by THALIF DEEN
A Small ICBM (missile) Hard Mobile Launcher. Nuclear-armed nations spend over 100 billion dollars each year on their weapons programmes. PHOTO/US Air Force
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 5 2012 (IPS) – The world’s nuclear weapons industry is being funded – and kept alive – by more than 300 banks, pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers in 30 countries, according to a new study.
And these institutions have substantial investments in nuclear arms producers.
Released by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the 180-page study says that nuclear-armed nations spend over 100 billion dollars each year assembling new warheads, modernising old ones, and building ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines to launch them.
Much of this work, the report points out, is carried out by corporations such as BAE Systems and Babcock International in the UK, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman in the United States, Thales and Safran in France, and Larsen & Toubro in India.
“Financial institutions invest in these companies by providing loans and purchasing shares and bonds,” says the report, described as the first of its kind.
Titled “Don’t Bank on the Bomb: The Global Financing of Nuclear Weapons Producers”, the study provides details of financial transactions with 20 companies heavily involved in the manufacture, maintenance and modernisation of U.S., British, French and Indian nuclear forces.
A coordinated global campaign for nuclear weapons divestment is urgently needed, it says.
Such a movement could help put a halt to modernisation programmes, strengthen the international norm against nuclear weapons, and build momentum towards negotiations on a universal nuclear weapons ban, it adds.
“Divestment from nuclear weapons companies is an effective way for the corporate world to advance the goal of nuclear abolition.”
The study appeals to financial institutions to stop investing in the nuclear arms industry.
“Any use of nuclear weapons would violate international law and have catastrophic humanitarian consequences. By investing in nuclear weapons producers, financial institutions are in effect facilitating the build-up of nuclear forces,” it says.
In a foreword to the report, Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu
Writes, “No one should be profiting from this terrible industry of death, which threatens us all.”
The South African peace activist has urged financial institutions to do the right thing and assist, rather than impede, efforts to eliminate the threat of radioactive incineration, pointing out that divestment was a vital part of the successful campaign to end apartheid in South Africa.
The same tactic can – and must – be employed to challenge man’s most evil creation: the nuclear bomb, he added.
Inter Press Service for more