[COAT] great Citizen piece exposes CANSEC arms bazaar

[coat AT list.openconcept.ca]

More info from the Coalition to Oppose the
Arms Trade website   
Sign the COAT petition
online

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Breaking+faith/1554202/story.html

Breaking the faith

By Janice Kennedy, Ottawa Citizen,
May 1, 2009
 
Trucks will roll into Lansdowne Park in three weeks, ready to unload
their cargoes of shiny new products for the big trade show. The products,
innovative marvels of fine engineering, will be displayed, demonstrated
and (their manufacturers hope) bought.

Then, at an unknown point down the road in a place comfortably distant
from Ottawa, some of these gadgets, gizmos and gleaming implements will
be used to do precisely what they were designed to do. Some shiny new bit
of high-tech efficiency, exhibited so effectively over two peaceful
weekdays in May on a site by the quiet Rideau River to buyers strolling
the aisles, morning coffees in hand ­ this shiny new purchase will help
to shred flesh, blow off human limbs, wipe out innocent lives, create
indescribable depths of grief and add to the world’s sum total of
hatred.

CANSEC 2009, put on by the Canadian Association of Defence and Security
Industries (CADSI), is the country’s largest trade show for items
manufactured for “defence” and “security.” (The words have such a
comforting motherhood-and-apple-pie blandness to them, don’t they?
Nothing about them even hints at their potential to devastate innocent
civilian lives.)

Most Ottawans with any kind of municipal memory are surprised that the
trade show is being held at all on city property, since a ban has been in
effect ­ or so we thought ­ since 1989, when city council voted 13-1 to
prohibit defence industry trade shows on city grounds.

The decision was made just four years after the mayoralty of the late
Marion Dewar, the generous and peace-affirming activist who must have
left traces of her moral courage behind, floating about through council
chambers.

But through the most legalistic of legal loopholes ­ Lansdowne Park was
briefly in regional governmental hands before returning to the
amalgamated city fold ­ the 1989 ban is deemed not to have survived the
temporary ownership change. And so, game on.

Mayor Larry O’Brien (still a shareholding director with his old company,
Calian Technologies, which is exhibiting at CANSEC) has declared that the
original ban was not as comprehensive as some people thought.

Outraged peace activists and religious groups have been campaigning
energetically against the show, but their petitions and demonstrations
will likely meet with the same success people of good will everywhere
usually achieve in the face of big swagger and big bucks. That is to say,
nada.

The outrage has to be more widespread. Maybe it would be, if the average
citizen knew that CADSI, according to its own website, represents 700
Canadian-based member companies generating $10 billion annually in
military and security sales ­ half of which is exported. Or that “they
also sell an additional $20 billion of their world class technology-based
product and service solutions to commercial customers at home and
abroad.”

Really? What customers? Abroad where?

Sure, shows like this also feature products and technologies that do not
maim and kill. They promote things that also help save lives in chaotic
situations, both abroad and at home. No question.

But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that a “defence and security”
trade show is mainly about safety, security and emergency management for
civilians, as the mayor has suggested. Let’s not be so delusional as to
think that the primary purpose of the show is about instruments of peace.
No, CANSEC is all about war.

A recent letter to the editor, responding to outrage over the arms show’s
appearance on city of Ottawa property, pointed to the economic benefits
of such shows and observed that the city should not be bound by the
“agenda” of “special interest groups.”

(So where do I sign up for membership in this special interest
group?)

In the name of peace, countless communities and individuals around the
world have done really tough things. In the United States, Catholic
priests such as Louis Vitale and John Dear have gone to prison for
peacefully protesting their country’s march to war and, more recently,
its willingness to torture.

Twenty-two years ago, New Zealand risked the wrath of the mighty U.S. by
enshrining in national law its self-designation as a nuclear-free zone,
which it remains to this day. More than a symbolic gesture, the New
Zealand initiative not only made a powerful statement, but also
interfered with American military plans to find a safe N.Z. harbour for
nuclear-capable destroyers in the south Pacific ­ putting a dent in
U.S.-N.Z. relations.

Around the world, municipalities from Vancouver to New York to Manchester
have declared themselves nuclear-free zones. True, these actually are
symbolic gestures ­ but there’s nothing wrong with symbolism. Imagine the
impact if more and more communities across the globe made, and meant,
such symbolic gestures.

Other places have participated in the surge toward peace by banning trade
shows dedicated to arms and other martial instruments. One city took that
initiative in April 1989 with a majority decision its decision-makers
believed would last more than 20 years.

No one is naïve enough to think that banning CANSEC in Ottawa would put
an end to war. That isn’t the point. But we do what we can, all of us,
taking whatever small steps are possible for the longer journey, symbolic
or otherwise.

We take a stand. We make a statement. And then, despite the self-serving
energies of the loophole-lovers and the backsliders among us, we stick to
principle.

Even if it’s 20 years old.

Janice Kennedy’s column appears here on Sundays. 
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen