Eamonn McCann: Did nationalists really believe arms firm wouldn’t have war role?
Thursday, 4 December 2008
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The credit crunch hasn’t affected the fortunes of the arms company the SDLP did most to bring to Derry. In Dallas on Monday, Raytheon announced that the Airborne Stand-off Radar system (Astor) has gone into service.
The company’s Derry plant has been central to the development of Astor.
“We are proud to reach this critical milestone,” said Raytheon spokesman Jon Jones. “We are excited to see how (Astor’s) mission-critical intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities will benefit the men and women on the battlefield.”
The men and women on the side using Astor, that is. Folk on the receiving end — armed insurgents, market stall-holders, enemy tanks, wedding parties, and so forth — will hardly benefit from the bombers becoming more hi-tech.
Astor has been developed mainly for the Ministry of Defence. It will provide British forces with “an entirely new operational capability”, according to MoD spokesman Bill Chrispin. Raytheon hopes other orders will follow. Perhaps from India? Pakistan?
As the two nuclear powers square up again in the aftermath of the Mumbai atrocity, we might recall that in January last year Raytheon announced the sale to the Pakistani air force of 500 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles.
The previous year, the company had sold the Indian air force 12 Firefinder counter-battery radar systems.
Peasants scratching a living from the pitiless earth may soon be able to look up and observe the two belligerents duelling with Raytheon weaponry in the skies above the sub-continent. The spectacle might be taken as confirming the forecast by Raytheon CEO Dan P Burnham at the Farnborough Air Show in 1998 that: “Growth in the global arms industry is set for a reawakening as the peace dividend era comes to an end and political instability returns ... The odds are that the benign international relations we’ve witnessed in the past few years have been a honeymoon period. We are set for more growth ... ”
The following year Mr Burnham stood on the steps of the Guildhall, flanked by John Hume and David Trimble (the pair’s first joint appearance since collecting their Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo the previous December) and a selection of NIO Ministers to announce a Raytheon plant for Derry. The plant would help “secure and underpin a peaceful and prosperous future,” declared NIO man George Howarth.
Dismissing any suggestion of a contradiction in presenting an arms company as part of a peace dividend, the SDLP explained that they’d received an assurance that the Derry facility would not be involved in arms-related activity. They’d withdraw their welcome if ever it turned out otherwise. (Sinn Fein took the same line. In contrast, the unionist parties were open that they had no problem with an arms company setting up in the city).
At the Raytheon 9 trial in Belfast in June (I am one of the nine), a senior Raytheon executive confirmed that the Derry plant was involved in Astor and in another arms project, JETTS (Joint Effects Tactical Targeting System, allowing control of artillery bombardment and aerial bombing from a distance.)
It’s since become clear that the SDLP had lobbied for the Astor contract to be awarded to Raytheon as part of the price for the company coming to Derry.
Documents obtained last year by the Belfast Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that in February 1999 the Industrial Development Board wrote to Mr Hume: “Raytheon is still very focused on the MoD programmes ... The bottom line: this could mean no project in Northern Ireland if Raytheon’s competitors are awarded the MoD business.”
The ‘MoD business’ is specified in the letter as the Astor contract.
Seven months later, two months after the Guildhall announcement, in October 1999, Direct Rule minister Adam Ingram thanked all involved in bringing the company to Derry: “Extensive lobbying by the Secretary of State and myself, together with local politicians including David Trimble, Seamus Mallon and John Hume, has influenced a decision which will bring further opportunities to people here. The contract will lead to Raytheon accelerating the establishment of its software development centre in Derry.”
Looking around the world, it seems likely Raytheon is set for even more growth. No doubt Derry nationalism will spare no effort to win a share of the action for the city. We might usefully recall here the words of US President Dwight Eisenhower just before he left office: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”
Of course, he was only the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in World War II. A bit of a namby-pamby when it comes to the arms trade compared with the SDLP.
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Imagine bringing an arms company to Derry. THank God, there is a peace process at present.
Posted by Canuck | 07.12.08, 16:58 GMT
Again, McCann hits the nail squarely on the head. These monsters we allow ourselves to be guiled into voting into power are clearly fullblown lackeys of the British and American military/industrial complex. We have become nothing more than a province of the war machine empire (presided over by Emperors Bush and Brown). Jobs should not be obtained at any cost. We should work in order to see a better society, not in order to see one society eliminated over another. Death to all arms manufacturers. Defend murder Mr Durkan!
Posted by Picoroco | 05.12.08, 22:41 GMT
The presence of Raytheon in Derry is a disgrace and sits uncomfortably with me as a member of the party that played a part in bringing it here. The Arms Industry may provide employment but it is not just at a human cost in terms of the hundred of thousands maimed and killed but at a cost to the taxpayer. The MOD has whole departments set up to subsidise the arms industry using taxpayers money. Fair play to Eamonn for campaigning against this deathly industry.
Posted by SDLP_member | 04.12.08, 16:59 GMT
Yip,
The last time I checked, Smoking kills more of our population per year than the aircraft radar system those good lads and ladies in Londonderry produce. Please tell me you aren't suggesting to cancel all those car manufactures or aircraft producers or glass bottle producers from making their products because they kill people each year.
Last time I checked those weapon systems kill the folks that try to hurt us. Yes they some time kill the innocent, but no offense if we were to cancel those systems because of that, I dare say we would ban fertilizer in the Republic and Northern Ireland, after it was used to make so many bombs.
Posted by Philip | 04.12.08, 16:05 GMT
One moral right does not negate another...making 'smart bombs' (a sick joke in itself) that inevitably kills other human beings, is morally wrong, and for those who work in such a grotesque industry they will be held accountable by the man above come judgement day...this is also not about defence as some people say here, because this is a lucrative and slimy business, and the labours of the Ratheon workers will be sold to dodgy Arab and African regimes to cause further misery to people who have no voice and nobody to defend them, but why let reality get in the way here
Posted by Justin | 04.12.08, 15:58 GMT
All this talk of defending ourrselves is utter folly. There are two issues at stake.
One, for those who have been living under a rock for the past ten or more years, is that these weapons have not been used to defend 'us', but rather enable our country to act as agressor in an illegal and immoral war, which if anything (see London 7/7) did more to endanger UK nationals (not to mention the innocent natives of Iraq and Afghanistan).
The second issue at hand is that countries which can't provide for their people on a humanitarian basis are none the less courted to spend millions on weapons which they will use against one another, again to the detriment of innocent millions of people. If people require a license to guy a fire arm in this country, how can we provide weapons to countries with (in our government's estimation) questionable motives?
This cycle of weapons sales is a national disgrace. How do the people of this country view the manufacturers of semtex etc?
Think!
Posted by Patrick | 04.12.08, 15:06 GMT
As a nationalist, I do not see any problem in defending ourselves. In this case, we need to have within Western Societies the defence systems that will protect our peoples from the various hostile and potentially hostile forces, be they rogue states or large states such as Russia.
Would you prefer that we left the West defenceless, we saw in the past what happens then, the predators take over. And whatever the failings of the west, and particularly the US during the bush era, the Western democratic states including the USA remains a better, more humane environment than anywhere else on earth.
Hence, all I can say is well done to the Raytheon company and its workers in Derry, may they keep on expanding to protect us all and to create more employment
I work in IT, but I have no involvement with the defence industry.
Posted by Tom | 04.12.08, 14:09 GMT
If I may counter those who are perfectly OK with manufacturing weapons here. Do you imagine the manufacturers care who buys them or who they are used against ? Do you think we are only selling to the goodies (i.e. us and our muckers) who will use them to protect us against the baddies (evil men with beards) ?
These weapons kill insurgents, enemies, allies, innocents and those definitions change each week depending on political expediency. They are most certainly not "keeping us safe". I don't care how many jobs it brings in, we can do better than making weapons of war.
Posted by Yip | 04.12.08, 13:42 GMT
Northern Ireland needs high tech jobs, these jobs can be done elsewhere but it is a credit to us the we forfill them.
We are lucky to live in a peaceful part of the world but we nee armys and we need weapons. What do we do when an agressor attacks us and our society?
We depend on our people and weapons systems being better than our foes and new technology makes the battlefield a safer place for our sons and daughters.
I would support any NI politician that can support our role in the world.
Posted by Cakie | 04.12.08, 11:33 GMT
Northern Ireland has been in the arms trade for good knows how long, be it building weapon systems, Shorts' aircraft which were used through out the British Empire, development of the systems which helped spawn the Harrier Jump Jet, Oh and not to forgot the SHORT Blowpipe SAM system. Oh and thats not all folks, what about the ship yards which helped build and repair many a warship over the years and the many world wars. Oh and if we aren't building them, we seem to be buying them, when some useful "characters" are bring them into the country illegally.
Those workers in Londonderry help protect this nation and the servicemen that protect the country. If you don't like the fact that they are employed to protect your nation directly or indirectly, you can pack up and travel over the border, there is a nice wee neutal country that will be more than happy to greet you :) Although... be warned they have weapons as well...
Posted by Philip | 04.12.08, 10:58 GMT
What a load of out dated socialist drivel - away and live in your pie in the sky. It is was someone far greater than Eamonn McCann who told us "The poor you will always have with you" This does not endemnify us from caring for those less well off but why should we not protect ourselves from those who attack us and why shouldn't people be allowed to earn their living in this regard?
Posted by Mark | 04.12.08, 10:58 GMT
An attempt to colour this issue in terms of political division seems a bit pointless. It is obvious that the SDLP always knew or at least strongly suspected that the Derry plant was going to be used for weapons manufacture-later borne out as correct. Sinn Fein's relationship with arms and the sponsors of arms procurement is well documented and leaves them at the bottom of the moral heap in this regard.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.” The Unionists turned this on it's head openly at the outset, to be followed by the SDLP once "outed" and ensured that their own electorate were clothed and fed......the peasants of India and Pakistan don't vote in our elections.
Human nature and not lofty ideals always prevail unfortunately, human nature is not directed by political policy rather immediate expediency.
Posted by Simon | 04.12.08, 09:36 GMT
Keep telling it how it is Eamonn. God knows, Derry needs the jobs but not any jobs at any cost.
Posted by Yip | 04.12.08, 09:12 GMT