DSEi2005why disarm DSEi?

Audio version of text from leaflet/map for activists mobilizing against the DSEi arms fair...

good explaination of what it's about.

2min 30 secs

Two versions, one with, one without music

Ever fancied a jet fighter as a kid? How about a big warship? Perhaps you'd like a tank, a sub-machine gun or some cluster bombs. Or for maximum kill-ratio, why not order a B52 bomber, and practice your long box technique.

All this and more will be available at DSEi 2005, the world's biggest
arms fair. One thousand companies will vie for the attentions of the world's governments, competing to provide death and destruction ever more efficiently.

The arms trade is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands each year, in wars and conflicts across the world.

Statistics flow at us through the digital media and printed word. Perhaps we know that Israel has killed somewhere between two and three thousand Palestinians. More or less, in the last 3 years (can't be sure though, it's hard to keep track). We've heard of Chechnya. How many there? Last time I checked about 40,000 since 1998. The Congo? The last war killed 4 million I
think, though again I'm not sure I'm up to date. What if I'd said 5 million, would you have known any different, would you have been able to care any differently? Liberia looks like its going to get better now, do you know how many have been killed under wassisname? President Charles Taylor. Thasstheone.
Remember Rwanda? Who was killing who? Tutsis or Hutus? Iraq - it's 100,000 now isn't it? Though of course we only know the American casualty statistic (1,300 and rising fast) for sure. Iraqis aren't worthy enough to be counted according to the US and UK military. The numbers flying past us in a blur are so huge, the killing so scientifically orchestrated and organized, that it's
hard to care emotionally any more. Each one of those an aware, living person?

It's all too terrifying to imagine.

Arms traders deny responsibility, but wars on today's scale, without popular support, would be impossible without modern weapons.

DSEi - Defence Systems And Equipment International) plays an essential role in this continued destruction of human and non-human life. DSEi is the world's biggest weapons fair selling everything from battleships and attack helicopters to cluster bombs, and good ol' fashioned machine guns. At DSEi 2003 there were 973 exhibitors selling their deadly wares to delegates to a third of the world's countries. DSEi is an important event for those that profit from this trade, and shutting it down will give them one less opportunity to trade, and make them aware of just how despised their business is.

Two years ago saw thousands mobilize against this arms fair. Arms fair preparations were blockaded, trains and buses full of delegates stopped, the fair disrupted both outside and in, whilst arms' companies saw their London offices being attacked everyday and every night that the event happened.

Let us not stand by and watch this evil trade continue. Take action,
now and in the future, to Disarm DSEi and end the trade in killing.

Disarm DSEi
Stop the world's largest arms fair!
10th - 16th September 2005
ExCeL centre, London docklands
www.dsei.org