Swansea University: Divest from the Arms Trade

Over the last year, Swansea University invested in £97,472 in BAE Systems and Rolls Royce, two companies heavily involved in the global arms trade. Swansea University's College of Engineering received contracts totalling £221,532 from Rolls Royce and GKN Aerospace Services. As well as this, Swansea University has stated intention to strengthen ties with BAE Systems as a research partner at the university's new second campus.

We, as students, as well as concerned members of the public would like to express our dismay at cooperation with companies active in the arms trade by Swansea University.

The UK Government’s 2010 Human Rights Annual Report identified 26 “countries of concern”. Yet, the same year, the UK approved arms export licences to 16 of these including Israel, Libya, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia. It is often difficult to establish where the arms used in conflicts have originated. However, proven cases of the use of UK arms in conflict zones include, amongst others: Libya against 'rebels' in 2011, Israel against Gaza in 2009, Indonesia against East Timor, Aceh and West Papua, America in the invasion of Iraq, Zimbabwe in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and by Argentina in the Falklands War.

In February 2011, former UK Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles was hired by BAE Systems. As Ambassador, he had pressured the Serious Fraud Office to drop its investigations into BAE-Saudi arms deals. Later in 2011, Saudi Arabian forces were caught red handed using British-made BAE-supplied equipment to crush democratic protests in Bahrain. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has controversially continued to include representatives of BAE Systems on envoy visits to the Middle East and elsewhere.

The UK's two biggest arms exporting companies, BAE Systems and Rolls Royce, have profited massively over this 'trade'. Though arms exports jobs only account for 0.2% of total UK employment, and that arms only account for 1.5% of total UK exports, as much as 27% of UK government research expenditure goes in to the arms trade, and 54% of UK Trade & Investment staff are committed to promoting the products produced by the UK's arms industry.

This is not OK. We do not want our university to be complicit in an industry that not only serves to make conflict more viable, but relies on our government’s subsidies and the free labour of university graduates to function. We urge Swansea University to divest from companies active in the arms trade, and to put in place an all-encompassing ethical investment policy.