Jubilee Debt Campaign and London Campaign Against Arms Trade staged a die in at Vince Cable’s business department to highlight its role in promoting and financing arms sales.

It was another chance to keep up the pressure on Vince Cable to cancel the dictator debts that have resulted from the department backing arms sales to dictatorships.

Campaigners braved the rain to take part in the protest as part of the Global Day of Action on Military Spending, which included actions across the UK and the world.

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We have uncovered documents showing that Argentina still ‘owes’ the UK £45m for arms sales to the military junta in the years leading up to the Falklands War. The UK knew Argentina might invade the Falklands, and the regime had a ‘worse’ human rights record than Pinochet’s Chile, but it backed the dodgy deals anyway

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Vince Cable has responded to the Halloween demonstration outside his office by releasing new information on the origin of Egypt’s debt to the UK.

Cable’s department has previously claimed that ‘details of the goods and services supplied under the individual contracts are no longer held’.

The demonstration called for him to reveal the ‘debt skeletons’ in UK Export Finance’s cupboard (previously known as the Export Credits Guarantee Department).

Vince Cable has said he is ‘not minded’ to investigate UK Export Finance’s debts, but our campaigning has forced him to release information the government claimed wasn’t available. Keep the pressure up by updating your MP on the campaign’s developments.

Keep your MP up to date on the latest developments in our campaign.

Send this one-page letter to your MP (three easy steps) and let us know if your MP gets back to you !

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The Zimbabwean police were loaned money in the 1990s to buy 1,500 Land Rovers, backed by UK Export Finance (then known as the Export Credits Guarantee Department), a unit of the Department for Business. These loans continue to make-up £21 million of Zimbabwe’s debt to the UK. The evidence appears in a new report published by Jubilee Debt Campaign, the Zimbabwe Europe Network and Eurodad.

The report calls for lenders such as the UK government to reveal where all the debt owed by Zimbabwe comes from, and signal they would support and cooperate with any debt audit held in Zimbabwe.

Tim Jones, Policy Officer at Jubilee Debt Campaign and the reports author, said:
“Debt has played a key role in the tragedies that many Zimbabweans have suffered over the last twenty years. Dodgy projects, debt repayments and failed economic policies contributed to economic decline. Lenders should help increase transparency and democracy by coming clean on where Zimbabwe’s debts come from.”

Tor-Hugne Olsen, Co-ordinator of the Zimbabwe Europe Network (ZEN) added:
“Zimbabwe‘s future recovery is severely hampered by its current debt problem. We call for a debt audit, which is crucial. A debt audit would establish the truth and thereby contribute to the achievement of reconciliation. Zimbabweans need to know who benefited financially during the years of oppression under Mugabe and Smith, during years which have left the majority of people impoverished. The massive debt that besets the country should not be the burden of the people who have suffered under these regimes.

“As a European network we particularly call on European governments, who rightly demand increasing transparency from Zimbabwe politically and economically, to themselves be transparent by informing about what loans have been given to Zimbabwe, when and for what.”

Vince Cable’s department has broken a key coalition deal on the environment for a second time. UK Export Finance – also known as the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD)  - has announced it is backing up to $1bn of loans to Brazilian oil company Petrobras, which specialises in deep and ultra-deep water drilling [2].

The coalition agreement of May 2010 pledges that the ECGD will “become [a] champion for British companies that develop and export innovative green technologies around the world, instead of supporting investment in dirty fossil-fuel energy production”.[3]

The new loans to Petrobras come hot on the heels of confirmation in October that the department is backing a $11.6m loan for equipment in a Siberian coal mine [4].

Margaret Ounsley, Head of Public Affairs at WWF, said:

“It is really slightly gob-smacking that the Government can argue that financial support for a process that only last year was responsible for the worst accidental oil-spill in marine history in the Gulf of Mexico, is not “dirty”. One can only wonder what they did have in mind when they made their commitment to end subsidies for “dirty fossil-fuel energy production” as clearly this does not cover coal, nor deep-water drilling. Did they have their fingers crossed behind their backs when they signed the agreement? It is intensely disappointing.”

Madeleine Evans, Campaigns Officer at Jubilee Debt Campaign said, “Vince Cable’s ECGD may have re-branded itself, but this shady government department continues to support projects with little regard for whether they threaten the environment or human rights, or create illegitimate debt. We need proper public scrutiny of what projects this department is using public money to support.”

ECGD was criticised last year for its support of Petrobras when it agreed to back the construction of the P-52 Oil platform in 2005, one of the world “largest and riskiest” oil-drilling projects [5].

The consideration of the new billion-dollar loan to Petrobras coincides with William Hague telling the CBI conference that it would be ‘fatal’ for the UK to dilute its commitment to the green agenda [6].

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg travelled to Brazil in June this year.  He met with the president of Petrobras, and called for UK exports to Brazil to double.

ENDS

For more information contact Jubilee Debt Campaign on 020 7324 4722.

Notes

 
1. Jubilee Debt Campaign is the UK coalition campaigning for cancellation of unjust and unpayable poor country debt.
2. http://www.ecgd.gov.uk/news-and-events/news/petrobras-line-of-credit-announced
3. HM Government. (2010). The coalition: Our programme for government. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/coalition_programme_for_government.pdf
4. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coalition-breaks-green-pledge-with-siberian-coal-deal-2376878.html
5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/30/uk-loans-brazil-offshore-drilling
6. UK Export Finance is the new name for the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD). It is the UK’s export credit agency. It backs loans to countries and companies to buy British exports. Traditionally 75% of the department’s support has been given to arms, aerospace and carbon-intensive industries. In the event of an loan backed by UK Export Finance not being repaid, UK Export Finance repays the loan instead.
7. For a loan to be backed by UK Export Finance, at least 25% of the equipment needs to be manufactured in the UK.
8. WWF and the Jubilee Debt Campaign are members of Clean Up Britain’s Exports (CUBE), which is challenging the lack of transparency at UK Export Finance, as well as its tendency to make loans to support fossil fuels and arms. Other members include, Christian Aid,  Amnesty International and the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

 

Debt campaigners from around the UK, and beyond, travelled to Westminster to demand Vince Cable comes clean on dictator debts.  Organised by Jubilee Debt Campaign,  this demonstration coincided with the first conference of the Popular Campaign to Drop Egypt’s Debt in Cairo, and the publication of new information showing that at least some of Egypt’s debt relates to arms sales to Mubarak.                More information

On  Monday 31 October, Jubilee Debt Campaign is holding a day of action to call for an audit of the UK’s ECGD debts, and cancellation of those which are unjust.

Vince Cable, based at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), oversees over 90% of the debt owed to the UK by developing countries. But the UK government has not even explained where many of these debts came from.

Campaigners will demonstrate outside BIS (1 Victoria Street, Westminster) at 5 pm to call for an immediate debt audit and ask Vince ‘What debt skeletons are in the government’s closet?’.

This will be a fun family-friendly event and it’s Halloween, so if you want to dress up as a ‘debt skeleton’ in the government’s cupboard, you will be in good company!

This demonstration is organised by Jubilee Debt Campaign and supported by Campaign Against Arms Trade

Campaigners from Jubilee Debt Campaign arrived at Liberal Democrat conference dressed as skeletons to ask Vince Cable ‘What debt skeletons are in the Government’s cupboard’.

Activists in Birmingham outside the Lib Dem Conference

Vince Cable,  controls the Government’s Export Credits Guarantee Department – which is responsible for over 90% of the debt owed to the UK by developing countries.

The skeletons reminded Liberal Democrats that their party policy is:

To “conduct our own audit of all existing UK government and commercial debts, ruling invalid any past lending that was recklessly given to dictators known not to be committed to spend the loans on development.” September 2010, Liberal Democrat policy

To  “[end] export credit support for military goods.” September 2010, Liberal Democrat policy

Tougher policy on the ECGD was adopted at conference, where the Liberal Democrats also committed to withdrawing ECGD support from “all fossil-fuel related sectors”

Read Jubilee Debt Campaign’s press release “Liberal Democrats adopt tougher policy on responsible exports.”

Conference also passed policy which recognised the progress towards democracy in the so called ‘Arab Spring’. But campaigners claimed that this is undermined by the Liberal Democrats continued inaction on their pledge to audit the hundreds of millions of pounds worth of debts which were run up by the UK supporting deals with dictators.

Read Jubilee Debt Campaign’s press release “Liberal Democrat inaction over dictator debts contradicts commitments to democracy.”

The European Parliament has adopted almost unanimously (643 for, 20 against and 9 abstentions) a resolution by Yannick Jadot MEP (Green) which will bring more transparency and supervision to export credit agencies across the European Union. As a result, all agencies of EU countries, including the ECGD, will have to produce a detailed annual report on their activities, detailing the projects they support and how they respect the objectives of the Union’s environmental, social and human rights. The European Commission will analyse these reports and then report itself to the European Parliament. The first detailed report is expected in late 2011.

More detail here.