Local people in Brighton have blocked shipments from a Brighton arms
factory EDO MBM Technology Ltd today in order to stop its ongoing supply of war crimes.

EDO MBM is a subsidiary of the major US arms and technology corporation
L3 Harris Technologies, an S&P 500 Index company listed on the New York
Stock Exchange.

EDO now cutting their own fence to try & break blockade of their arms factory 😃 pic.twitter.com/lpETWda6a5

— Brighton Against The Arms Trade (@BrightonAAT) November 25, 2019

A spokesperson for today’s action said:

“We have this morning blocked all arms shipments from the EDO weapons
factory in Brighton.

This summer, The Argus, The Canary and The Guardian all published
details of a United Nations Security Council mandated investigation showing EDO MBM bomb-parts were found at the site of Saudi-led coalition
airstrikes on civilian targets in Yemen.

The UN Panel of Experts found these attacks to be violations of international humanitarian law. The Saudi-led attacks on Yemen have led of a humanitarian catastrophe leaving millions displaced and over 100,000 dead. Save The Children estimates over 85,000 children may have died from starvation.

In response Nancy Platts, Leader of Brighton and Hove City Council was
joined by city councilors as well as local MP Lloyd Russell Moyle, to call for a government inquiry into the company export licenses to Saudi Arabia. Nothing happened. A written parliamentary question about the UN report, submitted by Caroline Lucas MP was also ignored by the government.

We say all UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia must stop now.

In 2010 a jury at Lewes Court Court (sitting in Hove) acquitted
a group of defendants who in January 2009 had entered the EDO MBM
factory and manually disabled its machine tools with hammers, causing extensive damage. The jury found their belief that the factory was at the time of the action assisting Israeli war crimes in Gaza with bomb rack
technology for F-16 warplanes was reasonable on the evidence, despite denials by the Managing Director who was cross-examined over five days.

Despite evidence of likely perjury by EDO MBM directors, plus possible
breaches of UK export controls, no police action to investigate the company or its directors occurred and the evidence of assistance of Israeli war crimes was ignored.

Since 2010 EDO MBM has continued to supply critical components for the weapons systems of Israeli F-16s and now Israel’s new F-35 war planes. In recent weeks the Israeli air force has bombarded Gaza again with airstrikes killing numerous civilians.

Today we call on the UK authorities to stop all EDO MBM’s arms exports
and immediately open a full, independent criminal inquiry into this company’s exports to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Above all EDO MBM has profited from illegal wars, assassinations, and war crimes carried out by UK and US forces over the last two decades.

These acts of aggression have killed over a million people, destroyed environments, brought social and economic misery that has driven millions more to leave their homes and countries, risking their lives to cross deadly seas and borders in order to survive.

EDO’s parent company L3 Harris then profits again from these migrations by selling the surveillance and sensor technologies that fortify these hostile borders and lessen the chances of migrating peoples of survival and finding sanctuary.

When our elected representatives are so evidently powerless against this
profit driven war machine; when our institutions of government and
Parliamentary arms export oversight committees fail to take steps against flagrant and ongoing war crimes being assisted by factories, it is left to us to act and BREAK THE KILL CHAIN.

EDO MBM’s factory of death must close. We will close it.”

Photo: Brighton Against The Arms Trade