{"id":3781,"date":"2013-11-23T01:35:51","date_gmt":"2013-11-23T08:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/?p=3781"},"modified":"2013-11-23T01:35:51","modified_gmt":"2013-11-23T08:35:51","slug":"uk-saudi-bahrain-relations-report-a-whitewash-anti-arms-trade-groups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/?p=3781","title":{"rendered":"UK-Saudi-Bahrain relations report a “whitewash” – anti-arms trade groups"},"content":{"rendered":"
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David Cameron, (R), meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal inside 10 Downing Street, Cameron’s official residence, in London, England on 22 March 2011<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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EPA<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Download podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

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A group of MPs has said the UK is suffering from a “credibility problem” over its relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The report by the Foreign Affairs Committee is calling on the government to better explain how it is juggling human rights concerns with trade and defence interests. Civil liberties campaigners have dismissed the report as a \u2018whitewash\u2019 because it does not call for an end to arms sales to the Gulf. VoR’s\u00a0Nima Green reports. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A group of MPs have told the government that it can longer ignore allegations of hypocrisy in its dealings with, what they call, one of “the least democratic” regions in the world.”<\/p>\n

However, their report recognises that Gulf states are also extremely “wealthy and powerful”.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia is Britain\u2019s biggest market in the Middle-East with bi-lateral trade amounting to \u00a310.7 billion last year.<\/p>\n

And Bahrain helps to protect Gulf shipping lanes through which 17 million barrels of oil are shipped every day.<\/p>\n

Richard Ottaway MP is the Foreign Affairs Committee chairman.<\/p>\n

He said that the UK faces a dilemma in how to tread a path between furthering lucrative defence and trade interests and supporting human rights.<\/p>\n

“We here in Britain take human rights very seriously, freedom of speech, democracy, and of course Saudi Arabia doesn\u2019t have any democracy other than municipal elections.<\/p>\n

“That to a large degree is cultural, but whenever we bring this up in Saudi Arabia it perhaps raises an eyebrow.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I think the government is right to continue pressing both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to reform but to do so in private. Public megaphone diplomacy doesn\u2019t work, but private encouragement does actually in the long term produce results,” he said.<\/em><\/p>\n

The MPs said that despite Saudi Arabia\u2019s notoriously poor human rights record, it would not be worth halting controversial arms sales to the Kingdom, saying that there is no “conclusive proof” that British arms have been used for internal repression.<\/p>\n

The report also warned that cutting defence sales would have “significant costs for the UK-Saudi relationship.”<\/em><\/p>\n

This has led human rights campaigners to condemn the report as a “whitewash”.<\/p>\n

Kaye Stearman is a spokesperson for The Campaign Against Arms Trade.<\/p>\n

She says that British arms companies have undue influence over the UK\u2019s foreign policy.<\/p>\n

“If you actually look at British arms sales you can see that Saudi Arabia is by the far the largest customer. It\u2019s certainly vital to British arms companies, especially BAE systems.<\/em><\/p>\n

“But what it does mean is that British Foreign policy is being dictated by Saudi Arabia and their friends in the Gulf. It\u2019s undermining democratic movement in the Middle -East and it\u2019s also detrimental to democracy here in the UK.”<\/em><\/p>\n

However, Richard Ottaway says that the UK has to deal with nations around the world as they are, not just how the government would prefer them to be.<\/p>\n

Following the convulsions of the Arab Spring in 2011, MPs are concerned that there is evidence that people in the Gulf, especially young people, have a poor perception of the UK.<\/p>\n

In Bahrain, the report notes that the continuing violence perpetrated by the state\u2019s security forces, means that the UK should classify it a “country of concern”.<\/p>\n

“A complicated partner”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The report is also calling on the government to “assess” Saudi Arabia\u2019s policy of supplying weapons to the Syrian rebels.<\/p>\n

And on the Saudi\u2019s level of co-operation in counter-terrorism operations, MPs warn that the government must “improve the monitoring of the funding flowing from Saudi Arabia to organisations with an extremist message.”<\/p>\n

However, recommendations such as this do not go far enough for many human rights advocates.<\/p>\n

Yet Prime Minister David Cameron has called Saudi Arabia vital to the Britain\u2019s national security interests.<\/p>\n

Over the last five years, the UK has been granted export licenses for defence equipment worth \u00a34 bn.<\/p>\n

However, many in Whitehall remain uneasy over the slow progress of women\u2019s rights and civil liberties in the Gulf, which the report recognises, calling Saudi Arabia a “complicated partner for the UK.<\/em>“<\/p>\n

(Voice of Russia)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Nima Green<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u00a0 David Cameron, (R), meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal inside 10 Downing Street, Cameron’s official residence, in London, England on 22 March 2011 EPA Download podcast A group of MPs has said the UK is suffering from a “credibility problem” over its relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The report […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[97,98,104],"tags":[223,696,272,431,697],"class_list":["post-3781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-democracy","category-economy","category-featured","tag-bahrain","tag-global-arms-trade","tag-news","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-uk-arms-fair"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/7cameron.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2SfUR-YZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3783,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3781\/revisions\/3783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}