[COAT] CANSEC WarFair: Nukes, DU, Landmines, ClusterBombs, MachineGuns, BMD, & more

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The CANSEC War Fair: 
Weapons Galore and Global Warfare
Links to Nukes, Depleted Uranium, Landmines,
Cluster Bombs, BMD, Machine Guns and too much more...
By Richard Sanders, Coordinator,
Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade
(COAT)

Canada's top war industries have their sights set on Ottawa and are
aiming to exhibit their wares at CANSEC 2009, Canada's largest military
arms bazaar, at Lansdowne Park, May 27-28. 

More than 50 of these Canadian military export industries are linked to
the production of weapons systems that most people in this country
probably recognize as morally reprehensible and thoroughly unCanadian, if
not downright illegal. 

Among the all-Canadian weapons exported by CANSEC 2009 exhibitors
are:
  *  Anti-Personnel Cluster Bombs, Fragmentation Bombs and
Phosphorous Bombs 
  *  Automatic Weapons, Semi-Automatic Weapons, Machine Guns
and Chain Guns
 
A new online
report by the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) reveals that
CANSEC exhibitors are also engaged in the manufacture of essential
high-tech components embedded in weapons systems that deliver the
following:
  *  Nuclear Weapons 
  *  Depleted Uranium Munitions 
  *  Anti-Personnel Cluster Bombs 
  *  Anti-Personnel Landmines 

These particularly inhumane munitions -- widely regarded around the world
as illegal -- are "delivered" to their targets by a variety of
war planes, cruise missiles and land-based systems that contain
significant quantities of Canadian components.  COAT's online report
provides details about dozens of these weapons "delivery"
systems and reveals hundreds of online sources of information documenting
Canadian corporate complicity in their manufacture.  Most of these
weapons systems, complete with Canadian hardware, have been used in the
Iraq War which has so far claimed the lives of more than 1.3 million
people, mostly innocent civilians, since 2003.

CANSEC exhibitors also include about a dozen Canadian companies engaged
in the design, creation, development and/or production of:
  *  "Ballistic Missile Defense" (BMD) weapons
systems.

Many Canadians would be surprised to learn these facts because they
contradict commonly-held mythologies about this country.

Preaching Peace, Profiting from War
COAT's research into CANSEC 2009 exhibitors demonstrates that
Canada's military exporters are continuing their longstanding tradition
of aided and abetted not only US and NATO preparations for waging nuclear
war and the ongoing use of anti-personnel landmines, but also the
research and development of BMD weapons and the production of components
for dozens of major weapons systems used in the Iraq War.

This, of course, is completely at odds with many official
"feel-good" Canadian government pronouncements supporting world
peace and opposing nuclear weapons, landmines, BMD and the Iraq War.
However, many of the Canadian war industries exhibiting at CANSEC 2009
have received government funds, subsidies and "investments" to
support their specific work to develop and produce these weapons-related
systems.

So, although Canada's prevailing cultural mythology presents this nation
as one which supports peacekeeping and peacebuilding, CANSEC 2009 (and
its corporate and government participants) graphically symbolises this
country's actual commitment to war, and the ongoing enterprise of
profiteering from the use of numerous immoral, reprehensible and illegal
weapons systems.

Uphold Ottawa's 20-Year Ban on Arms Shows!
The local level of government is also involved. In 1989, the City of
Ottawa passed a binding
Motion banning all arms shows from municipal property. Now, however,
arming themselves with a legal technicality, staff at the City of Ottawa
have bypassed the elected Council and booked CANSEC 2009 for Lansdowne
Park, the municipality's prime, publicly-funded facility. 

If you are in Ottawa, please join us in getting more
petitions signed and in
contacting Ottawa's City Councillors. Also, please join us on
May 27 for
speakers, music and a candlelight peace vigil. 

A growing public movement led by peace, environment and social justice
activists across Canada are now challenging CANSEC.  If you haven't
already done so, please sign COAT's online petition and encourage others
to likewise. We need and appreciate your
support and
assistance. All donations to COAT over $25 will receive a subscription to
our magazine, Press for Conversion! Thanks.

The CANSEC War Fair, Weapons and Warfare
The links between CANSEC 2009 exhibitors and their exports
of weapons, and weapons-system components, provide us with many sound
reasons for opposing this blatant manifestation of the international
trade in war technology. For instance:

Fuelling the Iraq and Afghan Wars
Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) research reveals that at
least 50 Canadian arms exporters attending CANSEC have supplied products
for three dozen major weapons systems used in the current Iraq War. These
include the main warplanes, cruise missiles, drones, tanks and large
artillery/cannons used to wage this illegal war which Canadians
overwhelmingly oppose. Most of these US weapons, complete with Canadian
parts, have also been used to great effect in Afghanistan.
 
Nuclear Bombs and Missiles
CANSEC exhibitors also include Canadian military exporters that
supply high-tech components for "weapons delivery systems"
currently tasked to wage nuclear war, namely, B-52 bombers,
"Tomahawk" sea-launched cruise missiles and the stealth B-2
"Spirit," which costs more per plane than an annual Ottawa City
budget!
 
Depleted Uranium Munitions
COAT's research also reveals 20 CANSEC exhibitors that help
manufacture seven varieties of "delivery systems" that have
fired more than 1000 tons of highly-toxic, radioactive Depleted Uranium
(DU) munitions in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. DU dust will continue
to unleash environmental destruction, cancers, leukaemias and other
horrendous health effects upon innocent children and others for
generations to come.
 
"Ballistic Missile Defense" (BMD) weapons
A dozen Canadian war industries now heading for Ottawa's CANSEC arms
bazaar, have played significant roles in the research, design,
development, testing and production of so-called BMD weapons. The primary
purpose for these cutting-edge systems, as revealed by Pentagon
documents, is not to defend the "Homeland" (as publicly
claimed) but to protect US forces and their weapons abroad during battles
in faraway warzones. "Homeland defense" is merely the pretext
used to garner needed public financing for multi-billion dollar BMD
weapons programs.
 
Small Arms and Ammunition
CANSEC will also host Canadian companies that produce "small
arms" and ammunition that is now being used by US and other NATO
warfighters in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.  Colt Canada, which
makes automatic and semi-automatic weapons, chain guns and other machine
guns, is now soliciting photos for a contest highlighting its weapons in
Iraq and Afghanistan. 
 
Each year, a Montreal branch plant (OTS) of US war behemoth, General
Dynamics, exports millions of rounds of ammunition to the US for use in
Iraq. It too will be seeking additional export contracts during its
presence at CANSEC this May.
 
Anti-personnel Cluster Bombs, Fragmentation Bombs and White
Phosphorous
Winnipeg's Bristol Aerospace, which started thanks to Canadian
government grants, is now world famous for making unguided, air-to-ground
missiles. Some of Bristol's Canadian-made CRV-7 warheads include
antipersonnel cluster bombs with submunitions that "optimize
fragment size against personnel...." When another variety of
Bristol's CRV-7 warhead explodes, "thousands of small, high velocity
fragments" spray out to kill people. It too is
"
designed for
antipersonnel

applications." Another of these Canadian warheads uses a mixture
of

"high-explosive" and "white phosphorous," a
chemical that can burn through skin and flesh down to bone.

Anti-personnel Landmines
Canada led the way on a global treaty to ban anti-personnel
landmines. The signing of this global convention took place in Ottawa and
has subsequently been called "The Ottawa Treaty." However, this
will not hinder dozens of Canadian military companies exporting products
for US warplanes that deliver "anti-personnel landmines" to
their human targets. Thirty five of these companies identified in COAT's
report will be exhibiting their wares in Ottawa at CANSEC 2009.

Who Pays the Price?
War fair organisers, weapons manufacturers, and others beholden to
their narrow vested corporate interests, often proclaim that military
trade shows are a boon to profits and business. However, those supporting
general public health, safety, welfare, democracy and peace, and those
concerned with broader concerns for environmental protection, challenge
the contention that fuelling war serves the public good or the
preservation of ecosystems.  

We ask what expense to the environment, to democracy and to human lives
does this trade in war technology continue?  Who pays the price when
military hardware and weapons are proliferated around the world and used
in global wars?  Special interest groups, like weapons manufacturers
and their PR advocates in government and media, should not be allowed to
over rule widespread public interest which overwhelming supports peace,
not war.  

Twenty years ago, the elected representatives of Ottawa citizens voted 11
to 1 to ban all military trade shows from municipal property. The
concerns they so eloquently expressed about the international trade in
military technologies are as valid today as they were then.

Let's stop CANSEC and other Canadian arms shows, for good!  

For more details on CANSEC and how to get involved in the campaign to
expose and oppose it, please visit COAT's website:  
http://COAT.ncf.ca

To see the COAT detailed report described in this article, which
lists the names of companies, and what they are supplying for dozens of
weapons systems, click below:
http://coat.ncf.ca/ARMX/cansec/topCANSEC.htm