Heckle Those Kochs

The Sumac Centre hosted a hilarious fundraising event for the campaign against local arms company Heckler & Koch. On Friday September 19^th, singers of varying abilities, some solo and some in groups, took to the stage for a karaoke night billed as Heckle Those Kochs.

Reflecting H&K’s lethal trade, several of the songs had a gun theme, including Shot You Down and Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do. Other songs had their lyrics specially altered for the occasion, including Gun Shack and These Guns Are Made For Shootin’.

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Not only was the night hugely entertaining for all, it raised nearly £50 for the campaign, which has helped to pay for new flyers to be printed. To carry our message of joyful defiance, the recorded songs will be replayed at future demonstrations outside the office of Heckler & Koch.

Aussie arms fair cancelled due to protest fears

Inspiring news for anti-arms-trade activists around the world: A major international arms fair – the Asia Pacific Defence & Security exhibition – has been cancelled due to protests planned against it. Organised by Alex Nicholl, the man behind the UK’s DSEi arms fair, APDS was due to be held in Adelaide in November but the event organisers and the South Australian government folded, citing “cost of security” and “possible threats of violence”.

Arms fair organiser Alex Nicholl (l) and South Australian acting Premier Kevin Foley (r)

Government leaders, who want South Australia to be a big player in the global arms trade, have been left seething. Speaking through the right-wing Murdoch press, acting Premier Kevin Foley smeared the peace campaigners as “feral, low-life people that want society to be in a state of near anarchy for their own perverse pleasure” and “dangerous to society”.

Responding to Foley’s tirade, OzPeace, one of the groups organising the protest said “The protest had a policy of non-violent direct action and the peace movement was doing everything within its power to ensure that the protests remained peaceful.” Looking for a bogeyman, the media has demonised Sydney-based anarchist collective Mutiny, describing them as “ultra-militant” and repeating the bogus claim that they were responsible for violence at past demonstrations.

Needless to say, accusing the protesters of “violence and destruction” betrays a breath-taking double standard. Had the arms fair gone ahead, corporations including small arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch and the notoriously corrupt BAE Systems would have been there marketing the machinery of war to repressive regimes including China, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The axing of this arms fair should give succour to opponents of the arms trade everywhere. Yes, the military-industrial complex is mighty, but we can take it on, and we can win.

H&K guns illegally exported to Georgian war zone

Georgian elite forces fighting in South Ossetia have been illegally armed with Heckler & Koch assault rifles.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Georgian military “used indiscriminate and disproportionate force resulting in civilian deaths in South Ossetia”. However, that didn’t stop these war criminals from becoming customers of Heckler & Koch!

When Heckler & Koch recently applied for permission to supply 230 assault rifles to Georgia, the German government said no, on the grounds that Georgia is involved in a war. But as any successful arms company knows, there are many ways to get around these obstacles, and sure enough, the German-made weapons showed up in Georgia anyway!

To quote the head of BITS, “It doesn’t matter how these weapons landed in Georgia; whether they were illegally exported from Germany, whether a licensed exporter violated German laws or whether a recipient of the weapons who acquired them legally in Germany, further exported them.”

The point is, that’s just how the arms industry works.

And which department of Heckler & Koch is responsible for sales to Georgia and other non-NATO countries? Check the corporate website: It’s Heckler & Koch GB, based at Unit 3, Easter Park, Lenton Lane, Nottingham NG7 2PX.

So next time you see pictures of wretched South Ossetian civilians clutching the bodies of their loved ones amid the shredded ruins of their homes, just remember: a company in Nottingham helped to make that happen.

Police give H&K guns to children

Child posing with police H&K submachine gun at a summer fete in London

Police are giving young children Heckler & Koch guns to handle at community events in England. At a recent summer fete in east London, the Met ran a stall displaying a H&K MP5 submachine gun. Children as young as seven were allowed to pose for photos holding the police weapon, which has a firing rate of 800 rounds per minute.

The stunt has been sharply criticised by MPs and anti-gun campaigners. MP Jim Fitzpatrick said  “Giving young children real guns to handle is inappropriate. It could be glamorising the weapons and creating familiarity which is plainly wrong.”

George Galloway MP said “The foolish display at this festival can serve only to normalise firearms or make they appear attractive, even glamorous. We are tragically used to seeing images of primary school aged boys handling assault rifles in Liberia or Mogadishu, but in Limehouse?!”

Police defended the initiative, claiming that it is intended to “divert people away from gun crime”, but Lyn Costello, co-founder of Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, called it ”a serious error of judgment.”

And it seems that this event was not a one-off: “We’ve done this kind of thing in other places” said Superintendent Tarrant of the Met’s CO19 firearms unit. “We will continue doing it in future.”

Shut Down H&K at Sumac Garden Party

The campaign against arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch was represented at a Garden Party at Nottingham’s Sumac Centre on Sunday. The Garden Party was organised by Eastside Climate Action to raise funds for their presence at this year’s Climate Camp. It featured live bands & DJs, food & drink, games and stalls.

The Shut Down H&K campaign ran a stall to raise awareness and funds. Visitors were invited to partake in a macabre competition: guess the number of people killed by H&K weapons every week (represented by kidney beans in a glass jar). 40 people entered the competition, and guesses ranged from 100 to 3000! The answer, guessed correctly by Rhiannon, was 720, based on an estimate of one person killed every 14 minutes (from DAKS - the German Action Network to Stop Small Arms).

The event was a great success, both for Eastside Climate Action and for Shut Down H&K. There are more pictures on Indymedia, 1, 2 & 3.

Water pistol demo at Heckler & Koch

July’s monthly demo against arms company Heckler & Koch had a theme: To represent H&K’s products, protesters brought guns to the picket. There were several shootings, and protesters even staged an “execution” by firing squad!

Of course these guns were super-soakers, and the victims suffered nothing worse than soggy clothes. But beside the fun there was a serious message: The victims of Heckler & Koch’s guns don’t get away so lightly. Victims such as the villagers in Kosovo massacred by Serbian police armed with H&K submachine guns. Victims such as the prisoners in Thailand executed with a H&K machine gun.

Despite the secrecy that surrounds Heckler & Koch, the Shut Down H&K campaign continues to uncover more information about the dodgy regimes that buy these weapons, and the abuses being carried out with them. At July’s demonstration, the charges against H&K were read out over a megaphone while protesters handed out leaflets to passers by. Meanwhile a sound system provided music, and Veggies catering campaign provided vegan food so good that even the police were asking for some!

For more words and pictures, see Tash’s write-up on Indymedia.

DSEi gets new owner

The world’s largest arms fair has a new owner. The Defence Systems & Equipment International (DSEi), which takes place in London every two years, has been bought by Clarion Events. DSEi’s previous owner, publisher Reed Elsevier, was shamed into selling DSEi by a long-running campaign involving activists, doctors, academics, shareholders and writers.

Campaigners have already vowed to apply the same pressure to Clarion, which has responded with much bluster about DSEi being a “legitimate” event selling “legitimate” weapons to “legitimate” regimes for “legitimate” purposes.

Clarion - everything you need for your growing baby and/or military dictatorship

Clarion’s portfolio includes the The Baby Shows - a series of events billed ”to give your baby the best start in life”. Campaigners will be highlighting the incompatibility of these family-friendly events with what is essentially a market for mechanised mass murder.

June demo at Heckler & Koch

On Tuesday June 10th around 40 protesters returned to Lenton Lane to picket arms company Heckler & Koch. Protesters were entertained by music in the sunshine while distributing hundreds of leaflets to workers and passers by.

Opposing military recruitment in schools

As a result of the unpopular occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the armed forces are struggling to recruit, so they have stepped up their efforts, on billboards and TV and in our schools and city centres. All this week, the armed forces are running snazzy recruitment stalls in Nottingham’s Broadmarsh shopping centre, and in June the Veterans’ celebration in Wollaton Park will be used as “a showcase for the modern armed forces” with military vehicles, displays and games to attract potential recruits. It’s all about making a career in the forces look like an exciting, all-terrain humanitarian peacekeeping adventure instead of deadly grunt-work occupying other peoples’ lands to secure energy supplies for the declining US empire.

Perhaps most concerning is the marketing of military careers to school children. A recent report claims that children as young as seven are now being groomed for army recruitment. The report also claims that “Key messages are tailored to children’s interests and values: military roles are promoted as glamorous and exciting and warfare is portrayed as game-like and enjoyable. Children are introduced to the potential benefits of a forces career but not to its risks.”

Disregarding these concerns, the UK Government is proposing a law to promote military cadet forces in schools, and to teach “understanding of the armed forces” as part of the National Curriculum. However, the MoD faces significant grassroots opposition. At this year’s NUT conference, teachers voted to oppose military recruitment in schools. Delegate Paul McGarr spoke out against misleading army propaganda in schools, proposing that truthful recruitment material should say:

Join the Army and we will send you to carry out the imperialist occupation of other people’s countries. Join the Army and we will send you to bomb, shoot and possibly torture fellow human beings in other countries. Join the Army and we will send you probably poorly equipped into situations where people will try to shoot or kill you because you are occupying other people’s countries. Join the Army, and if you survive and come home, possibly injured or mentally damaged, you and your family will be shabbily treated.

Delegate Stefan Simms added that young troops are being used as “cannon fodder for the profits of oil companies”. The MoD has denied recruiting in schools, despite the fact that the forces visit around 1000 schools a year and give schools free pro-army teaching materials.

A leaflet to counteract armed forces recruitment in schools has been produced by the Nottingham Stop The War Coalition and handed out to students at the gates of schools around the city. It seeks to persuade students who might be tempted by the recruiters’ talk of sport and travel not to join up.

The leaflet has been handed out at about 10 schools so far. It has generally had a good reception from students, but at a couple of schools, the management has tried to stop the leafleting and called the police. However, as the leafleters were not doing anything wrong, the police did not stop them.

If you want to help leaflet schools or if you would like your school to be leafleted, contact Ross on +441159127697.

Demo launches campaign against Heckler & Koch

On Tuesday May 6^th around 70 people staged a demonstration against arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch’s Nottingham-based sales HQ. The aim of this demonstration was threefold – to expose the company’s location, to publicise the unethical nature of its business, and to launch a campaign to shut it down.

Protesters of all ages gathered in the sunshine with a variety of colourful banners and placards, some dressed as casualties of war – a reminder of the 1.5 million people who have been killed by Heckler & Koch’s deadly products. From busy Abbey Bridge, the protesters marched along Lenton Lane to the small industrial park that contains H&K’s unmarked warehouse. Around 40 police were waiting, to prevent entry into the industrial park. Around the corner, mounted police were on standby.

The demonstrators gathered on either side of the gate and listened to speeches about the devastating effect of Heckler & Koch’s weapons in countries around the world. Hundreds of leaflets explaining the purpose of the demonstration were handed out to passers by, some of whom honked their horns in approval. There was a speech about the inspirational Smash EDO campaign, which has been very effective in targeting an arms company in Brighton. A portable sound system played reggae in the sunshine.

Efforts to garner media coverage revealed a famliar pattern: Having received a press release about the demonstration, reporters contacted Heckler & Koch for a statement. To make this unwanted media attention go away, H&K then called Notts police, whose press office called the media outlets, telling their editors that it would be irresponsible for them to cover the story as it could lead to criminals trying to break in to steal weapons stored at Heckler & Koch’s premises.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that this reason is bogus: The fact is that the location of the company is already in the public domain. It is available to anyone with an internet connection, and not just on various campaign websites, but from Companies House and the British Defence Equipment Catalogue and various other sources. If the building can be discovered by peace campaigners, then it can be discovered by criminal gangs.

If the security policy of H&K and Notts police relies on no-one finding out the company’s location, then clearly it is they who are irresponsible, not the campaign or the media. A large warehouse stocked with high-power assault rifles and submachine guns with inadequate security to prevent a robbery is clearly a significant danger to the public, and such a danger is very much in the public interest.

Despite this, some media outlets acquiesced to the police request, choosing to accept self-censorship rather than challenge the police. Fortunately ITV Central News was not scared off, and broadcast a report on the 10 o’clock news.

Despite the lawful nature of the protest, police surveillance was oppressive. Evidence Gatherers from the local force were supplemented by the officers of a Forward Intelligence Team in systematically photographing and filming protesters throughout the demonstration. Two protesters were threatened with arrest for blocking a FIT cameraman’s view of the demonstration, and another two were followed by police after the demonstration.

However, spirits remained high throughout the 90-minute picket – in the words of one protester, “a very dehydrating demonstration of big love!” The demo was judged to be a great success by those who attended. It was a fantastic turn-out, and a good start to the campaign. (Pictures courtesy of Tash. For more see Notts Indymedia.)