Saturday 25 October 2008

Small-arms trade via Jersey


I was alerted to the arms trade mainly by Mark Thomas, in his comic digs at such things. Especially interesting is how the rules over arms embargoes are routinely flouted with minimal effort, by roguish individuals, companies and governments alike. One of my original reasons for fearing for us all with George W being US President (along with his views on environmental protection), was his refusal to join up to the Small Arms Treaty.
So when I noticed a piece (I think on BBC Jersey online) about a year ago, about small arms being imported and then immediately exported from Jersey I was surprised. It included a bland quote from the man at Customs, saying that none of the cargo was sold locally. It sounded like one of the methods used in the avoidance of arms embargoes, whereby a third country is used to import the weapons and then export them with new documentation .This story seemed to disappear, and I couldn't find any other references. Does that ring any bells to anyone?

1 comment:

Mark Forskitt said...

Yes it sounds familiar. I also heard similar things involving rather bigger pieces of ordnance back in the days of the arms embargo on Rhodesia (as it was then called).

That doesn't necessarily make it true of course. All that smoke could just be a smoke bomb without a fire.