Send fruit to the Government!

There are two campaigns at the moment that have a similarity - both want us to send fruit to the Government.

Photo: Banana leaf reproduced with permission from Charles Roffeys' collection.

Burma's democracy movement has called for targeted economic sanctions against the regime in Burma, which spends up to half its budget on the military and is possibly the worst dictatorship n the World - but instead of stopping companies investing in the oil, gas and timber sectors in Burma, where the regime earns most of its money, British and European companies are banned from investing in a pineapple juice factory and a few other minor companies. This is surely a joke. Britain is ranked as the second largest source of approved investment in Burma, but the government refuses to ban companies from investing there. To highlight just how ridiculous the UK and EU sanctions are, Greens have joined campaigners in posting pineapples - fresh, dried or tinned - to Margaret Beckett, the British Foreign Secretary, and calling on her to unilaterally ban new investment in Burma. The USA banned new investment back in 1997. Britain must now ban new investment in Burma. The Citizen kindly covered the story yesterday. I've long been a member of the Burma Action Campaign and been involved in many of their letter-writing campaigns.

I first got interested after I was fortunate to visit the country in 1986 for a week - at that time that was the maximum allowed - and it was before the current boycott of visiting the country was called by Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Tourism provides the dictatorship in Burma with millions of pounds every year. Forced labour has been used to develop many tourist facilities. I have also joined their campaign to boycott Lonely Planet guides for their extraordinary stance of encouraging tourism to Burma against the wishes of the democratically elected leaders....anyhow the Burma Action Campaign has had much success in stopping travel companies going there are and also publishes a Dirty List of companies that still trade there. A great example of where people pulling together can bring about change - we now need our Government to listen. You can also send a pineapple to:

Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP, Foreign Secretary,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
King Charles St,
London SW1A 2AH

More about that campaign here. Incidently apols for text fonts going hay-wire in this post - they wont respond to me!

The other campaign is to send a banana to Tony Blair after campaigners felt that Blair's Banana Republic was created on Thursday 14th December 2006. It came into existance, they say, when the rule of law was abolished in the UK, and replaced by the law according to politicians.....this all relates to the decision over the Saudi defence probe - the investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into BAe Systems plc concerning payments made in relation to the Al Yamamah programme with Saudi Arabia has been discontinued - the last letter re this from Gloucestershire Greens was back in January. It does seem clear that Saudis have encouraged Britain to drop the case - it is also extraordinary that we continue to sell arms to them - there is no way that could fit with any ethical foreign policy.

Indeed an ICM opinion poll commissioned by the One World Trust, Democratic Audit, and the Federal Trust in January 2006, found 83% of the UK population were against arms and military exports to countries which violated their citizens’ human rights (though being reminded that exports were important to the UK economy and jobs - which I would dispute!).

With the recent decision to end investigations, the conditions under which some of these arms deals are secured, will now remain excluded from adequate parliamentary and public scutiny.

Send those bananas and pineapples!!