Correspondent: Addicted to Arms Tx Date: 28th April 2002 This script was made from audio tape – any inaccuracies are due to voices being unclear or inaudible 00.00.00 Music 00.00.06 Will Self You're at a gallery opening or a drinks party and you get talking to someone just in passing about the arms industry and you say; 'did you know that Britain was the world's second biggest arms exporter?' And they say; 'well of course everyone knows that'. 00.00.19 Will Self And you say; 'did you also know that the world's biggest single arms manufacturer is a British company?' And they say; 'well of course, everyone knows that'. 00.00.30 Will Self And you say; 'did you also know that the Prime Minister, his deputy, the defence ministers and sundry other high government officials are essentially the sales and marketing department of this newly privatised industry?' And there's a little bit of a demurral. 00.00.45 Will Self They say; 'well I knew something like that had to be the case if not exactly that'. 00.00.51 Music 00.00.53 Will Self This society is like an addict, that won't admit to the reality of its addiction. 00.00.58 Will Self I decided to discover what it was that I knew already but didn't dare acknowledge. 00.01.04 Will Self I decided to rupture my denial and find out the extent to which Britain is a nation, Addicted to Arms. 00.01.11 Music 00.01.16 Correspondent Theme Music 00.01.21 Title Page ADDICTED TO ARMS A Will Self Investigation 00.01.32 Will Self It was the morning that fanatics armed with the crudest of weapons were preparing to commit the worst of terrorist acts. 00.01.41 Music 00.01.42 Aston 11th September 2001 – morning 00.01.42 Will Self But these demonstrators were in London's Docklands to protest against the biggest arms fair ever held in Britain. 00.01.50 Will Self Here the most sophisticated weaponry was on sale. Much of it destined for conflict zones. 00.01.56 Music 00.01.58 Will Self We're quick to report on these wars but far less prepared to examine the weapons they're fought with and our role in manufacturing them. 00.02.05 Explosion 00.02.07 Will Self Yet no guns – no war. 00.02.10 Will Self So these demonstrators didn't make it on to our screens on September the eleventh. It was a good day to bury the bad news about Britain's arms addiction. 00.02.19 Applause 00.02.26 Tony Blair In retrospect the Millennium marked a moment in time. 00.02.27 Aston October 2001 00.02.33 Tony Blair But it was the events of the eleventh of September that marked a turning point in history. This is a moment to seize. The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us. 00.02.56 Music 00.02.57 Will Self If there's one thing that the Prime Minister excels at, it's a complete and quavering sincerity. It's all in the tone, Tone. 00.03.07 Will Self But there's a marked contrast between how Tony Blair says we as a nation ought to be behaving on the world stage and how it is that we as a nation actually behave. We like to think of ourselves as essentially decent, while engaging in the most devilish business. 00.03.25 Will Self I remember hearing Doctor Robert Lefever lecturing on this malady in more conventional patients. But I wonder what he'll say if we put Britain on his examination couch. 00.03.36 Music 00.03.38 Gun barrel 00.03.40 Will Self Robert Lefever, I think it's fair to say that you are one of the pre-eminent experts on additive illness in Britain. 00.03.47 Dr Robert Lefever Thank you. 00.03.49 Will Self Well, you know, the compliments come easy round here. But, I've come to consult you really about quite a serious and troubling problem. 00.03.57 Music 00.04.00 Will Self This person that I am concerned about and I'm really very worried about their condition. 00.04.05 Music 00.04.07 Will Self They have developed a very, very strange addiction, I don't know whether you could consider this to be an addiction as you understand it, which is that they seem to be addicted to manufacturing and selling large quantities of armaments. Do you think that's a conceivable form of addictive behaviour? 00.04.29 Dr Robert Lefever Anything that is progressive and destructive can be an addition. 00.04.33 Music 00.04.35 Aston Dr ROBERT LEFEVER Director, Promis Recovery Centre So if the process of our arms manufacture and sale is that we're putting up the budget the whole time, we're selling in a progressively more indiscriminate manner, that we are getting progressively less concerned over other aspects of our society. If we're then justifying our behaviour in completely unjustifiable terms, all these are addictive characteristics. 00.04.59 Music 00.05.02 Will Self It's certainly progressive. Despite apparent constraints, our arms exports have risen from just four hundred and seventy million pounds in 1975 to four point seven billion in 1995. An increase, net of inflation, of nearly one thousand percent. 00.05.23 Will Self But what about destructive? Britain's record of arms sales stretches back well over a century. It's an inglorious record. 00.05.30 Explosion 00.05.33 Will Self In the last twenty years Israel, Iraq and Indonesia have been among our valued customers. 00.05.42 Gun barrel 00.05.44 Will Self I believe it's commonly understood to be a characteristic of addiction that there's a good deal of denial in the addict. 00.05.49 Dr Robert Lefever Yes. 00.05.50 Will Self The addict is unable to see their behaviour for what it is and unwilling even to examine the reality of what it's doing with a particular mood altering behaviour. 00.06.00 Dr Robert Lefever Yes. Just to give you an example of denial. I might tell you that this is a cup of tea. You know perfectly well that it's a pen. 00.06.10 Will Self Yes. 00.06.10 Dr Robert Lefever But I am telling you the truth, my absolute truth that this is a cup of tea. In other words denial is not a lie. Denial is telling the truth but the truth happens to be wrong. 00.06.21 Music 00.06.21 Aston DMA promotional video 00.06.24 Will Self The Defence Manufacturers Association represents over three hundred British arms manufacturers. This promotional video is a smooth ride with no mashed bodies or smashed buildings on view. It's used to sell our top gear overseas. 00.06.44 Will Self You, in a sense, are kind of Mr Representative of the defence industry in Britain. 00.06.49 Aston Major General ALAN SHARMAN Director General Defence Manufacturers Association Well, I like to think so but there are lots of other people, there are other people that play. 00.06.56 Music 00.06.57 Aston DMA promotional video 00.06.59 Will Self Remember I'm an ignorant lay person so I know very little and I suppose the areas that seem relatively less problematic about what your membership do, are concerned with the MoD and concerned internally. I mean they have to be supplied by British companies fair enough. The fact remains that, that we make some stuff and we sell it to other people. 00.07.18 Major General Alan Sharman Yeah we do. And, and of course the majority of what we sell doesn't go bang. 00.07.22 Music 00.07.23 Aston DMA promotional video 00.07.28 Will Self I know that you're at pains to point that out because I think that when, when the term 'arms export' comes up, I suppose your concern is that people will see that emotively. 00.07.38 Major General Alan Sharman Quite, which is why I always say defence exports. 00.07.40 Will Self Yes. 00.07.41 Major General Alan Sharman But I lost that battle when George Robertson finally… 00.07.42 Will Self Yes, yes. Do you think Mars is the God of Defence? 00.07.48 Major General Alan Sharman Hadn't thought about it. 00.07.49 Will Self Or is Mars the God of War? 00.07.52 Major General Alan Sharman Interesting. 00.07.53 Will Self I mean it's, there are euphemisms and euphemisms aren't there? 00.07.54 Major General Alan Sharman Of course, yes. 00.07.56 Music 00.07.59 Will Self Of course, all of this euphemising is just another aspect of the government's denial. Why not call it gun running? 00.08.07 Will Self In opposition, Labour attacked the Tories own arms addiction. 00.08.11 Robin Cook This is not just a government that does not know how to accept blame. It is a government that knows no shame. 00.08.18 Will Self But now they're in office they've got a habit too. 00.08.22 Music 00.08.25 Gun barrel 00.08.27 Dr Robert Lefever You can get somebody in total denial who really believes what he is saying. Now is that true of Addict Britain as far as our, what Robin Cook called an ethical foreign policy. 00.08.41 Music 00.08.46 Will Self Labour's exposure of Tory sleaze over arms exports was a source of great moral credibility and a major contributor to their election victory. The ethical foreign policy was to be the culmination of this crusade. 00.09.03 Music 00.09.07 Robin Cook The Labour government does not accept that political values can be left behind when we check in our passports to travel on diplomatic business. Our foreign policy must have an ethical dimension. 00.09.09 Aston May 1997 00.09.22 Aston ANN CLWYD MP Labour I sat in the Foreign Office and I heard obviously the speech and I remember going up to Robin actually at the end of that speech and saying how pleased I was to hear a British foreign secretary make that kind of speech. And then I said to him; 'I'll watching you'. And he said; 'I bet you will'. And of course I didn't realise how quickly I would have to sort of jump and say; 'look, you shouldn't be doing that' and that was of course over the spare parts for Hawks. 00.09.50 Will Self Despite fierce opposition from human rights campaigners who claimed British weapons were being used to repress the East Timorese, the sale went ahead. It was the first major hurdle for New Labour's ethical foreign policy and Robin Cook ploughed straight through it. 00.10.10 Ann Clwyd He told us that his department had taken legal advice and that it was, they couldn't do anything but send the spare parts to Indonesia. So I pointed out to him that the campaigning organisations had also taken legal advice and we had got the opposite view. 00.10.34 Will Self What was his response to that? 00.10.36 Ann Clwyd He shrugged his shoulders and said, well, you know, his legal advice was different. 00.10.46 Music 00.10.48 Will Self Others have claimed that the Foreign Office could have stopped the sales. In this mire of misattribution, I sought the overview of the acknowledged expert on post-war British arms exports. 00.11.01 Mark Phythian The problem was Labour went into the 1997 election with irreconcilable aims really and this only became apparent once in office. 00.11.09 Aston MARK PHYTHIAN Author, 'The Politics of British Arms Sales Since 1964' Because while Cook was being feted by anti-arms trade groups on the one hand and promising control, Tony Blair was reassuring British Aerospace and employees of British Aerospace that Labour was a friend to the defence export industry. And once these came into conflict of course, Downing Street carried the day, Cook was told to turn down the volume on arms exports, focus on something else. 00.11.32 Trumpet fanfare 00.11.42 Master of Ceremonies Pray silence for the Prime Minister. 00.11.47 Applause 00.11.51 Dr Robert Lefever Grandiosity is one of the essential features of addicts. We become incredibly grandiose. We believe that the only person who understands anything is me. 00.12.01 Tony Blair We need strong defence not just to defend our country but for British influence abroad. Sound defence is sound foreign policy. It is an instrument of influence. 00.12.05 Aston November 1997 00.12.18 Mark Phythian Arms sales have always done something else for Britain. Within a framework of gradual post-war decline, they've helped Britain punch above its weight and retain a global presence. They cement military links with important countries in important regions and that is really a key factor behind the policy. 00.12.33 Tony Blair We must not reduce our capability to exercise a role on the international stage. 00.12.40 Applause 00.12.47 Mark Phythian I think one thing that is quite clear is that having such a large arms export industry entails compromising principles over foreign policy. Basically, there are countries with whom we have relations and arms deals where we can't speak out about excesses or we have to be very careful about what we say for fear of endangering arms contracts. 00.13.07 Gun barrel 00.13.10 Aston Dr ROBERT LEFEVER Director, Promis Recovery Centre Addict Britain likes to keep secrets and pretend that everything is so important that could never discuss it openly. Addict Britain is very secretive. 00.13.18 Music 00.13.24 Will Self Secrecy is integral to arms exports in this country. Despite the present government's attempts to free up information on arms exports, there are still many, many questions begging for answers. 00.13.39 Will Self The government's annual report on export licenses only allows us to find out how many have been granted but if we want to know how much, of what, to whom and when, then forget it. 00.13.53 Will Self And anyway, all of this information is on export licenses already granted. It's as if we can go round to Addict Britain's house and have a look in through the front window at the mess left behind after last night's debauchery but we can't find out what's going on in the back room or the upstairs bedroom right now. And not even our elected representatives have a search warrant. 00.14.17 Music 00.14.23 Mark Phythian Unusually for a parliamentary democracy, we've managed to cloak the whole issue of arms sales traditionally in a great deal of secrecy. 00.14.31 Mark Phythian There is, to an extent, obviously a need for commercial confidentiality. But the kind of confidentiality, which is claimed is required, goes beyond the needs of commercial confidentiality. Really you've got to understand that Britain only won some of its more controversial and significant arms deals in the last quarter of a century because it could offer a degree of secrecy which was to the liking of states in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia for example. 00.14.55 Will Self Mrs Thatcher negotiated the twenty-five billion pound Al-Yamama arms deal with Saudi-Arabia in the 1980s. It was dubbed 'the biggest sale ever of anything to anyone by anyone'. 00.15.08 Will Self But allegations of corruption surrounding the deal had become clamorous by the time John Major became premier, implicating not just Saudi go-betweens but even Mark Thatcher, the ex-premier's own son. 00.15.22 Will Self Under Major an official report was written and suppressed. Tony Blair had promised to publish it once in office but he didn't. 00.15.32 Will Self The only consistent thing was Al-Yamama itself, which continued. 00.15.40 Aston ANN CLWYD MP Labour The whole Al-Yamama deal, which is a great secret for all of us, we have never seen a National Audit Office report on the Al-Yamama deal. 00.15.52 Will Self The NAO is supposed to audit the government's finances on our behalf. 00.15.58 Ann Clwyd I would like to know what that deal was. I'd like to know, you know, who were the people who got the commissions, what were the arrangements. But we still don't have that information. 00.16.09 Will Self The National Audit Office is where the report on the Al-Yamama deal resides. Officials here claim that every single one of their reports is published but when we told them that this one hadn't been, they said they didn't know what we were talking about. 00.16.24 Will Self Maybe they're speaking in good faith and the little report on the world's biggest ever arms deal has mysteriously shrunk to nothing at all. What a good way of dealing with inconvenient paperwork. Let's go and ask them how they do it. 00.16.40 Will Self The NAO had already refused an interview with us but when we arrived their Press Officer was awaiting us. 00.16.47 Press Officer Hello, can I help you I'm the Press Office here. 00.16.48 Will Self Oh, you are the Press Officer. 00.16.49 Press Officer I am yes. 00.16.50 Will Self Will Self, BBC Correspondent. How are you doing? 00.16.52 Press Officer Fine. 00.16.52 Will Self Listen, we'd like to find out whether you've got this report on the Al-Yamama deal in the building. Because we know it's a National Audit Office report and we wondered whether it lives here. 00.17.05 Press Officer Can I come back to you because I can't immediately tell you? 00.17.07 Will Self Yeah. Absolutely, with pleasure. 00.17.12 Will Self It does seem to be quite open government. Or at any rate the government is open, whether or not they'll come back and tell us what's in the shop remains to be seen. 00.17.20 Music 00.17.39 Will Self This unfortunately nameless Press Officer has disappeared back upstairs to his lair to try and find out what's happened to the Al-Yamama deal report. I wonder if he's hiding it somewhere or squatting over it muttering incantations at any rate we're going to try and find out what's happened to him and get a straight answer out of these people. 00.18.01 Music 00.18.12 Will Self Do you know if the report actually lives here so to speak, if it's housed here? You don't know whether it does or not at all. 00.18.20 Will Self Do you know how many National Audit Office reports there have been since the National Audit Office was founded? 00.18.28 Will Self Yeah, I do. Yeah, there's been over a thousand then in the existence of the National Audit Office of which this is the only one that's unpublished. Don't you think that's interesting, I mean just at a personal level? 00.18.40 Will Self You don't have a personal view. Well professionally don't you think it's interesting? 00.18.45 Will Self You don't want to be drawn into it at all. You won't and are you sort of staying up there because you don't want us to film you? 00.18.51 Will Self Oh God, I mean I don't, I don't know what to do? Can we stay here for a while then? We can stay as long as we want. And there's no chance that you're going to come down at all? Okay, thanks very much. Bye now. 00.19.03 Music 00.19.12 Will Self It was time to get out of town and into the heartland of arms manufacturers. 00.19.18 Music 00.19.22 Will Self We're on our way to visit William Cook Limited who manufacture tank tracks. And in the great scale of things a tank track doesn't seem like the most egregious piece of death metal and you can imagine, it's hardly a major warhead or gun or plane of anything like that but the truth of the matter is that without a tank track a tank doesn't go anywhere. 00.19.47 Music 00.19.49 Will Self William Cook make tracks that go on Vickers tanks and armoured vehicles as well as foreign tanks. I wasn't allowed to talk to the staff but I could tell they were proud of the work they did. 00.20.02 Will Self Since I could talk to the boss I asked him how he felt about what he did. 00.20.08 Aston PHIL KITE M.D. William Cook Defence I feel I'm, I feel very happy with the business I do. I feel totally justified in what I'm doing as a business. I'm supporting our armed forces. I'm supporting the countries that our British government feel we're allowed to support, who help protect our interests around the world. It happens to be defence but you know, that isn't a problem for me. 00.20.32 Will Self Are you aware of what kind of, what kind of resources are put into monitoring of end use of your product by the government? 00.20.41 Phil Kite No, I'm not. 00.20.42 Will Self You're just not aware of that at all? 00.20.43 Phil Kite I'm not aware of all the processes they go through as a, in terms of chains of command to end up in a final decision, which says yes we can go ahead. 00.20.53 Phil Kite We certainly provide the DTI with an end-use certificate and I know obviously that that is being monitored. I don't' know who that person or that department. 00.21.03 Will Self You don't know how that monitoring is done? 00.21.04 Phil Kite No. 00.21.05 Will Self And you've never looked into it? 00.21.06 Phil Kite No. 00.21.07 Will Self I mean I've looked into it and I've only been in the subject for a, for a couple of weeks, you've been in the business for years. Don't you find that a little odd? 00.21.13 Phil Kite No, I don't see I have a need to look into it. 00.21.15 Music 00.21.17 Will Self For your information nobody has formal responsibility for monitoring the end use of British arms exports. So, unsurprisingly, they can be put to all kinds of uses. 00.21.30 Music 00.21.34 Ann Clwyd We just had the report of a British made tank, which had been seen on the streets of Ache. Now Ache, as you know, is one of the provinces of Indonesia where there's a lot of conflict at the moment. I mean dozens of people have been killed every day in Ache. It could be a mirror image of East Timor and we all know what went on there. 00.21.58 Will Self Well a virtual genocide. 00.21.59 Ann Clwyd That's right. 00.22.00 Will Self Well suppose you were to see, you know, a Vickers- produced armoured personnel carrier on the streets of Dilli in Indonesia and actually kind of spraying bullets or driving down on the populous there who were largely unarmed, that wouldn't' bother you if you saw that on the news. 00.22.16 Phil Kite I, I think any piece, anybody shooting down unarmed people would bother me, yes. 00.22.20 Will Self Mmm, mmm. But the fact that, you know, the tracks for that vehicle might, I'm just saying conceivably might, have been made in the factory here, would it make you feel an added inter-personal involvement? 00.22.31 Phil Kite As long as we've done everything possible to make sure our product gets to the source, the approved source of the user, then that's where I think you know, all we can do. 00.22.40 Music 00.22.42 Will Self Phil Kite's view was that there was a kind of moral division of labour with the government superseding any personal or corporate responsibility. But he also uses the traditional economic argument to justify manufacturing arms for export. 00.22.57 Phil Kite Without the exports there'd be less people employed by this business. We wouldn't be as competitive because we wouldn't be able to spread our overheads over longer production runs. So UK defence and manufacturing benefit from the fact that we have exports as well as ourselves benefiting from employment. 00.23.16 Music 00.23.25 Will Self I've come here to the offices of the Financial Times to visit an unlikely opponent of British arms exports, Sir Samuel Brittain. An acknowledged mandarin in the field of economics, an adviser to governments and a significant pundit, Sir Samuel is not your typical long- haired peacenik. 00.23.45 Will Self On the contrary, he has reached the conclusion that the majority of British arms exports are wholly unjustified purely on the basis of free trade and sound economics. 00.23.58 Aston SAMUEL BRITTAIN Contributor, 'The Financial Times' Well no part of the economy is vital, I mean that's the fallacy that people have that they think that if any part of the economy is reduced that people will be on the slag-heap forever. In fact the amount of people involved in making military exports is less than the number of people who change their jobs every month. 00.24.23 Music 00.24.24 Will Self The Ministry of Defence commissioned a report to find out if arms exports do in fact benefit our economy. But its findings weren't quite what they expected. 00.24.34 Music 00.24.35 Aston Prof. MALCOLM CHALMERS Dept of Peace Studies Bradford University The question we were asking in our study is what would happen if we took away a bit of the market for defence and what we're saying is that the economic results essentially would be the same as if we took away a bit of car exports or computer exports or what have you. And the reality of modern capitalist economies is that they are changing rapidly every year and when you take away a bit of the economy, that doesn't mean that all those people have lost their jobs forever, most of them find other jobs, other people get jobs who would not have got jobs. 00.25.08 Samuel Brittain The reduction of military exports would lead to about fifty thousand jobs being lost in the military sector and about seventy thousand slightly less well-paid jobs being created in the rest of the economy. 00.25.26 Major General ALAN SHARMAN Director General Defence Manufacturers Association I mean that, that really is a pretty silly argument if you think about it, because you could apply that criteria to absolutely anything. You could say stop making cars and after a while people would find other, other jobs to do. I mean it just, it just isn't true and if you… 00.25.39 Will Self Excuse me, why isn't it true? I mean wouldn't people who made cars go and make something else? 00.25.43 Alan Sharman Well, all right. Well what's, you could therefore say stop exporting altogether and people would find other jobs. I mean at what point do you… 00.25.51 Will Self But that doesn't validate the argument because it, because it, because there's no end to it. I mean if I stopped you, Major General Alan Sharman, from being Head of the Defence Manufacturers Association, will you get another job? 00.26.03 Major General Alan Sharman Don't know. Probably. Yeah, ok. 00.26.05 Will Self Yes. Ok, hold on. Amir, Amir Amirani, you're a Producer Director for BBC Correspondent. If I stop you doing that job would you go and get another one? 00.26.14 Amir Amirani I'd try of course, yes. 00.26.15 Major General Alan Sharman Yeah, of course, yes. 00.26.16 Will Self David, you're a camera and soundman on this film, would you go and do something else? 00.26.20 David You'd have to. 00.26.21 Will Self You'd have to. 00.26.22 Major General Alan Sharman You'd have to. Yes. 00.26.22 Will Self You'd have to. 00.26.23 Major General Alan Sharman Yes of course but if you… 00.26.25 Will Self So why is that argument invalid in relation to the... 00.26.27 Major General Alan Sharman Well because, well, it's, I mean, intellectually, it's perfectly valid but where would those go, people go and work. That would require an increase in some other commercial activity to which the skills could be redeployed. 00.26.45 Will Self Yeah, that's what's been happening, happens all the time in economises isn't it? 00.26.47 Major General Alan Sharman Quite. Well… 00.26.50 Will Self Yes. 00.26.51 Major General Alan Sharman It does and it doesn't. Well yes, ok, to that extent that's true. 00.26.56 Music 00.26.57 Will Self When the MoD realised their own report had become an embarrassment, they buried it and it became merely a University of York research paper. 00.27.08 Will Self We received the impression that, and you can correct us if we're wrong about this, that the Ministry of Defence was relatively quiet about the publication of your report. 00.27.24 Prof Malcolm Chalmers I, maybe you should ask the Ministry of Defence about that. 00.27.27 Telephone tones 00.27.33 Will Self Andrew, it's Will Self from BBC Correspondent. How are you? 00.27.38 Will Self For a big, bellicose institution, the Ministry was proving remarkably - defensive. 00.27.45 Will Self Is there anybody at the Ministry who can give us a comment on why it is that the Ministry of Defence feels that they're not obliged to give any comment on this subject to, to the BBC? 00.27.56 Will Self Bewilderingly they wouldn't even tell us why no one would speak to us. 00.28.01 Will Self All right, thanks for your time Andrew. All right, bye now. 00.28.06 Will Self Well there you have it. 00.28.08 Gun barrel 00.28.10 Dr Robert Lefever Addicts will pretend, primarily to themselves, they are not capable of, we are not capable of doing things that are one hundred percent honest. 00.28.22 Will Self Mmm. 00.28.23 Dr Robert Lefever We have to learn to do that when we're in recovery, when we're trying to, to change our behaviour. 00.28.28 Will Self So dishonesty is endemic to this kind of addictive behaviour? 00.28.31 Dr Robert Lefever Of course. Of course. 00.28.34 Will Self At the beginning of this year the dispute in Kashmir had brought India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, to the very brink of war. 00.28.48 Will Self When Tony Blair visited the region his ostensible mission was to call for good sense to prevail. 00.28.56 Tony Blair This is obviously a very tense, very difficult situation. 00.28.57 Aston January 2002 00.28.59 Tony Blair If a conflict were to escalate out of control then it would have serious consequences not just for India and Pakistan but for the whole of this region and for the wider world. So, in so far as we can, a calming influence is what we should exert. 00.29.12 Music 00.29.13 Will Self But this calming influence turned out to be yet another sales pitch, this time for Hawk jets to India. While both Foreign Minister Jack Straw and his boss put the bite on the Indian government, the arms dealers and other scavengers circled for their share of the killing. 00.29.32 Music 00.29.47 Will Self Only weeks after Blair's pledge to calm the waters, Ministry of Defence officials and salesmen from thirty British arms manufacturers descended on New Delhi. 00.29.59 Music 00.30.01 Will Self Thursday, February the twenty-first, 2002, New Delhi. "Many nations in race to sell arms to India" says the headline in the Times of India. 00.30.14 Will Self We're here in New Delhi to visit another of the euphemisms that dominate the arms trade. In this case an arms fair. 00.30.25 Music 00.30.28 Will Self So, let's go and see what the arms dealers are up to. 00.30.33 Music 00.30.39 Will Self Anyone can walk into this tent boot sale, although you've got to have the right connections to walk away with a bargain. 00.30.47 Music 00.31.13 Will Self Have you been having a good fair? 00.31.14 Major General Alan Sharman Yes, we have. Yes, yes. Particularly a lot of, a lot of Indian visitors although none of the army ones because they're all up at the sharp end I suppose. But a lot, yeah a lot of Indian visitor. 00.31.25 Will Self The sharp end being what? 00.31.26 Major General Alan Sharman Well, the line of control. 00.31.28 Will Self Oh really, they're working? 00.31.30 Major General Alan Sharman I suppose they're working. 00.31.31 Will Self They're working. 00.31.33 Speaker Welcome to the British Army demonstration area. For the next five minutes we'll be demonstrating a range of British equipment, which is either in service with the British Army or is under trial for future use. 00.31.46 Will Self These British soldiers were working hard too. They were busy promoting the products of private arms manufacturers at taxpayers' expense. 00.31.59 Will Self And how do you make your show look attractive to people? You've got to get good exhibits, well you tell me. How do you do it? 00.32.06 Major General Alan Sharman Well cynically, 00.32.08 Will Self That's all right. 00.32.09 Major General Alan Sharman Cynically it's if the government that's behind you is planning to spend serious money on defence. 00.32.15 Will Self But there's, I mean the figures that are quoted in the Times of India today on, on Indian government spending, is that a big amount, is that sufficient to, is it representative? 00.32.23 Major General Alan Sharman Yes, of course. Yes. Yes. 00.32.33 Will Self George Fernandez, the Indian Defence Minister, came to open the arms fair. 00.32.37 Applause 00.32.40 Will Self While behind closed doors pressure was being applied to him to finally buy sixty Hawk jets from British Aerospace. 00.32.49 Will Self Could we talk a little bit about the business of the Hawk Jet Trainer plane? 00.32.57 Aston GEORGE FERNANDEZ Minster of Defence, India Well, I would not elaborate on that for the simple reason that it's not fair to my country and it's not fair to those who are engaged in this kind of obstructionism. But the fact of the matter is that there are, I have run into various situations and various problems while looking into this matter from the day I came into the Ministry. And I hope that we'll be able to overcome this. 00.33.31 Will Self Do you believe that this deal on the Hawks will go through? 00.33.37 George Fernandez I wouldn't like to make any statement on that at the moment. 00.33.40 Will Self Ok, fair enough. 00.33.41 Music 00.33.46 Will Self George Fernandez may have been shy about discussing the Hawks but at least he saw us. British Aerospace were advertising their Hawks but would they give us a sales pitch? 00.33.58 Music 00.34.01 Will Self Hiya. 00.34.03 BAE man 1 Good afternoon. 00.34.05 Will Self Will Self from the BBC. You've seen us ferreting around. 00.34.06 BAE man 1 Yes, I've been directed to send you to our press liaison officer. 00.34.13 Will Self Who or what are they? 00.34.22 BAE man 2 I haven't seen John recently. 00.34.25 BAE man 1 It's John Coombs you need to see and he will brief you on whatever's needed to be briefed on. 00.34.30 Will Self Ok. You can't just tell me what this thing is? 00.34.34 BAE man 1 Not my product I'm afraid, so. 00.34.37 Will Self Can you tell me what this thing is? 00.34.39 BAE man 2 Can you tell me who you are? 00.34.40 Will Self Will Self from the BBC. 00.34.42 BAE man 3 I'm afraid we… 00.34.43 BAE man 2 Speak to John Coombs. 00.34.44 Will Self John Coombs! 00.34.46 BAE man 3 We need to pass you onto John Coombs. 00.34.47 Will Self All right. Ok, well we'll get off your stand then. 00.34.53 John Coombs Morning. 00.34.53 Will Self Hi, Will Self 00.34.55 John Coombs Hello Will. 00.34.55 Will Self How are you doing? 00.34.56 John Coombs Ok. 00.34.57 Will Self Could you tell us about some of what your, you've got on show here? 00.35.03 John Coombs Well actually, I think, if we can just turn this off for a minute. 00.35.05 Will Self Yeah, sure. Do you want to turn it off? 00.35.08 Music 00.35.10 Will Self The world's biggest arms manufacturer, too nervous to talk to us. What about the MoD? 00.35.17 Will Self I've heard of you. 00.35.19 MoD man I've heard of you too Will. 00.35.22 Will Self Ok. 00.35.22 Will Self This MoD Press Officer repeatedly pledged his co- operation but could he deliver? 00.35.32 Will Self What is that thing? 00.35.34 Lady salesperson It's an anti-tank missile with a range of four kilometres. It's very simple to operate; I can teach you how to launch a missile in two seconds, two minutes. 00.35.44 Will Self Even if I'm no good at video games? 00.35.46 Lady salesperson No, even if you're not good. A five years old child can… 00.35.49 Will Self A five year old child! Run out and get me a five year old child. 00.35.53 Music 00.35.55 Will Self Curiouser and curiouser as Alice might have said. Although this was no Wonderland 00.36.01 Music 00.36.04 Stephen Taylor Everybody gets bananas about the arms trade. I mean there are, the limit, there's very little in the real arms trade, something that goes bang. 00.36.13 Will Self Yeah. 00.36.13 Aston STEPHEN TAYLOR Director of Marketing Defence Manufacturers Association Or is a weapon, an offensive weapon of war, are very, very few. The great bulk of the sales that we have are in much more passive things. In, in, in clothing, in protection equipment, in body armour, in helmets, things that are much more humanitarian based rather than nasty, evil, vicious killing weapons. 00.36.38 Music 00.36.40 Will Self But while the British humanitarians in Delhi either felt misunderstood or fell silent, there were some salesmen who were perfectly upfront. 00.36.50 Israeli salesman How can I help you? 00.36.52 Will Self These… 00.36.55 Israeli salesman Small arms. 00.36.56 Will Self Small arms, do you sell many of these to the Indians? 00.36.59 Israeli salesman We have the Negev LMG here. Like this. 00.37.01 Will Self This one here. 00.37.02 Israeli salesman Which already have been sold to special units in India and are combat proven in India for the past two or three years. 00.37.11 Will Self Combat proven? 00.37.12 Israeli salesman Combat proven in India by the Indian forces. And all the rifles that you see… 00.37.16 Will Self What does that mean? I mean, they haven't been in combat have they? 00.37.19 Israeli salesman They are combating in Jammu and Kashmir all the time. 00.37.22 Will Self Oh right. 00.37.23 Will Self Can you, I mean I realise this is an extremely sensitive issue, but can you say a little bit about the situation in Kashmir at the moment? What, what, have you a feeling or an intuition about how things are going to develop in the next few weeks? 00.37.39 Aston GEORGE FERNANDEZ Minister of Defence, India It's difficult to make any forecast in that. As far as the situation on the ground is concerned there hasn't been any fundamental change in the ground situation. We have, we have every day acts of terrorism that are perpetrated there and, and on the border there is an eyeball to eyeball situation which is there and the very basic issues that we raised as a part of this ongoing terrorism, well fight against terrorism, the Pakistani President has not been able to comply with what we expected him to do. 00.38.19 Music 00.38.22 Will Self We went back to our MoD Press Officer to see if he'd deliver. 00.38.28 Will Self We've had a negative from London, which you're probably aware of. 00.38.32 Press Officer We've had a strong negative from London. 00.32.37 Will Self They didn't say strong negative. 00.38.39 Press Officer Our real worry bottom line is, you know, I've had the pleasure of listening to your programmes and some I've thought were really good and some I may have disagreed with. But there, there was a, there has been a worry from the start and I'll be quite frank with you, that this could well be, and let me be quite frank with you, a kick against British government on defence exports. Now I'm all for debate, I'm all for you putting an argument for people to make a decision on but there is a perception that we were going to get a hammering on this. Wrongly maybe and you have every right to have a view on defence exports and do it how you want. 00.39.14 Music 00.39.16 Will Self No British official would talk to me in India or back in Britain either. They wouldn't even discuss the Export Control Bill currently going through parliament. Ironically, an Indian minister was prepared to discuss the British Bill. 00.39.33 Music 00.39.37 Will Self In Britain at the moment there's a Bill going through Parliament on export control, specifically control of arms exports and there's a lot of concern in Britain over the areas, particularly the countries and states to which British arms are being exported. Do you think that those concerns that the British public might have in relation to arms exports to India have any validity as far as you can see? 00.40.01 George Fernandez Well, I don't think one can be, one can be absolute about these conditions and all these safeties and guarantees and so on and so forth. Because at what point in time what will erupt where one never knows. 00.40.16 Will Self So the wider question when, when the public in Britain become concerned about these issues, perhaps they're being rather naïve about the pragmatism with which governments approach this? 00.40.27 George Fernandez I would think so. I would think so. 00.40.31 Music 00.40.33 Will Self If I was being naïve, then so were those who believe arms exports can be a tool of British foreign policy. George Fernandez' main concern was that India should become a significant exporter as well. That's what this fair was really about: India feeding its own arms addiction and Britain was just one of the dealers. 00.40.57 Will Self For seven weeks we approached four ministries and the Prime Minister's own department asking if anyone from the government would be prepared to appear on this programme. They all declined. 00.41.08 Will Self One press secretary implied that it was because I'd suggested that their minister resigned on a matter of principle. Another that it was because I was a known critic of the government. 00.41.19 Will Self At every juncture we faced obfuscation, confusion and a pathetic series of untruths about what phone call had been received by who, when. 00.41.31 Will Self And so, the chair remains empty because no one is prepared to fill it and I'm forced to the conclusion that this is what joined up government means. All the relevant government departments joined up so as to frustrate legitimate public interest in a matter of immediate and paramount importance. 00.41.52 Music 00.41.55 Will Self What can I do? I mean, what can, can I, can I, should I confront Addict Britain with this behaviour? 00.42.01 Dr Robert Lefever How much pain is Addict Britain in? You don't, you don't change an addict's behaviour unless they're in pain. You cannot persuade somebody with rational argument who's an addict. Addict Britain's got to come clean. Addict Britain's got to look at himself and say; 'I'm not actually very proud of this at all'. I need some help. 00.42.20 Music 00.43.00 Will Self How's my thermal image? Am I hot? 00.43.05 Will Self Is this the real size of the knife? 00.43.11 Will Self I've been killed. 00.43.13 Man 1 We're not, we're not arms sellers. 00.43.15 Will Self This gun here, that's too small, isn't it? 00.43.18 Man 2 It's just a model of what we… 00.43.21 Will Self Oh that's a model! 00.43.22 Man 2 Yes. 00.43.23 Will Self That's not a real gun. Man 2 No, no, no. 00.43.24 Will Self Oh, oh ok, thank you. 00.43.26 Will Self Have you ever been asked to camouflage an entire country? 00.43.30 Man 3 What do you mean? 00.43.30 Will Self Just, just cover the whole country with camouflage so you can't see it from the air. 00.43.35 Man 3 I haven't been that lucky. 00.43.37 End Music 00.43.42 Credits Reporter WILL SELF Camera DAVID SCOTT 00.43.45 Voice over For more information on tonight's programme and to register your views, please visit our web site at: www.bbc.co.uk/correspondent 00.43.48 Dubbing Mixer DAMIAN REYNOLDS VT Editor NICK KAMPA Graphic Design NICOLA OWEN Production Team ALEXANDRA CAMERON CHARLOTTE DAVIS SARAH EVA ANJANA SHARMA Production Manager JANE WILLEY 00.43.56 Unit Manager SUSAN CRIGHTON Film Research NICK DODD Research MATT COTTINGHAM ANTONIA GREGORY Picture Editor SIMON GREENWOOD 00.43.59 Voice over Next week: a paedophile trial haunting Belgium. As evidence mounts of an official cover-up, Olenka Frenkiel investigates a scandal that can no longer be ignored. 00.43.03 Produced & Directed by AMIR AMIRANI Editor FIONA MURCH 00.44.14 Series Producer SIMON FINCH BBC © BBC MMII 00.44.16 End BBC Correspondent 1 1