The Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO) is a Government department employing about 500 civil servants dedicated to selling weapons around the world on behalf of arms companies – funded of course by taxpayers to the tune of more than £15million per year. This year DESO celebrates its 40th birthday and yet it seems likely that around 88% of the population has never heard of it.
As part of its
“call the shots” campaign to challenge the influence of arms companies on
government policy, Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT)
is organising three months of action to raise public awareness and lobby MPs,
in a push to get DESO closed down. On
Monday 16th October several members of KPC/CND joined 250 others to form a
human chain around the offices of DESO in
After lunch
pairs of protesters were assigned to different streets in central
1. Have you heard of the Defence Export Services Organisation?
(if the answer was no, an explanation was given)
2. Do you think public money should be spent in this way?
A majority of people claimed to be too busy to stop but CAAT did get around 700 replies, and it was these that suggest the very high degree of ignorance of DESO’s existence. However, when the purpose of DESO was explained, 82% of respondents thought that public money should not be spent in this way with only 5% in support and 13% ‘don’t knows’. If these figures are even roughly representative of the population as a whole, then it would seem that raising awareness would stand a good chance of leading to the demise of DESO, and this is where the action comes in. Visit CAAT’s website http://www.caat.org.uk for more information, talk to people about the issues and contact your MP.
The Liberal
Democrats, Plaid Cymru, the SDLP and the Green Party
are already convinced of the case for closure.
Charles Kennedy has tabled EDM 1798 calling on the Government to close
DESO because “through DESO, the
Hilary Evans