Small arms and a correction.
The largest landmine manufacturer in the world also had the most contracts for the removal of landmines. Ah yes, the stockholders would be pleased, they also sold the most second-hand landmines. They also made such things as the cell phone in my back pocket. I heard this piece of delightful information from a reliable friend. The difficulty is policy and practice change but the stories we tell each other (along with little bits of information winging around the web) remain undated. It would seem that in response to pressure (some of which was from stockholders meetings) this company was one of the first to say they would stop making landmines. What I can’t find out is if they stopped; but I would like to think they did.
Three personal reflections on this: I said delightful information because there is a troubling amount of self-righteous anger/joy I find myself taking when armed with a new piece of this sort of information. This makes it too easy to come across like an eco or justice evangelistic zealot that puts people off as fast as sizable leather bound black book between the eyes on the corner of 5th and Main.
I am also reminded of the need to check out what I hear as best I can as difficult as that can be, and date my info when talking to people; another slap on my wrist and an apology to those I passed the first part of the story onto without the second.
On a brighter note, the above also reminds me that awareness raising is of some value. They stopped (I think.) The company was Motorola. Samsung still make bullets missiles and tanks; so do Toshiba and a large list of others. There was a small school protest about such things last week in Dunedin. Check out the article here
I was particularly pleased that the article actually printed the names we gave them rather than staying vague. The figures come from the Stockholm International Peace Research site. Below is a link to the document containing the top 100 weapons manufacturers.
SIPRI Top 100 weapons manufacturers. (copy this link into your address bar, for some reason I can’t get the link to work.) www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/aprod/top100/SIPRI_Top100.pdf/download
The figures are from 2006. It takes a couple of years to gather and process the info. As of yet the lists they put together do not include Chinese or Russian companies. Those marked with an ‘S’ are subsidiaries – that means Samsung makes the list 3 times; congratulations.
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