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CANADA: Stop Arming Saudi: Yemen Can’t Wait
January 25, 2021 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Main Rd and Avenger Place, Shearwater (HRM)
Anti-war, Yemeni and humanitarian activists from all over the world are coming together for an international day of action on January 25th 2021. In Halifax, we are targeting arms manufacturer Raytheon, which has been singled out as the main supplier of missiles to Saudi Arabia, which leads a coalition that is bombing and enforcing a blockade against Yemen.
Since the Yemen war began, Raytheon has booked at least a dozen major sales to Saudi and its partners worth more than $5 billion, including $3 billion in bombs and bomb parts. While these contracts are officially with Raytheon in the US, Raytheon in Canada supplies Raytheon in the US through subcontracts, including $63 million* in missiles and components with Raytheon Missile Systems, which supplies Saudi Arabia.
Canada is also supplying Saudi Arabia directly with light armoured vehicles manufactured in London Ontario and more than 30 large-calibre artillery systems and 152 heavy machine guns. This deal, valued at $15 billion, made Saudi Arabia the largest non-U.S. export destination for Canadian arms in 2019.
For a period of 19 months after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, Canada put in place a moratorium on arms exports to Saudi Arabia, a ban that conveniently did not apply to existing contracts such as the $15 billion General Dynamics contract for light armoured vehicles. But then Canada lifted even this limited moratorium in April 2020, based on a flawed report from Global Affairs Canada, which ignored the documented evidence of Canadian weapons being used in human rights abuses, including the war in Yemen.
Yemen is home to the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, and we must challenge Canadian complicity in this crisis.
* data gathered by Operation Plowshares
COVID SAFETY MEASURES
This will be an outdoor event with social distancing and masks (we’ll have masks on hand if you forget yours!).
This will be an outdoor event with social distancing and masks (we’ll have masks on hand if you forget yours!).
