BAe rattled by protest

BAe rattled by protest

By Alden Salter

LONDON — More than 100 people demonstrated outside British Aerospace's annual general meeting on May 4 at Mayfair's Marriot Hotel. The protesters charged BAe with aiding and abetting genocide in East Timor.

BAe is selling Hawk jets to Indonesia's military regime, whose illegal occupation of East Timor has cost an estimated 200,000 lives since 1975. Eyewitness testimony confirms that Hawks have been used against the East Timorese.

Inside the AGM, about 30 protesters holding shares asked questions about the Hawk deal, the role of high-ranking BAe staff in supplying electric shock batons to Saudi Arabia and its alleged sale of land mines. The protesters presented an alternative annual report, highlighting job losses resulting from the shrinking arms market and making the case for conversion to civil production.

Shareholders entering the AGM were confronted with a "die-in" by about 15 protesters. Fake blood was splashed across their path and tape recorders reproduced the sound of fighter jets, whilst the Grim Reaper and a life-like General Pinochet stalked the scene.

A banner was draped from the hotel roof reading "BAe: murder by proxy". In a moment of literal high farce, one suited BAe official crawled onto a ledge and unsuccessfully tried to cut the rope suspending the banner.

Inside the AGM a protester was racially abused by a shareholder. After complaining, the abused shareholder was forcefully removed from the AGM, followed by several other protesters.

A message was read out from Chris Cole, who is serving a sentence in Pentonville Prison for breaching an injunction following a previous sentence for destroying a Hawk nose-cone at BAe Stevenage.

Messages of support can be sent to Chris Cole at Pentonville Prison, Caledonian Road, London, N7 8TT.

[Reprinted from Socialist Outlook.]

From GLW issue 189