NEWS September 21 2001
Campaigns – DSEi protest

The protests against the DSEi (or Dicey) arms fair in London last week turned out to have been badly timed. Press coverage was virtually nil as any story was overtaken by the news of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon.

The main marches led over 1000 people – samba band, pink and silver bloc, Critical Mass, CND, Campaign Against the Arms Trade and others to the west gate of the centre, where a thoroughly over-policed party went on for several hours. Meanwhile, a smaller group was attempting to blockade the side entrance. The presence of a contingent of Wombles had the police severely rattled – they made periodic attempts to stop the crowd during the march, arrested one woman for attempting to leave the groupto go for a pee, and harassed and searched a number of people. A full Section 60 (the law wrongly used to corrall, search, photograph and take details of demonstrators at Mayday this year) was not applied – perhaps because several people had taken the precaution of printing and distributing leaflets detailing protesters’ rights under section 60 – you do not have to give your name or address, photos should not be taken without your consent, the search should be inly for weapons and police cannot read documents or examine ID without consent. It was left to Schnews to point out the irony of searching demonstrators for weapons just outside an arms fair where machines capable of killing and maiming thousands at a time were openly on sale with full government sanction. Slap a Section 60 on the ExCel Centre – there’s people in there tooling up for a breach of the peace…

Meanwhile, over at Trafalgar Square the Redhanded Activists had made one of the fountains run with ‘blood’ in memorial to the ‘millions maimed and killed, people dispossessed of their land, environmental destruction, communities shattered, entire populations displaced and forced into exile’.

DSEi itself clearly has no sense of shame. It seems that the organisers could see no connection between their trade in death and the attacks on the US. Business continued as usual through to Friday 14th, and not so much as a message of condolence appeared on the official website, even while totally unrelated events like football matches, the TUC conference and the Last Night of the Proms were being cancelled or reorganised. Perhaps DSEi thought acknowledging a connection to events in the States would be tantamount to accepting a share of the blame. Or perhaps by Wednesday the exhibitors were secretly rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of the military retaliation which looked likely to follow, and the increase in sales they could anticipate.