XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, ont.politics   
   From: ConzRconz@YOW.ca   
      
   Monday, March 10, 2014 - thestar.com   
      
      
   Why is Ottawa selling arms to oppressive regimes?   
   By selling arms to tyrannical regimes like that in Saudi Arabia, Canada   
   is putting profit over human rights.   
      
      
   Canada’s multibillion-dollar sale of military equipment to Saudi Arabia   
   this February, the largest advanced weapons contract in Canada’s   
   history, is an affront to Ottawa’s alleged commitment to human rights in   
   the Middle East.   
      
   In his visit to the region in January, Prime Minister Stephen Harper   
   espoused the high-minded rhetoric that Canadian values of tolerance and   
   human rights would underpin Canada’s Mideast policy.  But this   
   unprecedented $10-billion sale of military equipment to Saudi Arabia, a   
   known human rights abuser, makes clear that these values hold no water   
   when there is a profit to be made.   
      
   The weapons sale will see General Dynamics Land Systems Canada, a   
   London, Ont.-based defence manufacturer, provide a fleet of   
   light-armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia over the next 14 years.  The   
   federal government helped to secure the deal, which is underwritten by   
   the Canadian Commercial Corp., a Crown corporation facilitating trade on   
   behalf of Canadian industries including the defence and security sector.   
   Federal officials see the deal as a success because of the jobs it will   
   sustain as well as its supply chain effects for Canadian companies.   
      
   The deal is no doubt a multibillion-dollar injection into Canada’s   
   economy, but the costs of the weapons deal will be borne by the region’s   
   civilians.  In 2011, the Saudi government is believed to have used   
   Canadian-made armoured vehicles in its incursion into neighbouring   
   Bahrain to crush that country’s democratic uprising — an intervention   
   the Harper government was curiously silent about.   
      
   On its own territory, Saudi Arabia is noted as the worst country in the   
   world for women.  It has also stepped up arrests of peaceful dissidents,   
   sentencing pro-democracy activists to lengthy prison terms and lashes.   
   Canada’s arms export laws prohibit the sale of military equipment where   
   it may be used to deny the human rights of civilians.  It’s unclear the   
   federal government has secured any guarantee that Saudi Arabia won’t be   
   turning Canadian-made military equipment against civilians given its   
   truly abysmal human rights record.   
      
   The sale is indicative of an even more troubling trend: the exponential   
   increase in Canadian arms sales to oppressive regimes.  The amount of   
   military equipment licensed for export to Saudi Arabia in 2011 was more   
   than 100 times greater than the 35 million approved in 2010.  <<==   
      
   Last year, a Canadian Press analysis found Bahrain, Algeria and Iraq to   
   be new buyers of Canadian-made weapons with weapons exports to Pakistan   
   increasing by 98 per cent, Mexico by 93 per cent, and Egypt by 83 per   
   cent from 2011 to 2012.   
      
   The federal government has evidently found a new source of revenue in   
   Saudi Arabia and other anti-democratic regimes with economic expediency   
   and the rhetoric of job creation trumping any real concern for human   
   rights.   The federal Conservatives have also stopped tabling annual   
   reports on Canada’s weapons exports.  <<========   
      
   The Harper government’s moral outrage is reserved only for countries   
   like Syria and Iran and totally absent when it comes to its Saudi   
   Arabian ally.  Foreign Minister John Baird has taken an uncompromising   
   position on nuclear talks with Iran, for instance, citing a principled   
   concern for human rights in the country as a reason not to engage with   
   the Iranian government even when the United States and European   
   countries have moved forward with talks.   
      
   As noted by Canadian author Derrick O’Keefe, Ottawa’s contradictory   
   approach to when human rights matter is evident even in its rhetoric   
   towards Saudi Arabia:  “By [the Harper government’s] Conservative logic   
   it’s unethical to purchase oil from Saudi Arabia because they’re a   
   repressive government, but it’s ethical and praiseworthy to sell Saudi   
   Arabia the very means of repression.”   
      
   In 2012, Baird outlining Canada’s policy in Washington stated, “We   
   cannot be selective in which basic human rights we defend, nor can we be   
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   arbitrary in whose rights we protect.”  But claiming to defend human   
   rights in some countries while simultaneously selling arms to help   
   suppress rights in others makes clear that selectivity and arbitrariness   
   are in fact hallmarks of the Harper government’s Middle East policy.   
      
   Ottawa’s convenient blindness to human rights violation in Saudi Arabia   
   is worthy of condemnation. By brazenly violating its own stated moral   
   principles, the Harper government is undermining Canada’s image   
   internationally. Worse, in the context of growing aspirations for   
   democracy in the region, it is undermining the activists who are   
   legitimately working to secure human rights and democracy. Canada cannot   
   claim to be a champion of human rights in public while acting as an arms   
   dealer to tyrannical regimes behind closed doors.   
      
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                  "This is a dangerous place to live in... Not because of   
   the people who do wrong things,   
                    but because of the people who let wrong things happen."   
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)