UK blamed for arms sales to Uganda ANGELO IZAMA KAMPALA BRITAIN has come under fire for allowing the sale of armoured personnel carriers (mambas) to the Ugandan government ahead of last week's elections.
Oxfam, a British charity, in a report released today says Tony Blair's government looked on as a South African subsidiary of BAE, Britain's largest defence company, sold mambas to the military, vehicles which were deployed "to violently quash opposition demonstrations" in the run-up to elections.
But Kampala has justified the purchase and deployment of the mambas, saying they were necessary for crowd control. "Since 2002 at least 32 armoured vehicles have been sold to Uganda by Land Systems OMC, a BAE subsidiary. The most recent delivery of 12 vehicles was completed shortly before the elections," Oxfam said in a statement.
"Typically, these vehicles are armour plated, designed for a variety of roof mounted weapons systems, fitted with firing ports at windows and are suitable for a variety of military and police operations, including riot control, counter insurgency and rapid reaction forces" it said
Oxfam accuses Britain of double standards, on the one hand cutting aid to Uganda over human rights abuses but on the other, allowing British companies to sell products used to inflict the same abuses it condemns. “The result is armoured vehicles being used against civilians and the proceeds from these sales lining the pockets of British companies," said Phil Bloomer, a Director of Policy at Oxfam.
Mambas were deployed around the town in November last year when riots broke out in the city following the arrest of FDC leader, Dr Kizza Besigye. They have since then been regularly used mainly to break up crowds of opposition supporters. However, the Uganda government yesterday defended the use of mambas saying they were adopted for crowd control.
“It is our duty as the government of the day to maintain order,” said Dr James Nsaba Buturo, the Minister of State for Information. "Oxfam has nothing to do. Mambas have been adopted for crowd control and are used wherever necessary."
The Army spokesman, Maj. Felix Kulayigye, said the vehicles where deployed to support police which did not have enough capacity to control riotous crowds.
However, Oxfam says British defence companies that are barred under their national laws and guidelines of the European Union from arms sales to territories where they could potentially “provoke or prolong armed conflicts”, are instead using foreign proxies to conduct business with conflict prone countries. Bloomer said the lack of control made a mockery of laws designed to reduce the use of British arms in conflicts around the world.
Mr John Hamilton, the officer in charge of media relations at the British High Commission, said yesterday he was aware of the accusation but was waiting for "word from London".
International NGO’s have long blamed Britain, a leading arms exporter, of paying lip service on restrictions on arms sales and instead offering implicit backing for corporations engaged in the arms trade. In 1999, the London based NGO, Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), reported that well connected British and South African businessmen behind Executive Outcomes, a military company, were using their cover of weapons trade to get close to African governments like Uganda.
The NGO said Executive Outcomes, which doubled in oil and mineral extraction and had set up Heritage Oil currently hunting for oil in western Uganda as well as the Saracen security in conjunction with President Yoweri Museveni's brother, Gen Salim Saleh. Britain was embarrassed in January last year when its backers including, Mark Thatcher, the son of former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, were linked to a coup plot in oil rich Equatorial Guinea.
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