19/11/23 This page is currently being updated following recent research, so some detail may be out-of-date.
L3Harris Release and Integration Solution Ltd (formerly EDO MBM Technology Ltd) makes weapons release systems for military aircraft, used by some of the most brutal regimes around the world, such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel, in military strikes on civilian populations.
They specialise in the design, development and production of release systems for drones used by the RAF, USAF and CIA in targeted killings, disregarding human rights and international law because they can get away with it. They are a key international supplier of components for the new generation of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters currently being supplied to NATO countries and Israel.
L3Harris Brighton is not a small local Brighton company. It is owned by L3 Harris Corporation – the 6th biggest defence contractor in the world.
It is an integral part of the Security-Military-Industrial complex which is fuelling violence, human rights abuses, climate change, and forced migration, diverting resources from health care, social services, housing, education and sustainable energy.
L3Harris Brighton is a cog in the nexus of states and corporations that are constantly collaborating to create crisis and planning for how they will profit from it. At each step in this process they act to further their own profits whilst disregarding and destroying our planet and excluding all those who are marginalised or surplus to their requirements.
Abusing Human Rights
L3Harris Brighton components are sold to human rights abusing countries around the world, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United States.
They have been exposed as complicit in violations of International Humanitarian Law in Yemen: A Security Council mandated panel of experts investigating two separate airstrikes, on the same civilian factory complex in Sana’a Yemen, on September 13th and 22nd 2016, has concluded Saudi coalition warplanes dropped UK supplied Paveway IV guided bombs, with guidance system parts made by arms firm L3Harris Brighton and that these attacks were certainly ‘Violations of International Humanitarian Law’.
They sell F-16 bomb racks and F-35 bomb release components to Israel, which have been used for decades to bomb Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank causing thousands of deaths and injuries.[1]
They own the patent for an ‘umbilicus’ – a small cable that feeds geolocation information to a smart bomb in F35 fighter jets which are also sold to Turkey and used to invade Northern Syria / Rojava.
They havedeveloped and patented pneumatic bomb rack piston technology used on the MQ-9 Reaper drone. These remote controlled aircraft are used by the CIA, US Special Forces and the UK to carry out targeted killings that according to legal experts is contrary to international law. The UK Government refuses to make public its drone strike targeting policy ‘JSP 900’ that experts suspect breaches international law.
L3Harris Brighton are very secretive about what they produce and who they sell it to – they have lied under oath in court and in media interviews about the deadly weapons they profit from. Despite this activists and researchers are regularly unearthing the evidence that exposes the truth.
Lobbying for war, conflict and repression
Arms companies directly benefit from war and sell their weapons as ‘battle tested’. They are constantly developing new weapons to market to military powers around the world, and directly benefit from the destruction of lives when they are used. This isn’t a one-way process. There is a revolving door between governments, militaries and arms companies – sharing information, experience, profits and friendships.
It’s in the interests of arms companies for nations to be under constant alert for war and conflict, so they buy the weapons they might one day use. The very existence of a profit based arms trade drives war and conflict.
In Europe, the arms industry plays a significant role in formulating the foreign and security policy agenda of the EU. Research has exposed how the arms industry is deeply rooted in Brussels’ decision-making circles. It is setting the terms of debate and shaping the direction of policy.[2]
Destroying our planet
Arms corporations are a key player in contamination and destruction of ecosystems around the world. Their whole raison d’être is to produce weapons that will harm and destroy people and planet, and lobby for them to be purchased and used. This ranges from the literal destruction of land masses and the natural environment, destruction of water resources, ignition of oil reserves, and the poisoning of our world with pesticides, chemical weapons such as depleted uranium and white phosphorous and radiation from nuclear weapons testing. [3]
Militaries around the world are also the largest consumers of petroleum and the greatest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Arms companies supply them with the hardware that makes this possible.
The US military alone is the single largest user of petroleum in the world[4] and one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters[5]. They are the third largest polluter of US waterways[6] and their sonar kills whales and dolphins[7]. They produce ‘more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined, in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuel, pesticides, defoliants like Agent Orange and lead, among other pollutants.’[8]
“But the responsibility of the military for the climate crisis goes much further than their own use of fossil fuels. As we witnessed in Iraq, the military, the arms corporations and their many powerful political supporters have consistently relied on (and aggressively pushed for) armed intervention to secure oil and energy supplies. The military is not just a prolific user of oil, it is one of the central pillars of the global fossil-fuel economy.”[9]
The interests of corporations producing and selling arms and those driving climate change, including the big oil companies, are so intertwined they are barely distinguishable. On the one hand the arms corporations are perpetually lobbying governments and international bodies to ramp up threats, increase all aspects of their military power, and to be in a constant state of conflict – to purchase their deadly weapons and subsidise their sale overseas. On the other, the oil industry is pushing governments to pursue its interests around the world by fuelling conflict and abusing the human rights of those who stand in their way. One of the starkest recent examples of this was the arms trade, oil companies and military contractors lobbying for the invasion of Iraq (and their right to the spoils of that war) long before the invasion started.[10]
Profiting from borders, the hostile environment and exclusion of migrants
The myriad of national and transnational corporations developing, producing and selling weapons are a powerful lobby in the UK, EU and internationally. They constantly drive the war, conflicts, human rights abuses and environmental destruction that many migrants are fleeing from. They are also the biggest beneficiaries of the EU’s inhumane outsourced border controls.
As the EU views migration as a ‘security’ issues rather than a humanitarian issue, it is expanding the powers and budgets of Frontex at an alarming rate. In 2027 Frontex is expected to have an annual budget of €1.87 billion euros, over 300 times as much as the 6 million it started with in 2005.[11] Much of this money is going to arms corporations such as Airbus, Leonardo and Thales and Elbit. But they are also major beneficiaries of the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Development project.
Welfare not Warfare
The UK government subsidises arms exports by £104 –£142 million per annum through marketing (e.g. arms fairs, secondment of military personnel to support arms sales, Ministerial and Civil Service lobbying), Export Credit Guarantees and direct funding for research & development.[12]
In April 2019 the EU voted for €13bn to be allocated for the European Defence Fund from 2021-27. Around €4bn will be allocated to research and roughly €9bn to the development of military technology.[13]
In 2015 global military expenditure was $1.7 trillion – nearly $250 for each human being on earth.[14]
This money could be used for schools, hospitals and decent housing. It could be used to genuinely support communities rather that corporations.
International law
When the evidence of L3Harris Brighton components being using in Saudi attcks on Yemen surfaced, Dr Anna Stavrianakis, senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Sussex, said:
“This matters because a local company is manufacturing and selling components that end up being used in violations of international law.
“UK policy is not to licence arms sales where there is a clear risk they might be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law.
“There have been frequent allegations of violations of international humanitarian law for the past four years since the Saudi-led coalition started its military intervention in Yemen.
“Any reasonable risk assessment about the export of bombs should have concluded that the risk was indeed clear.
“Brighton-made components have been used in airstrikes in Yemen under an
arms export policy that has now been found to be unlawful.” [15]
[1] https://baat.home.blog/edo-mbm/edo-mbm-in-depth/
[2] https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/border-wars-report-web1207.pdf
[3] https://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-military-worlds-largest-polluter-hundreds-of-bases-gravely-contaminated/5590667
[4] https://newint.org/blog/2015/11/19/the-military-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions
[5] https://washingtonsblog.com/2009/12/removing-war-from-global-warming.html
[6] https://truthout.org/articles/the-department-of-defense-is-the-third-largest-polluter-of-us-waterways/
[7] https://www.globalresearch.ca/environmentalists-are-ignoring-the-elephant-in-the-room-u-s-military-is-the-worlds-largest-polluter/5591596?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles
[8] https://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-military-worlds-largest-polluter-hundreds-of-bases-gravely-contaminated/5590667
[9] https://newint.org/blog/2015/11/19/the-military-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions
[10] https://www.caat.org.uk/resources/caat-news/pdf/caatnews252.pdf
[11] http://www.stopwapenhandel.org/node/2271
[12] https://www.caat.org.uk/resources/publications/economics/special-treatment.pdf
[13] https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/european-parliament-votes-eu13-billion-subsidy-arms-companies
[14] https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/5234/making-a-killing-examining-the-arms-trade
[15] https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/17765975.brighton-arms-factory-s-link-unlawful-saudi-attacks-yemen/
Brighton Against The Arms Trade 