Cape Town: Protest against Arms fair and Nuclear vessel visit

southern africa | imperialism / war | non-anarchist press Friday September 19, 2008 18:52 by Anti-War Coalition - - EarthLife Africa

The AntiWar Coalition and Earthlife Africa calls for a mass protest outside the Arms Fair being held at the Ysterplaat Military base. The protest will be held outside Gate 5 of the military base in Nahum Str(off Koeberg rd) on Saturday 20 Sept 2008 at 10am. The Arms Fair is a bartering ground for capitalist monopolies. Under the cover of an Air show this event brings together shady arms dealers and arms manufacturers from around the globe. These arms dealers and manufacturers are behind the ongoing wars in Africa and profit from war on all continents. They provide arms to capitalist governments and other agents to keep most of the world's population in chains of exploitation and hunger, by force.

* At the time when billions of the world's population is starving, the biggest industry in the world is the armaments industry
* Several of the companies present are suppliers of the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan (eg Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc)
* Part of the arms dealers' conference discussed trade and counter-trade offset programmes, yet the very participants such as Saab, BAE, EADS and other beneficiaries of the multi-billion rand arms deal, have reneged on the supposed job creation. 'Offset' programmes are demonstrated as nothing but a cover for an artificial industry whose existence is based on the destruction of human beings.
* Companies like Northrop Grumman are present, which still promotes the idea of Intercontinental ballistic missiles, armed with nuclear warheads, as essential to modern 'peacekeeping'.
* Boeing has just concluded a sale of 1000 'bunker-buster' bombs to Israel, which could well be used to bomb Iranian nuclear power plants.
* The Arms Fair is being co-hosted by the City of Cape Town. This shows the hypocrisy of both the DA and the ID, who claim to be against the arms deal and corruption associated with it, but play host to the most reactionary forces on earth, the same arms dealers and manufacturers.
* The hypocrisy of the UN is also shown by the presence and support of the UN World Food programme.

The US nuclear vessel visiting Cape Town poses a threat to all. A nuclear-powered ship will be docking in Cape Town harbour from the 1st to the 10th October 2008. This poses a significant health risk to us all as such vessels are known to be prone to nuclear accidents. There appears to be no emergency plan in place by all levels of government in case of a nuclear disaster that may arise from the presence of the ship. The subservience of government to the profiteering wishes of US imperialism is placing the entire population in the Western Cape at risk by this reckless action. We call for the cancellation of the visit of the nuclear ship.

for further details call Shaheed Mahomed (Chairperson CT AntiWar Coalition) ph 0822020617 call Keenan Cairns (Co-ordinator Earthlife Africa) ph 0763870620