were already there?

And haven’t we got a “Rapid Deployment Force” (10 Paratrooper Brigade) ready to be dispatched to any flashpoint? One wonders what flashpoint scenarios they are trained for? Are they ready to be deployed only when there are secessionists fighting to take East Malaysia out of the federation? They certainly hadn’t been prepared for the Sulu sultan’s army to “turn”.

Don’t be surprised if the “defence analysts” in the ministry have now shredded all their previous analyses about Malaysia’s perceived “enemies”. With the new-found enemies of the Malaysian state, the arms lobby has at last found a raison d’être for their fabulous arms procurements. Heck, didn’t we finally get the chance to use our F18 fighter bombers and Hawk 208 fighter jets against this so-called “rag-tag army”? Wouldn’t armoured cars and tanks and mortars have sufficed in that four square kilometer area of land against that motley crew? In the end, were Malaysians given a clear picture of the efficacy of those fighter jet sorties? Read more…

Dr Kua Kia Soong is director of SUARAM, Malaysia’s leading human rights organisation. He has been a lecturer at Singapore National University, a research director, Member of Parliament and former political prisoner.

The post Identifying Malaysia’s Enemies & Appropriate Weaponry appeared first on Global Day of Action on Military Spending.

How and why the British government is increasing military influence in schools, and society as a whole

by Tony Kempster

 The 159th Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race on the Thames was held this Easter Day [2013] and Oxford won. Royal Marines in dinghies lent their support to the security which was stepped up after a protestor jumped into the river last year. There was no reason for the military involvement because the risk of a similar incident was small and 200 police officers patrolled around nine miles of the river and had launches to hand.

This is symptomatic of an increasing tendency to promote the civil use of the British armed forces, a response to the weakening of support for them because of the bad publicity surrounding their use in recent adventures overseas and worries that further cuts in spending will be demanded by the public. Recruitment to the armed forces has also become more difficult. At the same time, the UK’s old cultural militarism that we have all become accustomed to is now being developed with new features following 9/11 and the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

 Military personnel were involved in all of the medal ceremonies at the 2012 London Olympic. Large numbers were also called in to assist with security at the event when the G4S private security company failed to meet its commitments. Read more…

Tony Kempster is a Vice-President of the International Peace Bureau.

The post Marching Orders for the Military Ethos: A Culture of Peace Versus a Culture of War appeared first on Global Day of Action on Military Spending.

Pax Christi International recognises the links between peace and sustainability. Pax Christi International is increasingly aware of the links between environment and peace building work, and therefore seeks to encourage more dialogue and cooperation between these two fields at the international level.

There is an urgent need for global action to address our current ecological crisis. Our societies and globalised world are confronted with different interlinked challenges: a great imbalance in wealth and poverty, hunger and malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity losses, resource use and other ecological crises, financial crises, excessive military expenditure, public debt in many countries, and high (youth) unemployment.

While resource scarcity does not inevitably lead to violent conflict, it can act as a conflict multiplier by exacerbating existing social tensions. Meanwhile poor resource management can worsen marginalisation, particularly among the poorest social groups. Top-down policies can fail to take local needs into account, large-scale agricultural investment can displace and disrupt small farmers, and hydropower dams, while positive in terms of cleaner energy production, can have a negative impact on both downstream and upstream communities. Read more…

This reflection piece was written by Fr Paul Lansu of Pax Christi.

The post Change needed in global environmental and climate protection Call for Action Against Military Spending appeared first on Global Day of Action on Military Spending.