This article only shares the tip-of-the-iceberg of migrant experiences during the coronavirus pandemic and we know there are many other untold stories. If you would like to share your news or experiences, please contact us.

Content warning: This article contains some graphic references to state violence, such as police beatings.

From No Name Kitchen featured in the Border Violence Monitoring Project special report about COVID-19 and border violence along the Balkan route

Mass Containment Camps

As the world descended into lockdowns in an attempt to prevent the spread of the virus, tens of thousands of people have been confined in camps in the Western Balkans and Greece, as well as smaller accommodation centres across Europe. New and existing camps were also essentially locked down and the movement of people in and out of camps began to be heavily controlled by police and/or the military.

The Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) has been trying to track what is happening across the Balkans. They write that in Bosnia-Herzegovina, “more than 5,000 people were detained in existing temporary refugee reception centres. They include about 500 unaccompanied minors and several hundred children with families. Persons in need of special care, patients, victims of torture, members of the LGBTQ population, persons diagnosed with mental disorders, and victims of domestic violence have also been locked down into ‘EU-funded’ camps.” Police officers guard the centres and emergency legislation enables them the right to ‘physically force persons trying to leave the centres to return.’

120,000 people are locked down in containment camps across Greece and the Greek Islands. Disturbing accounts of refugee camps are ever-present but the pandemic has worsened already unbearable conditions. 17,000 refugees live at Moira Refugee Camp where there are 210 people per toilet and 630 people per shower. Coronavirus, uncertainty over suspended asylum applications and the terrible living conditions are all contributing to escalating violence.

In detention centres in Drama and Athens in Greece, the BVMN report that, “Respondents describe a lack of basic amenities such as running water, showers, or soap. Cramped and overcrowded conditions, with up to 13 inmates housed in one caravan with one, usually non-functioning, toilet. Requests for better services are met with violence at the hands of officers and riot police. On top of this, there have been complaints that no special precautions for COVID-19 are being taken, residents inside told BVMN reporters that sick individuals are not isolated, and are dismissed as having ‘the flu’.”

While movement restrictions were lifted for Greek residents on 4th May, lockdown is still extended for all camps and centres across Greece and the Islands. This decision triggered thousands of people to protest in Athens. Emergency legislation adopted at the start of March in Greece effectively suspended the registration of asylum applications and implied immediate deportation for those entering the Greek territory, without registration, to their countries of origin or to Turkey.

Moira Refugee Camp. Picture from Lydia Emmanouilidou/The World – https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-03-16/life-goes-greek-refugee-camp-amid-diplomatic-tensions-and-pandemic

Detention and the deportation regime

While major country-wide lockdowns are an unusual form of restriction of movement, for decades European states have been locking people seeking safety in detention centres. Immigration Removal Centres are essentially prisons for migrants in which people are locked up without trial or time-limit. In the UK the detention system is mostly run for profit by private companies, as detailed in our UK Border Regime book.

Despite preparing for a pandemic scenario in January 2020, it took public pressure and legal action before the British government released nearly 1000 people from detention centres. As of the end of May, 368 people were still locked up in the profit-making detention centres and many more are living in ‘accommodation centres’ where they have been unable to access coronavirus testing.

During the pandemic, people have been revolting in several detention centres across France and Belgium. Residents at a refugee centre in Saxony-Anhalt in Germany went on a hunger strike in April to protest against a lack of disinfectant. Hunger strikes have also taken place at detention centres in Tunisia, Cyprus and France.

Women in a police holding centre for migrants in Greece went on hunger strike in June. In a statement, they wrote: “We will continue the hunger strike until we are free from this captivity. They will either set us free or we shall die”.

People staged a rooftop protest at a detention centre in Madrid at the start of the outbreak. This was before all the detention centres in Spain were, for the first time in their history, completely emptied. To put this into context, Spain had 6,473 detainees in 2019. Legal challenges have been leveraging the EU Returns Directive which allows detention pending deportation for up to 18 months, but stipulates that if “a reasonable prospect of removal no longer exists…detention ceases to be justified and the person concerned shall be released immediately”.

With a worldwide reduction in flights, deportations became unfeasible, however, many are afraid that the deportation machine will restart as things “return to normal”.

Picture from Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

Worsening life in the ‘jungle’

People living in squats and other improvised accommodation have also faced sweeping operations, with people being rounded up and taken to containment camps.

For those that remained on the street, pandemic restrictions took their toll. In Greece, movement amidst the pandemic was permitted via letters and text messages. For people who did not have the right paperwork, they were fined 150 euros, sometimes multiple times.

Similarly, in the French city of Calais, people who did not have the right paperwork were commonly denied access to shops and supermarkets, where they may have previously used the bathrooms or bought food to cook. With many volunteer groups unable to operate due to movement restrictions, the availability of food dramatically reduced overnight. Access to services such as showers, phone charging and healthcare also rapidly reduced.

People in Calais also faced a rise in evictions: 45 evictions were recorded in the first two weeks of lockdown. These expulsions have continued throughout the pandemic. On Friday 10th July 2020, a major police raid in Calais forced more than 500 people onto buses to be taken to ‘reception centres’ across the region.

In Amsterdam in the Netherlands, some migrants were forced to live in night shelters and made to leave during the daytime – facing constant risks of contracting COVID-19 and police harassment in the city. They protested “I would stay at home if I had one”.

Many migrant solidarity groups working on the ground lost huge numbers of volunteers due to travel restrictions and health concerns. Access to material donations such as tents, which are commonly collected at the end of festivals, also reduced. A constant supply of these resources is needed because the police routinely take the migrants’ tents away.

Encampments in Calais – image from Herbalists without Borders UK

Militarisation of borders

The pandemic has seen an increase in military forces at borders and camps, persistent police violence and the suspension of ‘rights’ or legal processes. Using ‘State of Emergency’ legislation, the health crisis has been effectively weaponised.

In March at the beginning of the pandemic in Europe, FRONTEX, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency deployed an additional 100 guards at the Greek Land Border. This is in addition to the agency’s core of 10,000 officers working around Europe.

In their 2020 Risk Analysis Report, FRONTEX wrote that “the closing of internal borders is binding border guard personnel, which some border authorities have long stopped planning for”. This illuminates a key complexity in border control. For years, Europe has shifted to policing the wider borders of the Schengen Area. As the virus spread between countries within that area, however, states have tried to shut down their own borders.

Police forces and militaries have become increasingly mobilised to “protect these national borders”. In Slovenia, this meant the military was granted authority to ‘process civilians’ at the border through the government’s activation of Article 37a of the Defence Act. While in Serbia, the army was deployed around border camps to ensure mass containment. 400 new border guards were also dispatched to the Evros land border between Greece and Turkey in addition to an increase in fencing and surveillance technologies.

Escalating Police Violence

Although migrants are no strangers to police brutality, national states of emergency have enabled an escalation in police violence. In mid-April an open letter was published by the Eritrean community of the Calais jungle reporting escalating police brutality. It describes the actions of the CRS police (Compagnies républicaines de sécurité); the general guard of the French police, infamous for riot control and repression:

“They don’t see us as human beings. They insult us with names such as monkey, bitch etc. And for the past few weeks, they have started to threaten our lives by beating us as soon as the opportunity arises. When for example they found a group of two or three people walking towards the food distribution, or in our tents, when we were sleeping. They accelerate in their vehicles while driving in our direction, as if they wanted to crush us. They also took people with them to places far from Calais, and beat them until they lost consciousness.”

The statement continues with a chronological list of events whereby people were beaten up, hit, gassed, had their arms broken, and were struck on the head so hard they lost consciousness and were taken to hospital by ambulance.

With fewer people on the streets during the pandemic, police evictions that were not previously possible due to street-level resistance became successful. This was evidenced in the eviction of the Gini occupation at the Polytechnic University in Exarchia, Greece, a location that the police have not dared enter for decades. Dozens of migrant families were rounded up and taken to a detention centre.

Violent pushbacks across borders

There has also been an increase in illegal and violent pushbacks. Pushbacks are the informal expulsion (without due process) of individuals or groups to another country. This commonly involves the violent removal of people across a border.

For example, on April 22nd in North Macedonia, a group of people from Palestine, Morocco and Egypt were pushed back into Greece. Two men were approached by officers in army uniforms and forced onto a bus where officers began to beat them with batons and guns. So much force was used that one man’s arm was fractured. The other members of the small group were later found and abruptly woken by officers. One man was stamped on and kicked across his body and head. Their shoes were removed and they were told to walk the 2km back to the border where they were met with the other group that had been taken there.

Photograph of fractured arm after being treated by a medical volunteer in Thessaloniki. Picture from – https://www.borderviolence.eu/violence-reports/april-22-2020-0200-gevgelia/

A group of 16 people in Serbia (including one minor) were told they were being taken to a new camp for COVID prevention. They were then forced into a van and driven for nine hours with no stops, toilet or water. They were released at a remote area of hills and told to leave and cross the border to North Macedonia by the officers with guns. When found attempting to cross again days later they were told by police officers, “Don’t come again, we will kill you”.

In Croatia, police have also started tagging people that they have pushed back with orange spray paint.

There are also reports that Greek authorities are pushing people back to Turkey. According to the Border Violence Monitoring Network, many people shared experiences of being beaten, robbed and detained before being driven to the border area where military personnel used boats to return them to Turkey across the Evros river. In mid April in Greece, approximately 50 people were taken from Diavata camp in the morning and removed to a nearby police station where they were ordered to lie on the ground – “Sleep here, don’t move”. They were then beaten with batons. Some were also attacked with electric tasers. They were held overnight in a detention space near the border, and beaten further by Greek military officers. The next day they were boated across the river to Turkey by authorities with military uniforms. Another group were taken to the river in the dark and ordered to strip to their underwear.

As pushbacks continue, people are forced to take even more dangerous routes. In Romania in mid-April, a group were found drowning in the Danube River after their boat capsized. One person was found dead and eight are still missing, while the survivors suffered from hypothermia.

Bruising from a beating by police during a pushback from Greece to Turkey. Image from – https://www.borderviolence.eu/violence-reports/june-21-2020-2100-ipsala-edirne-turkey/

Danger at Sea

During the pandemic, increasing numbers of disturbing accounts have been shared by migrants experiencing violence at sea. Between mid March and mid May, Alarm Phone (a hotline for boat people in distress) received 28 emergency calls from the Aegean Sea.

On the 29th April, a boat carrying 48 refugees from Afghanistan, Congo and Iran, including 18 children, tried to reach Lesvos Island in the early hours of the day. They were pushed back to Turkish waters:

“We were very scared. We tried to continue towards Lesvos Island. It was only 20 minutes more driving to reach the Greek coast. The big boat let a highspeed boat down, which hunted us down. There were six masked men in black clothes. They stopped us and made many waves. With a long stick they took away our petrol and they broke our engine. They had guns and knives. Then they threw a rope to us and ordered us to fix it on our boat. Then they started pulling us back towards Turkey. After a while they stopped and cut the rope. They returned to the big boat and took distance from us. It was around 6am.

Then two other boats of the Greek coastguard arrived which were white and grey and drove very fast towards us, starting to make circles around our boat. They created big waves which were pushing us in the direction of Turkish waters. Our boat was taking in water and the kids were screaming. Our boat started breaking from the bottom. We were taking out the water with our boots. We threw all our belongings in the sea to make our boat lighter. Many of us had no life vests. A pregnant lady fainted. The Greeks continued making waves for a long period. A Turkish coastguard boat arrived and stood aside watching and taking photos and videos for more than six hours. Only after 13:30 o’clock the Turkish coastguard boat finally saved us. We were brought to Çanakalle police station and detained for five days.”

During two months of lockdown, civil monitoring ships (volunteers who monitor the Aegean sea for migrants arriving via boat) were not permitted. In Italy, ports were closed to rescue ships, with many feared lost at sea as a result. Allegations have also emerged that Greece has been using inflatable rafts to deport asylum seekers. These are rafts without motors or propellers that cannot be steered.

The Maltese Army also hit the headlines after turning away a boat of migrants by gunpoint and giving them the GPS coordinates for Italy. This is after recent reports of sabotaging migrant vessels, and pushing back migrant boats to Libya resulting in 12 people dying. The Maltese government recently signed a deal with the Libyan government to “to coordinate operations against illegal migration”. This includes training the Libyan coastguards and funding for “reception camps”.

The threat of the virus and worsening conditions have also contributed to a record number of attempts to cross the Channel. The courage and commitment to overcome borders is inspiring, and more successful crossings have taken place during the pandemic. Between March 23rd (when the UK coronavirus lockdown began) and May 11th at least 853 migrants managed to cross the Channel in dinghies and small boats.

Image from https://alarmphone.org of the Maltese coastguard antagonising people in need of rescue at sea in May 2020

State Scapegoating and the empowerment of the far right

Far-right politicians and fascist activists have used the pandemic as an opportunity to push for closed borders.

The election of a new Far Right government in Slovenia in March brought with it the scapegoating of refugees as coronavirus vectors. News conglomerate, NOVA24, heavily publicised a fake news story that the first COVID-19 patient in Italy was a Pakistani person who came via the Balkan route.

Meanwhile, Hungary’s Government led by Vicktor Orbán moved to deport resident Iranians after claiming they were responsible for the country’s first coronavirus outbreak.

In Italy, Matteo Salvini, the populist leader of the opposition Lega party tried to blame the movement of migrants from Africa across the Mediterranean as a “major infection threat” shortly before the country was overwhelmed with the pandemic and its rising death toll.

The racist scapegoating ignores data that proves that initially the virus was transmited predominatnly by tourists’ and business people’s globe-trotting in the service of global capitalism and the fact that those whose movement is restricted, controlled and perilous, who do not have the power and wealth, are the most likely to suffer from the worst effects of both the virus itself and the shut downs.

Photo by Radek Homola on Unsplash

The Aftermath of Asylum suspension

Access to asylum has drastically shifted across Europe with the suspension of many face-to-face application processing centres and appeal hearings. This ‘legal limbo’ is having a severe impact on people’s lives.

Many people remain housed in temporary accommodation like hotels while they wait for their claim to be processed. This accommodation is often overcrowded and social-distancing guidelines are impossible to follow there. One asylum seeker in South London even shared to The Guardian how two strangers were made to share his double bed for a week in one room. One of the people was later taken to hospital with coronavirus.

Closed-conditions at Skellig Accomodation Centre, a former hotel in Cahersiveen, Co. Kerry, Ireland enabled the rapid spread of the virus between the 100 people living there. Misha, an asylum seeker confined there, said she watched in horror as people started falling sick around her.

“We were sharing bedrooms with strangers. We were sharing the dining room. We were sharing the salt shakers. We were sharing the lobby. We were sharing everything. And if you looked at the whole situation, you cannot really say that it was fit for purpose.”

People were ordered to stay inside, and meanwhile coronavirus testing was delayed. Protests took place inside and locals demonstrated in solidarity outside.

Asylum seekers in Glasgow have been protesting their accommodation conditions provided by the Mears Group, who Corporate Watch profiled in 2019. Mears Group won a £1.15 billion contract to run the refugee accommodation system in Scotland, Northern Ireland and much of the north of England. Their profiteering, slum landlord conditions and involvement in mass evictions have been met with anger and resistance. The pandemic has only worsened the experiences of people forced to live in Mears’ accommodation through terrible sanitation and medical neglect. Read our 2020 update on the Mears Group here.

In the UK, the Home Office put a hold on evictions of asylum seekers during lockdown. The Red Cross stated this spared 50,000 people from the threat of losing their accommodation. Campaigners and tenants fear what will happen post-corona and how many people will face destitution when the ban on evictions lifts this August.

In addition, a face-to-face screening interview is still needed for new asylum claims. This creates an awful choice for asylum seekers between shielding from the virus (and facing destitution) or going to the interviews in order to access emergency asylum support and begin the formal process. While meagre, the £37.75 per week is essential for survival. One of the reasons the Home Office make face-to-face applications compulsory is because of biometric data harvesting e.g. taking fingerprints of asylum seekers. One asylum seeker with serious health problems has had to make three journeys from Glasgow to Liverpool in the midst of the pandemic to submit paperwork.

Access to food and other support is also very difficult as many centres and support services are closed.

Demonstration in Cahersiveen in solidarity with people contained in Skellig Accomodation Centre. Photograph by Alan Landers from https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/16/europe/ireland-asylum-direct-provision-coronavirus-intl/index.html

Barriers to Healthcare

It is widely recognised that systemic racism has led to the disproportionate deaths of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people throughout the pandemic. Research has shown Black people are four times more likely to die than white people, and Bangladeshi or Pakistani groups are three times more likely. Many people from these communities are migrants, and many work in the National Health Service and social care sector.

Research by Patients not Passports, Medact, Migrants Organise and the New Economics Foundation has shown that many migrants are avoiding seeking healthcare. 57% of respondents in their research report that they have avoided seeking healthcare because of fears of being charged for NHS care, data sharing and other migration enforcement concerns. Most people are unaware that treatment for coronavirus is exempt from charging. They also often experience additional barriers including the absence of translation and interpretation services, digital exclusions, housing and long distances from care services.

Undocumented migrants are incredibly precarious. A project worker interviewed for the Patients not Passports Report shared that:

“One client lived in a care home where she does live-in care and she has been exposed to Corona but has stated that she will not seek treatment and would rather die there than be detained.”

Elvis, an undocumented migrant from the Philippines, died at home with suspected coronavirus because he was so scared by the hostility of Government policies that he did not seek any help from the NHS.

For those that do try to access healthcare, issues such as not having enough phone credit or mobile data, not having wifi or laptops for video appointments, and simply not being able to navigate automated telephone and online systems because of language barriers and non-existent or poor translation, are having a very real impact on people’s ability to receive support. Fears of poor treatment because of people’s past experiences of discrimination and racism even if they access the services is another barrier.

Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

Exploiting Migrant Labour

The exploitation of migrant labour has always been essential to sustaining capitalist economies. The pandemic generated contradictory responses from politicians and capitalists alike. Germany’s agricultural sector lobbied hard for opening the border after they were closed, leading the country to lift its ban and let in over 80,000 seasonal workers from Eastern Europe. Yet dilapidated living conditions and overcrowding are sparking new COVID-19 outbreaks, such as the 200 workers that contracted the virus at a slaughterhouse in western Germany.

In mid May, the Italian government passed a law regularising undocumented migrants, whereby undocumented workers have been encouraged to apply for six-month legal residency permits. There are believed to be about 600,000 undocumented workers in Italy but only people doing ‘essential’ work during the pandemic can apply, mostly in the agricultural sector. Thousands of people live in makeshift encampments near fruit and vegetable farms with no access to running water or electricity.

Working conditions carry risks of violence. On 18 May, five days after Italy’s regularisation law passed, a 33-year old Indian migrant working in a field outside of Rome was fired after asking his employer for a face mask for protection while at work. When the worker requested his daily wage, he was beaten up and thrown in a nearby canal.

Image from a new documentary about migrant labour struggles in Italy from – https://www.theafricareport.com/32086/the-invisibles-unseen-footage-of-italys-migrant-labourers-at-peak-of-covid-19/

Conclusion

The coronavirus crisis has exposed and intensified the brutality required to sustain capitalism – from systemic racism, to violent border controls, to slave labour for industrial agriculture, the list goes on. Despite extremely difficult conditions, undocumented migrants have formed strong movements of solidarity and collective struggle in many European countries. From revolts in detention centres to legal actions to empty them, people are continually resisting the border regime. As people reject a ‘return to normal’ post pandemic, the fall of the border regime must be part of a vision for freedom and liberation in a world beyond capitalism.

To download a free copy or order a hard copy of our book The UK Border Regime click here.

NB: we will be glad to send copies for free to asylum seekers and other people without papers. For other people and groups fighting the border regime, we can send at cost price or whatever you can afford to donate.

The post #CoronaCapitalism and the European Border Regime appeared first on Corporate Watch.

This article looks at a few ways the economic system we call capitalism has been fundamental in spreading the virus – and in fostering a wider crisis of panic, repression, and looming poverty. And this is by no means a complete list. The general point is that capitalism, based on prioritising profits over people’s lives, is incapable of serving our health and well-being. To care for each other now and in the future, can we use our anger to fight for change?

Feature image above: occupation of Deutsche Bank owned building to create a mutual aid hub in Chicago, US

Medics protest against lack of resources in Athens, Greece

1. Industrial agriculture incubates new viruses

COVID-19 didn’t appear out of the blue. It is just the latest pandemic linked to industrial agriculture, and in particular the mass-scale production and sale of meat.

In this case, the disease has been traced to the Wuhan seafood market and to China’s “wild animal” trade, also implicated in the 2003 SARS pandemic. However, as biologist Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Big Flu, makes clear: “this is no Chinese exceptionalism […] The U.S. and Europe have served as ground zeros for new influenzas as well, recently H5N2 and H5Nx, and their multinationals and neocolonial proxies drove the emergence of Ebola in West Africa and Zika in Brazil.”

The common factor is profit-driven intensive meat farming. “Zoonotic”, or cross-species infections from animals to humans, count for the majority of new human pathogens. Wallace identifies at least two common origin patterns. One is a leap from intensively farmed animals such as cows, pigs, chickens – as in the recent avian and swine flu pandemics. As he puts it:

“You couldn’t design a better system to breed deadly diseases. […] Growing genetic monocultures of domestic animals removes whatever immune firebreaks may be available to slow down transmission. Larger population sizes and densities facilitate greater rates of transmission. Such crowded conditions depress immune response. High throughput, a part of any industrial production, provides a continually renewed supply of susceptibles, the fuel for the evolution of virulence.”

Covid-19, like SARS or Ebola, appears to belong to the other pattern – in which the virus leaps from non-domesticated species. But again, capitalism plays a key role. The Chinese economy’s rapid growth drive and marketisation in the 1990s included corporate consolidation of agriculture, alongside major deforestation and destruction of biodiverse habitats. As smaller farmers were squeezed out of traditional livestock farming, one state-promoted strategy was to move into intensive breeding and farming of captive “wild” species. This led to further incursions into remaining forest areas and to new zoonotic infections, which can then spread rapidly through high-volume markets like Wuhan.

NB: see also this more detailed account by Wallace and other authors in Monthly Review; and this in-depth essay by Chuang journal examining how these factors played out in Wuhan and China.

2. Big Pharma diverts medical research

We still know relatively little about COVID-19 and its impacts. Although obviously dangerous, research is inconclusive as to precisely how virulent it will turn out to be, or how it can best be combated. But some issues are clear enough. One is the absence of drug treatments: no vaccine, and a lack of proven antiviral treatments.

Respiratory infections are well known to cause harm. So why is medical research so far behind on this area?

Much medical research is led by profit-chasing corporations – along with the universities and foundations they sponsor. One issue with the capitalist research model is that, because drugs are high value property, research data is guarded as “commercially confidential” rather than being shared for all to develop.

Another big problem is that drugs targeting respiratory viruses just aren’t that profitable. Adrian Hill, the professor who led UK research on the Ebola virus, has condemned the pharma industry’s “market failure” to tackle that pandemic in Africa. He explained in an interview with the Independent in 2014:

“Today, commercial vaccine supply is monopolised by four or five mega- companies – GSK, Sanofi, Merck, Pfizer – some of the biggest companies in the world. The problem with that is, even if you’ve got a way of making a vaccine, unless there’s a big market, it’s not worth the while of a mega-company …. There was no business case to make an Ebola vaccine for the people who needed it most.”

In a recent interview, Mike Davis – author of The Monster at Our Door: the Global Threat of Avian Flu – calls the problem: “Big Pharma’s abdication of the research and development of new antibiotics and antivirals.” He says:

“Of the eighteen largest pharmaceutical companies, fifteen have totally abandoned the field. Heart medicines, addictive tranquilizers, and treatments for male impotence are profit leaders, not the defenses against hospital infections, emergent diseases, and traditional tropical killers. A universal vaccine for influenza — that is to say, a vaccine that targets the immutable parts of the virus’s surface proteins — has been a possibility for decades but never profitable enough to be a priority.”

So in the US, as reported by Bloomberg, venture capitalists have poured $42 billion into drug development in the last three years. Nearly half of that has flooded into potentially lucrative treatments for cancer and rare diseases. Only 5% went into drugs that prevent infections.

Medics protest against lack of resources in Quetta, Pakistan

3. Markets decimate public healthcare

It started with a virus, but it’s the failure of our healthcare systems that have made this a serious health crisis. As well as lack of drugs, we can add the shortage of key equipment from testing kits to ventilators, down to masks and other basic protective clothing. And the shortage of hospital places, of doctors and nurses to treat people with severe symptoms. Whatever the real scale of the pandemic turns out to be, one thing is certain: because of these shortages, people will die.

Again, none of this comes as a surprise. In the UK, there have been repeated warnings, including the 2016 “Exercise Cygnus”, that the NHS couldn’t cope with a new pandemic. In fact, the NHS is in continual “winter crisis”: overwhelmed ICU wards and images of patients dying in the corridors are not extraordinary but regular events. With hospitals already at full stretch, it only takes a slightly more aggressive virus to turn this “normal” crisis level into something even worse.

This is not just a UK issue. In Italy, for example, the healthcare union USI identifies recent cuts of “43,000 workers (which means the loss of 70,000 beds, including 3,000 in intensive care).” They write that continuous funding cuts have:

“led to a widespread collapse of the healthcare system. As a result, access to treatment has been reduced for an increasing number of people. Today it is the coronavirus, tomorrow it could be another virus or even any trivial disease: to maintain only Essential Levels of Care (ELC) is to sign a death sentence.”

In the UK, the number of hospital beds has halved in 30 years. There are less than 3 hospital beds per thousand people and only 7 Intensive Care places for every 100,000 people.ⁱ Hospital places are just the most obvious indicator – all the same points could be made about testing facilities and other resources.

These health shortages are entirely avoidable: the UK and Italy are richer than ever before. The basic problem is that capitalism does not prioritise collective healthcare: the services we do have are concessions that people have won and defended through decades of struggle against “market forces”. In recent years, these victories have been eroded by privatisation and “austerity”.

In England for example, successive governments have failed to give the NHS the money it needs to care for a growing and ageing population. The other issue is where the money goes – much of it returns to corporate pockets. Here are just three examples of NHS profiteering:

• PFI debt. Debt on “private finance” schemes costs “up to £1 in every £6” of the budget for some NHS trusts, according to the IPPR thinktank. These were schemes pushed by the last Labour government in which hospitals were refurbished by borrowing from the private sector at extortionate long-term interest rates.
• Drug companies. According to The King‘s Fund, “estimated total NHS spending on medicines in England has grown from £13 billion in 2010/11 to £17.4 billion in 2016/17.” This is over 10% of the total NHS budget.
• Private health businesses and outsourcers. Much NHS work, for example cleaning or transport services, is now outsourced to profit-chasing companies. The latest development has involved handing contracts for actual medical services to private sector companies. These were worth £3.6 billion in 2019, with the biggest winners being Care UK and Richard Branson’s Virgin Care.

4. Work makes us sick

A well-prepared health system might respond to the virus with wide scale testing, plus hospital care for those hit by severe symptoms. Instead we get a brutal last-ditch measure: mass lockdown. Medics hope this can slow the pandemic so that fragile health services aren’t overwhelmed. Many governments are happy to seize the opportunity and race through new police state powers.

But here too, the capitalist drive for profit takes precedence. Even as police and public outrage target “irresponsible” individuals taking some air, workers are still being crowded into factories, building sites, and tube trains.

The European corona epicentre so far has been Lombardy, Northern Italy. This is Italy’s “industrial heartland”: the home of steel mills, car plants, textiles factories, and in total over one fifth of all Italy’s GDP. Lombardy was placed under the first quarantine measures on 1 March, and went into deep lockdown on 7 March, with people confined to their homes other than for “essential” activities. These measures then went nationwide on 9 March.

But there were no rules against the most obvious transmission sites of all: workplaces. Car factories and fashion sweatshops kept on going through the lockdown. This only changed on 21 March when the government finally ordered closure of “non-essential” workplaces.

While shouty Italian mayors berated joggers, workers were taking action against being forced to turn up in corona conditions. Wildcat strikes began on 12 March, and spread across Italy the next day. Workers are up against the employers’ confederation Confindustria, which has lobbied hard to keep the factories open. Despite the 21 March decree stopping “non-essential” work, calls for a general strike continue – even from the country’s three biggest unions. They argue that the “essential” rules are full of loopholes: making machinery for the tobacco industry is included, for example.

In the UK, much the same drama played out with a two week delay. The government ordered people to “stay at home” on 23 March – with the big exception being if you have to go to work. On 24 March, as building workers walked out of a 1,700 person site in Middlesborough, the housing minister tweeted: “If you are working on site, you can continue to do so. […] Outside of work, remember to #StayHomeSaveLives.”

As anyone who’s ever worked in construction knows, and has been widely pointed out on social media, the idea of observing “social distancing rules” on building sites is a bad joke.

Like Italy’s manufacturing bosses, the British building industry has political influence. At the top are a handful of big contractors – many close to the Conservative Party, and with a shady record of ignoring safety issues and blacklisting organising workers. In the manufacturing sector, too, we get stories about companies like William Cook Rail or Wren Kitchens, major Conservative Party donors refusing to shut down.

So, which are more dangerous, parks or workplaces? We haven’t seen any research assessing that. What we do know is that, in capitalism, “essential” is a close cousin of “profitable”.

5. Click-hungry media feed panic

Corona is a healthcare crisis, but it has also become something more: a crisis of fear. The 24/7 feed of anxiety through our TV, computer and phone screens has created a social panic of unprecedented scale and speed. This has spiralling impacts on billions of people’s mental, social and material well-being, and is used by governments to justify brutal power grabs.

Here are a few basic observations about media coverage of coronavirus:

• The pandemic has swiftly achieved almost total media dominance, eclipsing every other issue. Even back in January, as a study in Time magazine showed, corona had received extraordinary coverage in English speaking media – for example, more than 20 times as many headlines as the Ebola outbreak in its first month.
• It is largely framed in terms of fear and death. Back in February, media scholar Karin Wahl-Jorgensen analysed the use of fear language in major newspaper reporting. Social media platforms ramp up this sensationalism. A post presenting cautious analysis is unlikely to go far – as opposed to a viral tweet thread like “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD […] the most virulent virus epidemic the world has ever seen.”
• Coverage is pinned to simplified and obsessively reported numbers: the daily tally of “confirmed cases” and deaths. Questions about the accuracy and comparability of these headline figures may be discussed in a side note – but not allowed to get in the way of the constant countdown.
• It fixates on authority. While medical and scientific expertise are clearly extremely valuable they are subject to the distortions of the media and are open to being exploited by political leaders, who are either heroes to rally round, or castigated for failing to play their roles. Here the corona panic has elements of the classic sociological model of a “moral panic”, in which the media’s call on authorities to save us from a threat to society presents a serious threat of authoritarian abuse.

While capitalism isn’t the only force shaping these patterns, profit is again a crucial factor. Psychologists point out how “our minds like to jump to threatening headlines with big, alarming numbers”. But if that’s true, it isn’t simply a settled fact of human evolution – it is actively used and reinforced by the dominant media business model.

Most major media platforms have a financial model based on advertising. Advertising revenue depends on audience, meaning attracting the maximum possible views and “hits”. While this has been the case since the birth of the popular press in the 19^th century, online technologies have accelerated the feedback loop between content and “clicks”.

The well-known market leader is Facebook’s algorithmic News Feed Editor, which automatically selects and targets news. More “traditional” media outlets, including state-backed broadcasters, now also have to compete with the social media giants and adopt their methods – or lose even more of their market share and relevance.

The upshot of this profit imperative is a constant and rapid bombardment of the most click-worthy images, figures, tragic anecdotes, and “hot takes”. We are left swimming in numbers, information, and anxiety, with no space for reflection and critical thinking. And if we’re unable to sort through the noise and form our own informed and considered views, all we can do is trust and obey the authorities.

6. Gross inequality threatens lockdown poverty

Now the corona crisis is mutating into an economic crisis, as lockdown measures shut “non-essential” production, travel and consumption. In itself, switching off much of the capitalist economy is no bad thing: we really don’t need all the disposable plastic crap it churns out; wildlife, forests, and oceans could do with a breather. The problem is not “the economy”, but that billions of people rely on wages to eat and live.

Capitalism has created the most unequal society in human history: billionaires with unimaginable wealth, billions on the breadline. The lockdown affects us very differently depending on where we are in this pyramid.

To the rich, “stay at home” is no great hardship. For online professionals, or better off workers with permanent contracts, recipe swaps and yoga classes can take the edge off the frustration. To low-income, precarious and informal economy workers, it means the threat of unemployment and impoverishment. And as the crisis spreads to countries without welfare and healthcare safety nets, many millions will be hit.

In India, as Arundhati Roy writes, Modi has “borrowed the playbook from France and Italy” to impose a rapid lockdown on 1.38 billion people. In this context:

“The lockdown worked like a chemical experiment that suddenly illuminated hidden things. As shops, restaurants, factories and the construction industry shut down, as the wealthy and the middle classes enclosed themselves in gated colonies, our towns and megacities began to extrude their working-class citizens — their migrant workers — like so much unwanted accrual. […] The lockdown to enforce physical distancing had resulted in the opposite — physical compression on an unthinkable scale. […] The main roads might be empty, but the poor are sealed into cramped quarters in slums and shanties.”

In the rich world the curfew is, so far, largely maintained by agreement and social pressure. In India, where quarantine may mean starvation, it requires widespread “beating and humiliation” by police. In Kenya, one case of police enforcing lockdown by the lethal shooting of a thirteen year old boy has already been widely reported.

But here in Europe, too, when it comes to the margins of society – migrants, prisoners, the homeless – “stay at home” takes on very different meanings. We have already seen evictions and mass arrests in Athens, round-ups of refugees in Calais, at least eight dead in prison riots in Italy, as barbed wire fences go up around migrant accommodation in Croatia, and the army imposes quarantine on Roma settlements in Slovakia.

“Solidarity is the virus that capitalism fears.” To knit (back) our networks. Organise you neighbourhood, common pot, mutual aid.

Conclusion

This crisis is developing on multiple levels. The pandemic itself is just one. Then there are wider psychological and social impacts of continuing fear and isolation. There are political impacts as governments take advantage to rush through new powers. And there are the looming material impacts as millions are threatened with poverty and violent repression.

On all these levels, capitalism is a big part of the problem. The virus kills, and responses to it by states and corporations could kill many more. Many of these deaths are avoidable. We live in an age of enormous wealth, where vast amounts of human labour and natural resources are directed to produce trillions of dollars worth of anything from smart phones to fighter jets. These resources could be used to safeguard the health and wellbeing of all.

To quote Arundhati Roy again:

“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”

The post #CoronaCapitalism: six ways capitalism spreads the crisis appeared first on Corporate Watch.

Capitalism helped create this crisis: see our article here on a few of the ways this economic system makes and spreads the healthcare crisis and its wider impacts. And as with every crisis, capitalism looks for ways to cash in. Companies like Amazon put workers at risk to pump out deliveries, hedge funds make millions short-selling the stock markets, everyone from banks to landlords push for government handouts even as they lay off staff. Governments take advantage of the panic to ramp up authoritarian powers.

People are organising against this, in their communities and workplaces. Responding to increased isolation, mutual aid groups have sprung up across the UK and the world (see https://covidmutualaid.org/). Fear can turn into anger, not against each other, but against the system that has brought us here. And radical change can happen.

To help us stay informed and think through these important issues, we are using this page to compile some of the most useful and interesting articles, news and resources on coronavirus and capitalism that we come across. If you see some yourselves, tweet @corpwatchuk with the #CoronaCapitalism hashtag or email us at contact[AT]corporatewatch.org. Sign up to our news update emails to receive info straight into your inbox.

In solidarity,
the Corporate Watch crew

Our own articles on Corona Capitalism

6 ways capitalism spreads the corona crisis: industrial agriculture, Big Pharma, healthcare profiteering, work conditions, panic media, lockdown inequality and repression — and the profit system that drives it all.

Riots, resistance and releases — the corona virus and the Prison Industrial Complex: an overview of prison struggles worldwide in the time of corona

Companies cashing in on the crisis — Part 1: featuring Big Pharma; Crispin Odey; Amazon; Deliveroo; Balfour Beatty; Britannia Hotels; Marshall Wace; Richard Branson

Companies cashing in on the crisis — Part 2: featuring airline bailouts, Travelodge, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Wren Kitchens

Other recommended Corona related compilations

Netpol and the Undercover Research Group have a regularly updated blog on the policing of Britain’s #COVIDー19 state of emergency #PolicingTheCoronaState: https://policing-the-corona-state.blog/

The Anarchist Library has a section devoted to documenting and archiving various anarchist and libertarian literature written about the COVID-19 pandemic: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/topic/covid-19

Writing from the web

Obviously the situation with Covid-19 is developing pretty rapidly, but we’ve tried to make sure that the content we’ve chosen will still be worth reading well beyond it’s publication date and some of the older pieces have some great analysis.

• 8 May – On the emergence of a coherent technology based Pandemic Shock Doctrine, with big tech companies and governments conspiring to create a high-tech surveillance future “Humans are biohazards, machines are not.” https://theintercept.com/2020/05/08/andrew-cuomo-eric-schmidt-coronavirus-tech-shock-doctrine/
• 2 June – A global solidarity statement on the four main ways in which mining multinationals are exploiting the pandemic to maximise profits at the expense of people and planet: https://miningwatch.ca/sites/default/files/global_solidarity_statement_on_mining_pandemic_profiteers.pdf
• 12 May – On transformative justice and gender based violence in the context of covid-19: https://freedomnews.org.uk/lessons-from-covid-19-how-transformative-justice-and-mutual-aid-can-help-to-address-harm-in-communities
• 21 May – Some reflections from a group in New Orleans on the importance of interrogating power relations, personal and structural, as part of emancipatory mutual aid: https://roarmag.org/essays/emancipatory-mutual-aid-from-education-to-liberation/
• Spring 2020 – On the specific character of the recent uprisings in the Arab region, their origins in neoliberalism and the Arab Spring and possible effects of Covid-19 on the movements and the regimes they oppose: https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/from-one-arab-spring-to-another
• 18 May – On the use of video calls instead of prison visits during the pandemic in the UK and the implications this has for the future: https://freedomnews.org.uk/virtual-panopticon-prison-video-calls-and-family-support-during-the-pandemic-and-beyond/
• 18 May – On Corona, Degrowth, the need for economic systems resilient to crisis, and slowing production by design not disaster: https://theecologist.org/2020/may/18/case-degrowth-time-pandemic
• 20 April – Some feminist degrowth reflections on COVID-19 and the politics of social reproduction, and a call for “just, sustainable and convivial societies brought about by voluntary change” https://www.degrowth.info/en/2020/04/feminist-degrowth-collaborative-fada-reflections-on-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-the-politics-of-social-reproduction/ longer version here: https://www.degrowth.info/en/feminisms-and-degrowth-alliance-fada/collective-research-notebook/
• 22 May – On the rent strikes and attitude of class war that spread through New York during the 1918 influenza pandemic: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/new-york-rent-strikes-during-the-1918-spanish-influenza/
• 5 April – Some note from Mexico on the current situation and the implications for capitalism. “The increasingly acute contradictions of this mode of production .. will not simply give way to the mechanical or messianic end of capitalism. Because in order to see the end of capitalism, it is essential that there will be a social, antagonistic and revolutionary force ..”: https://enoughisenough14.org/2020/04/05/covid19-will-the-capitalist-system-collapse-some-notes-from-mexico-on-current-events/
• 6 May – Uneven Earth produce a regular series of recommended readings focusing on ” environmental justice, radical municipalism, new politics, political theory, and resources for action and education”. March and April’s readings are a compilation of pieces relating to Corona Virus: http://unevenearth.org/2020/05/march-april-readings/
• 4 April – An examination of the relative capacities of nation-states and decentralised societies in responding to crises such as covid-19  “The State is said by some to be a ‘necessary evil’; it must be made unnecessary.”   https://c4ss.org/content/52761
• 20 April – On the vampric nature of capitalism, the expansion of market discipline and authoritarian control during the crisis: https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/corona-capitalism-and-environmental-crisis/
• 11 May – A post-corona degrowth manifesto from the Netherlands that has gained widespread support, It proposes an end to growth economics, redistribution of wealth, transformation of agriculture, consumption and travel and cancellation of debt:  https://www.degrowth.info/en/2020/05/planning-for-post-corona/
• 15 April – DIY Culture #6, a COVID19 special: “a 34 page online special that has contributions from anarchist transport workers, nurses, care workers, writers, creatives, thinkers and activists. The general thrust, is that we cannot return to ‘normal’ following this pandemic, but that we should have some insurrectionary fun along the way as we eradicate the virus that is capitalism”: https://enoughisenough14.org/2020/04/15/diy-culture-6-covid19-special/

• 10 April – From Crimethink on the longer term implications of the pandemic and government responses to it for radical social change. Briefly considers how this plays out in the terrains of: economy, health, housing, social isolation, ecology and totalitarianism. It then presents three alternative programmes to pursue: the adherents of death, the apostles of survival, and the partisans of life: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/crimethinc-and-after-the-virus-the-perils-ahead
• 11 April – Wouldn’t normally link to a Bloomberg article, but these are strange times and this opinion piece outlines the drastically uneven impact of Corona and how it could result in huge social upheaval: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-11/coronavirus-this-pandemic-will-lead-to-social-revolutions
• 17 March – Economic analysis on how the crisis is revealing the fragility of neoliberalism and the reckoning now faced by western capitalist societies: https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-unexpected-reckoning-coronavirus-and-capitalism
• 9 April – On solidarity and organising in times of lockdown and how the crisis is shifting the political landscape in terms of class consciousness, the commons and redistribution https://roarmag.org/essays/organizing-under-lockdown-online-activism-local-solidarity/
• 1 April – On the origins of the virus in the circuits of capitals and the appropriation of nature driven by rich countries, the inability of capitalist societies to effectively combat and prevent contagions and the socialisation of resources and ecological harmonisation required to do so. “Big picture, we stop treating nature and community, so full of all we need to survive, as just another competitor to be run off by the market”: https://monthlyreview.org/2020/04/01/covid-19-and-circuits-of-capital/
• 17 April – Some reflections on the social responses to contagion, the similarities to past plagues, and the possibilities opened up by the ruptures to ‘everyday’ life the corona crisis has created: https://communemag.com/letter-on-a-plague-year/
• February – Some in depth analysis looking not just at how capitalism caused the crisis but how the social-economic spheres interface with the biological, and what kind of deeper lessons might be drawn from the entire experience: “..lessons for an era when the destruction wrought by unending accumulation has extended both upward into the global climatic system and downward into the microbiological substrata of life on Earth”  (note this was written in February and that while the analysis is certainly interesting, we at Corporate Watch are certainly not epidemiologists!) : http://chuangcn.org/2020/02/social-contagion/
• 19 March – On the failure of current economic and political systems, impacts on supply chains, and how the slow down due to corona is not ‘degrowth’ but demonstrates its possibility: https://www.degrowth.info/en/2020/03/a-degrowth-perspective-on-the-coronavirus-crisis/
• 12 March – On the links between captial-led agriculture and corona, and how this is all exacerbated due by neoliberalsim etc: http://unevenearth.org/2020/03/where-did-coronavirus-come-from-and-where-will-it-take-us-an-interview-with-rob-wallace-author-of-big-farms-make-big-flu/?preview=true&_thumbnail_id=4111
• 18 March – On the need to break laws collectively and deliberately to survive and escape: “It is not normalcy we seek, but new worlds.” https://itsgoingdown.org/to-survive-this-crisis-and-the-one-we-left-we-must-break-laws/
• 22 March – Thoughts from New York on learning from previous mutual aid efforts, and how networks can prepare for the coming challenges. How can we organise in conditions of social distancing, and how can we stop the state using isolation measures as tools for political de-mobilisation? : https://roarmag.org/essays/from-mutual-aid-to-dual-power-in-the-state-of-emergency/
• 20 March –  Some more from an ER doctor from the same anti-capitalist space in New York: https://itsgoingdown.org/igdcast-doctor-corona/
• 24 March – On the framing of responsibility during the crisis in the UK https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/responsibilising-corona/
• 17 March – On decentralised social support networks in China: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/social-support-networks-springing-coronavirus-stricken-china/
• 27 March – Some thoughts on systemic change in times of crises:  https://code-rood.org/en/2020/03/27/shaking-the-system/
• 12 March – From Milan on distinguishing between two different disasters, the disaster of the virus itself and the disaster wrought by the ways that the existing order responds and does not respond to the pandemic: https://enoughisenough14.org/2020/03/12/against-the-coronavirus-and-the-opportunism-of-the-state-anarchists-in-italy-report-on-the-spread-of-the-virus-and-the-quarantine/
• 26 March – On the abuse of emergency powers by the Duterte regime in the Philippines https://enoughisenough14.org/2020/03/26/the-philippines-genuine-service-to-the-people-needs-no-emergency-powers/
• 24 March – On the US response to corona virus prioritising capitalists and companies profits ahead of the lives of workers providing vital services https://www.leftvoice.org/capitalism-is-a-death-cult-notdying4wallstreet

The post #CoronaCapitalism appeared first on Corporate Watch.

However, the plans have been cancelled, according to information obtained through a Freedom of Information request. When asked about the progress of the prison’s construction, the Foreign Office said: “The UK has decided not to proceed with the proposed construction project”, citing “challenges associated with design and cost”. It did not mention backlash to the project, which was widely criticised in March 2018 when it was first publicly announced.

The cancellation of the Nigerian project is the second time attempts to build prison and deportation infrastructure in former British colonies have stalled. Jamaica had previously rejected David Cameron’s offer of a new prison. Campaigners are using the news to highlight Boris Johnson’s renewed commitment to create 10,000 new prison places and how these connect to broader racism and inequality in the UK.

To learn more about Prison Expansion and broader carceral colonialism, see Corporate Watch’s Prison Island Report: https://corporatewatch.org/product/prison-island/

To get involved in fighting prison expansion see Community Action on Prison Expansion: https://cape-campaign.org/

Caren Holmes is a master’s student in Postcolonial Studies at SOAS University of London

The post British government funding for Nigerian deportation prison scrapped appeared first on Corporate Watch.

Elbit Systems, based in Haifa, is Israel’s largest privately-owned arms and ‘security’ company. Written to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, this company profile looks in detail at how Elbit’s weapons have been used in Palestine and around the world, the shareholders and people at the top of the company and the resistance to its activities.

Contents

Recent expansion; Palestine; Syrian Golan; Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran; expanding “conflict zones”; the UK; the US/Mexico border; Georgia; Turkey; India; Philippines; Spain; Switzerland; Brazil; the EU; Links with Israeli universities; Company overview and finances; Employees; Subsidiaries; Addresses; Ownership; Products; Manufacturing; Shippers; Drones; Major corporate partners; Arms fairs; Resistance; Call for increased action; Background to drone technology

Recent expansion

Elbit is growing fast. It has absorbed dozens of companies since 2000 and now employs over 12,700 people as well as presiding over a considerable global network of over 80 subsidiaries and affiliated corporations.ⁱ

Elbit provides up to 85% of the land-based equipment procured by the Israeli militaryⁱⁱ and about 85% of it’s dronesⁱⁱⁱ but it is also a company with international reach – 80% of its market is outside Israel.^iv The company has military contracts with governments in the US, UK and Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. It manufactures most of its equipment in Israel, the US, Europe and Brazil.

Elbit has been busy buying up competing businesses over the last eight years, purchasing Israeli arms companies NICE Systems, Tadiran, Elisra and Soltam Systems.^v In August 2018, the Israeli state regulator approved Elbit’s purchase of the previously state-owned IMI Systems for $520 million.^vii IMI is the sole supplier of small calibre ammunition to the Israeli military. It has a workforce of over 3,000^ix people and sold $330 million of weapons to the Israeli army in 2016. Elbit sold equipment worth $610 million in the same year. The purchase of IMI, which has now been completed, will dramatically increase Elbit’s size and make it one of the largest suppliers of weapons to the Israeli military, accounting for an estimated 30% of all weapons.^x

Elbit also opened an office in Berlin in 2018^xi and bought US company Universal Avionics Systems, which has three premises in the US and one office in Switzerland. Elbit CEO Bezhalel Machlis stated that the company is keen on expanding even more. He told Reuters: “Our target markets are the United States, Europe, Australia…We are continuing to look for acquisitions.”^xii

The company is funding its massive global expansion by borrowing more from banks and the financial markets, perhaps hoping that the Israeli state will bail it out if things go wrong.^xiii

Palestinian civil society call for action

The Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) National Committee, the committee of representatives of over 150 civil society organisations that made the call for BDS, sees Elbit as a key target and is calling for protests and divestment campaigns against the company. A statement on their website reads:

“Israel is only able to act with such impunity because governments and companies around the world cooperate with its military and with its military companies. Palestinian civil society has called for a comprehensive and immediate military embargo on Israel. BDS campaigning is starting to have an impact on Israeli military companies such as Elbit Systems.”^xiv

Elbit and Israel’s drone wars

About 85% of drones used by the Israeli military are manufactured by Elbit.^xv Elbit’s armed drones are used by the Israeli army in daily surveillance and attacks in Gaza^xvi In effect, Elbit markets its equipment with the fact that it has been battle tested on people in Gaza. For example, the Elbit website advertises the Hermes 450 drone as “combat proven” and the “primary platform of the IDF in counter-terror operations”.^xvii

The Israeli military still does not openly acknowledge its use of armed drones to carry out strikes in Gaza.^xviii However, Israel’s use of drones to conduct assassinations is well documented by grassroots groups,^xix NGOs and cables disclosed by Wikileaks. Drones are also used for surveillance, reconnaissance and to acquire targets for piloted planes to attack.^{xx xxi}

In 2016, The Intercept revealed that since 2008 UK and US intelligence agencies had been tapping into Israeli drone video feeds, including Elbit’s Hermes drones. The feeds appeared to show that some of the drones were carrying missiles.^xxii There is now substantial evidence that both the Hermes 450 and Hermes 900 drones have been deployed and armed by the Israeli military.^xxiii

The use of drone technology has changed the nature of modern warfare, enabling governments to launch attacks without any need for boots on the ground or a declaration of war. Accordingly, drones provided by Elbit and other companies have been used by the Israeli military to carry out assassinations in Sudan and Egypt at times when Israel was not officially ‘at war’ with those countries. They have also been used to spy on people in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon (see below).

Use of Elbit’s equipment in Gaza

Elbit’s Hermes drones were one of the two main unpiloted aircraft used to attack people in Gaza during Israel’s 2009 Operation Cast Lead attack, which killed over 1,400 Palestinians. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW):

“The Hermes can stay aloft for up to 24 hours at altitudes of up to 18,000 feet and has an array of optical, infra-red, and laser sensors that allow the operator to identify and track targets as well as to guide munitions in flight. The Hermes carries two Spike-MR (medium range) missiles.”^xxiv

HRW reports that the Hermes drone is equipped with a camera system which allows the drone pilot to see if a person is armed and if they are a child or an adult. The drone’s missiles are also equipped with cameras and can be diverted up to the last second. This means that Israel’s drone pilots and their commanders would have known that they were targeting civilians and may be culpable for war crimes carried out by Elbit drones. HRW has also called for the disclosure of camera footage shot by Hermes drones to assist in the investigation of war crimes. Needless to say, this request has not been granted.^xxv

Elbit Hermes drone. Photo: Matthieu Sontag, Licence CC-BY-SA

The assassination of Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari – the start of Israel’s 2012 Pillar of Cloud assault on Gaza – was carried out by an Elbit Hermes 450 drone, according to Defence Today.^xxvi

Elbit’s 7.5 Skylark mini-UAV, operational in the Israeli Army since 2008, was heavily used for support of ground military actions in Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza, Operation Protective Edge, which killed 2,202 Palestinians. The Hermes 450s and 900s were also used throughout this attack.

At the time, Elbit’s CEO confirmed to Israeli media that “all [Elbit products] were in operational use by the IDF in the recent fighting and proved themselves.”^xxviii

During Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza, four young children were killed after an Israeli drone, operated remotely by soldiers from the Palmachim air base in Israel, targeted them while playing on a beach. The drone’s operators claimed that they mistook the four Palestinian cousins, all aged 10 or 11, for “Hamas militants”. An Israeli police report seen by The Intercept shows that, at about 3.30pm, the operators of an Israeli Hermes 450 drone captured footage of the boys. An Israeli air force commander then ordered the operators of a second drone to fire, killing one of the boys. After firing the first missile, the operators of the second drone pursued the rest of the boys, and reportedly radioed for orders as to whether to carry out a second strike in a civilian area. They did not receive an order but fired anyway. The two missile strikes killed the four boys and injured 4 others. All the boys were from the Bakr family. The family has launched a legal case in an attempt to get justice.^xxix

During the investigation into the murder of the Bakr boys, the drone operators claimed that they “couldn’t tell they were children”. If this is true, then it brings into question the quality of the video-feed from the Elbit drone.^xxx

The use of Elbit’s drones in war crimes leads to more business for the company. A year after Elbit’s Hermes 900 was introduced to the skies of Gaza, the Israeli military ordered an upgrade of the drone. Elbit also took orders for the Hermes 900 from Switzerland and a “Latin American client”, according to the Jerusalem Post.^xxxi

West Bank Apartheid Wall

Elbit is one of the main providers of the electronic detection fence system for the West Bank apartheid Wall.^xxxii The wall has been ruled illegal by the International Criminal Court.^xxxiii

Arrests in the West Bank

The Elbit Skylark drone was used during multiple house arrests by the Israeli military in the West Bank in 2014.^xxxiv

Elbit’s purchase of IMI and the massacres of Palestinian protesters.

Last year, Israel’s antitrust regulators approved Elbit’s purchase of IMI Systems, the sole supplier of small calibre ammunition to the Israeli military. The sale has now gone through.

Since March 2018, protesters in Gaza have been holding demonstrations at the apartheid wall separating them from Israel under the banner of the “Great March of Return”. Israeli troops routinely open fire with live ammunition. At the time of writing over 183 people have been killed, and over 10,391 people injured^xxxv while attending the protests.

In June 2018, Corporate Occupation researchers found an IMI Systems bullet at the Nahal Oz military base close to where soldiers were firing at the March of Return protests.

Strangling Gaza with Walls

Elbit is currently involved in the Israeli Ministry of Defence’s project to construct an extra hi-tech barrier around the Gaza Strip, fortifying the current barrier that besieges Gazans.

The company is already trying to increase its profits from its experience of intensifying Israel’s siege of Gaza. According to Who Profits, Elbit is urging the Israeli government to allow it to export the tunnel detection system that it developed for the Israeli military to use.^xxxvi

Deadly ghost ships

Elbit’s products also include^xxxvii armed remote control boats, capable of launching torpedoes.^xxxviii Palestinian fishermen have told Corporate Occupation researchers that they have been attacked by similar unpiloted boats off the shores of Gaza.

Elbit’s unpiloted boats were showcased^xxxix at the Singapore airshow in 2016 and have been deployed in NATO training exercises in 2018.^xl GRSE, a company owned by the Indian state, is partnering^xli with Elbit on an Unmanned Surface Vehicle project.

The Israeli occupied Syrian Golan

In 2010, Corporate Watch researchers found that Elbit had premises in the settlement of Bnei Yehuda, on land taken from Syrians by military force in 1967. The settlement is illegal under international law.^xlii

Israeli attacks in Sudan and Egypt

In 2009 Hermes 450 drones were used in an attack on a convoy in Sudan, which was reportedly bearing arms bound for Gaza.^xliii

There is growing evidence of Israeli Hermes drones supporting Egypt’s attacks against Islamist and anti-state groups in the Northern Sinai peninsula. In 2012, Elbit Hermes 450 drones were involved in an assassination in North Sinai.^xliv In 2013, a Hermes 450 malfunctioned while flying “close to the Egyptian border”. The military claim that it was intentionally crashed on the Israeli side of the border.^xlv In 2017 an Israeli drone strike killed one person in Rafah.^xlvi In August 2018, anonymous sources within the Egyptian army told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz that Israeli drones had carried out an attack killing five people in Rafah, on the Egyptian side of the border.^xlvii It is not clear if Elbit’s equipment was used in these two later attacks but the company clearly sees the situation in the Sinai as an opportunity for increased profits. Elad Ahronson, an executive at Elbit, referred to the Sinai Peninsula in an interview about Elbit’s products with industry press in 2015.^xlviii

Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran

Elbit’s Hermes 450 drones were used intensively during Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon.

In April 2018, an armed Israeli Hermes 450 drone, manufactured by Elbit, crashed in Southern Lebanon. Eyewitnesses reported that a second drone fired a missile at the crashed drone, partially destroying it, presumably to prevent anyone retrieving data from it. The Israeli military released a statement that the drone belonged to them.^xlix The Elbit drone was reportedly armed with four Israeli-made Mikholit missiles.^l

The Israeli military has deployed Hermes 900 drones close to the Israel/Syria border.^li In 2017, an Elbit-manufactured Skylark mini-drone was shot down by pro-Assad forces in Syria over the city of Quneitra.^lii Earlier that year, a strike by an unidentified Israeli drone had killed a pro-Assad militia commander in Southern Syria.^liii

In 2014, it was reported that an Israeli Hermes drone was shot down close to Baghdad Airport in Iraq. The Israeli military refused to confirm or deny the story.^liv

Elbit’s drones are also key to the two-way espionage taking place between Israel and Iran. An Elbit Hermes 450 drone was shot down in 2014 in Iran, close to a uranium enrichment facility.^lv Shooting down the drone may have helped Iran’s own drone industry, which has developed drones based on the Hermes.^lvi

Elbit claims that its large Hermes 900 StarLiner drone is well suited to attacks on far-away “targets” such as Iran and Syria.^lvii

Pushing the boundaries of “conflict zones”

In 2018, Elbit showcased a version of the Hermes 900 drone designed to fly in civilian airspace, alongside civilian planes. “Some customers would like to use the system to gather intelligence,” Elbit CEO Bezhalel Machlis said. “Another example can be for homeland security applications, to fly above an area and make sure it is monitored against terrorist activities.” Press reports at the time of writing say that “Elbit expects to receive approval from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for its own product in the coming months.”^lviii Of course, this may well be PR spin. If true, it would mean that drones developed besieging and attacking Gaza might become used routinely on a global scale by states spying on their own populations.

Elbit’s deals and partnerships around the world

The UK

Elbit leased Hermes 450 drones to the UK armed forces, through French company Thales,^lix for use in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2007-14. These drones reportedly flew over Afghanistan for at least 86,000 hours.^lx

The UK has also used Hermes 450 drones over Afghanistan and deployed its new Watchkeeper drone, based on the Hermes 450 (see below). Canada has also purchased Elbit Skylark drones for use in Afghanistan.^lxi

In 2005, the UK announced that it would buy new drones based on the Hermes 450 design. As a result, Elbit formed the U-TacS partnership (of which it owns a 51% stake) with French company Thales to supply 54 Watchkeeper drones to the Ministry of Defence. Although, on the face of it, the Watchkeeper is a reconnaissance drone, it has been displayed in several arms fairs bearing missiles. There is no evidence, however, that the UK has deployed it armed.

Engines for the Watchkeeper are being produced at Elbit’s UAV engines factory in Shenstone, Staffordshire. British soldiers have travelled to Israel to undergo training as part of the Watchkeeper programme. Testing is carried out from ParcAberporth in West Wales and Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.^lxii However, during the winter of 2015, the MOD moved the Watchkeeper programme to the mid-Atlantic British colony of Ascension, citing better weather.^lxiii Avoiding public scrutiny may also have played a part.

Elbit protest

A Watchkeeper drone was first deployed in Afghanistan in 2014. But the deployment was more a sales pitch for U-TacS than of any operational benefit. The French military, potential buyers of the Watchkeeper, were invited to watch the flight from Camp Bastion, and the drone has since been advertised as combat-proven.

However, in 2016 the French military chose to buy a Sagem drone instead of the Watchkeeper.^lxiv The decision was probably due to the severe delays and crashes which have occurred in the UK Watchkeeper programme, as well as campaigning by BDS activists in France.^lxv

The Watchkeeper is also now a little outdated, as it requires the operator to be relatively close by, compared to the US’ Predator and Reaper drones.

In 2018, a Watchkeeper crashed in Ceredigon, West Wales, the fifth drone so far to have crashed. Local residents are concerned over safety and almost £30m has been wasted.^lxvi The Watchkeeper programme, in a surprise Israeli contribution to the UK anti-war movement, has cost the Ministry of Defence (MOD) more than £1bn over the last 12 years but has translated to only 146 hours of use on operations.

In response to a parliamentary question in 2018, the MOD stated that it had received delivery of 45 out of 54 of the Watchkeeper dronesordered, meaning that nine remain to be delivered, five years past the delivery date. Five of those 45 drones crashed during tests.^lxvii

All of this has not been a particularly good advert for U-TacS and Elbit. However, this doesn’t seem to have stopped Elbit from starting fresh partnerships in the UK aimed at getting more MoD contracts.

Perhaps to deal with all this potential bad press, as well as criticisms from BDS activists, Elbit has enlisted the services of a UK based PR/Strategy consultancy called TWC Associates which has links to the Conservative party.^lxviii

Since 2016, Elbit has run a joint venture called Affinity Training with US company KBR. Affinity has a flight training school at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire in the UK, partnering with the MoD to train British pilots.^lxix Affinity’s contract with the MoD is worth £500m over 18 years.^lxx

In 2017, the company also entered into an agreement with Babcock International, a British multinational, to establish a joint company to deliver another training programme to the MoD.^lxxi The plan is to deliver outsourced training to the air force over a fifteen year period.^lxxii

The MoD’s repeated deals with Elbit are a direct support to Israel’s military industrial complex.

Ferranti, one of Elbit’s UK subsidiaries, is running a PR campaign in Oldham. They are participating at events in Oldham’s Mahdio Centre, where students are encouraged to spend time talking to the company about “careers”. Ferranti’s website boasts that they gave out free “stress balls and sweeties”.

US and the Mexico border wall

Elbit has been working with the Department of Homeland Security since 2006.^lxxiii In 2014 it used its experience providing electronics to the West Bank and Gaza apartheid walls to win a contract with the US to develop surveillance towers on Arizona’s border with Mexico. The $145m contract, awarded to Elbit’s US subsidiary, was intended to “be able to detect a single, walking, average-sized adult’ at a range of five miles”.^lxxiv

Elbit border security. Photo:www.elbitsystems.com

In 2017, the Trump administration awarded Elbit a contract to work on the expansion of the Mexico border wall. The Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC) called for mutual solidarity with grassroots movements in the US and Mexico, saying: “When we Palestinians see how the escalating militarization of the Mexico/U.S. border obstructs migrants’ right to freedom of movement, we recall how Israel’s intense militarization of the occupied West Bank also restricts Palestinian freedom of movement.”^lxxv

Some of the towers are now operational. George Kesting of Elbit Systems of America said: “The [border control] agents are able to… use the system with the cameras to see what the activity is in detail that’s coming at them”.^lxxvi The company is now searching for new opportunities to exploit the state control of people’s movement along the border.^lxxvii

Since its acquisition of IMI, Elbit/IMI is also providing weapons systems for use with US Bradley Fighting vehicles.^lxxviii

Georgia

Georgia used Hermes 450 drones to its advantage in its conflict with Russia over South Ossetia. Russia responded by buying its own Israeli drones, manufactured by Elbit competitor IAI.^lxxix

Turkey

Turkey’s president Erdoğan is trying to position himself as an opponent of Israel’s siege of Gaza, while oppressing Kurds and imposing his own occupation and siege on Rojava. Despite announcing short-lived military embargoes, Turkey has not answered Palestinian civil society calls to boycott Israeli arms. Elbit’s Joseph Ackermann boasted in 2011 that the political situation between the two countries had had “no effect” on Elbit.^lxxx Campaign Against the Arms Trade reports that Elbit made applications annually to export weapons to Turkey from it’s factories in the UK from 2010 to 2015.^lxxxi It is possible that the exports were made via the UK to avoid sparking political controversy between Israel and Turkey, which have both sporadically imposed embargoes on each other since 2010.^lxxxii

India

In 2018, Elbit began a joint venture with India’s Adani to set up a drone production plant in Hyderabad.^lxxxiii Adani is already the target of a mass movement in Australia because of their plan to build one of the world’s biggest coal mines on First Nations peoples’ lands. If completed, the mine would contribute significantly to global climate change, and ships exporting coal to India would devastate the Great Barrier Reef.^lxxxiv

Philippines

In 2014, the Philippines government signed a $20M deal with Elbit for 28 Israeli upgraded armored personnel carriers (APCs), to be delivered in 2015. The BNC and Phillipino socialist party Akbayan made the following statement:

“We urge Congress to join Akbayan, the BNC and the people of Palestine in calling upon the government to scrap the deal with Elbit Systems. Certainly, the modernization of the Philippine military must not come at the expense of the lives of innocent Palestinian people and peace in Palestine and Israel. We plan to propose cancellation of this unacceptable arms deal during the coming budget briefing of the Department of National Defense.”^lxxxv

Spain

In 2011, Elbit won an $8.5m contract to supply mortars to the Spanish army over a 12 month period.^lxxxvi

Switzerland

In 2014, Armasuisse, the Swiss military procurement agency, awarded Elbit a $280m contract for Hermes 900 drones. This came after Israel’s 2012 bombardment of Gaza, where more people were killed by drones than by any other weapon. The delivery contract extends over 5 years until 2020.^lxxxvii Swiss drones had previously been provided by Elbit’s rival, IAI.

Brazil

Brazil used Hermes 450s and 900s for surveillance during the 2014 world cup. Elbit has a network of subsidiaries and manufacturing plants in the country.^lxxxviii However, due to the efforts of campaigners in pressuring the previous Worker’s Party government, Elbit had difficulties operating in Brazil (see resistance section below). In 2015, Israeli business website The Marker wrote that “political reasons” led to a de facto freeze of military transactions with Brazil – a development that was particularly painful for Elbit Systems.^lxxxix

This situation appears to have changed since the 2016 removal of Workers Party president Dilma Rousseff In 2017 Elbit’s Brazilian subsidiary, Ares, signed a new contract to provide remotely controlled weapons systems to Brazil’s armed forces.

Elbit and the EU

Elbit receives generous grants from the European Union under its Horizon 2020 research programme.^xc The company benefited from involvement in five European projects under the Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development. Palestinians have called^xci on the EU to end all of its dealings with Elbit and other Israeli arms companies. According to Palestinian campaign group Stop the Wall:

“The issue at stake is not the project itself but the contribution by the EU tax money to the company’s solvency. These projects de facto are a subsidy to the company, including its production of drones and weapons and technology for the Wall and the settlements.”^xcii

In 2017, according to Electronic Intifada, Elbit had received almost $6 million in European taxpayer money as part of Horizon 2020 and other EU research funding streams. Campaigners have pointed out that these grants are being made despite the fact that Elbit does not ensure that its weapons are not used with cluster munitions, something the EU is now obliged to do under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Elbit and Europe’s attacks on migrants

In 2013-14 Elbit was involved in talks with The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, then known as Frontex, about how its Hermes 900 drones can be used for surveillance of migrants.^xcv Frontex, however, now appears to be favouring Elbit’s competitors, Israeli Aerospace Industries and Leonardo.

Links with Israeli universities

Israeli universities are deeply enmeshed with the Israeli arms industry. Students at Haifa’s Technion have been awarded grants to access an Elbit research laboratory, while the chairman of the board of governors at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem is Michael Federmann, who also chairs the board at Elbit.^xcvi

Elbit is also seeking new partnerships with international universities. In 2017, Elbit announced new partnerships with the Metropolitan State University in Minnesota and Regent University in Virginia.^xcvii

Company overview

Industry: Manufacture of military, security and surveillance equipment. Unpiloted drones, military and naval weapons, flight training and simulation, medical instruments.^xcviii

Traded on: NASDAQ (ESLT) | TASE

Revenues/profits: In 2017 the company reported revenues of $3.37bn and a net income of $239m.^xcix To see the latest annual report click here.^c The company has increased its revenues over the last ten years. During that period, the Israeli army has used their equipment in three major attacks on Gaza.

Employees: Over 12,700^ci (mostly in Israel and the US)

Subsidiaries:^cii

Israeli subsidiaries: Elop, Elisra SCD. Cyberbit, Semi-Conductor Devices (Also owned by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems) and Opgal (50%). Elbit Systems Land and C4, Elbit Security Systems, Cyclone, ELSEC, Kinetics, ITL Optronics, SCD (50%), Tor (50%)

US subsidiaries: Elbit Systems of America, Merrimack Operations (Kollsman Inc), EFW, KMC Systems, Fort Worth Operations, International Enterprises, Talladega Operations (IEI), Mclean Operations (ICI), San Antonio Operations (M7), M7 Aerospace, Real Time Laboratories, Boca Raton Operations, VSI and RCEVS.

Elbit Systems of America (ESA), wholly owned by Elbit, is a contractor for the US Foreign Military Sales Programme and has a special security arrangement with the US Department of Defense allowing them access to classified data.^ciii

ESA’s subsidiary KMC is involved in the manufacture of medical instruments used by healthcare providers, and ESA is involved in manufacturing communications equipment for police and emergency services.

Canada: GeoSpectrum Technologies^civ

Australia: Elbit Systems of Australia

India: Halbit

South Korea: SESA

Brazil: Ares, AEL

UK subsidiaries: UAV Engines (UEL), Ferranti Technologies, Elite KL, Instro Precision, UTacS

Other European subsidiaries: Elbit (Belgium) and Elbit (Romania), Telefunken RACOMs (Germany), Elbit (Austria)

Addresses

In the UK:

Ferranti Technologies, Cairo House, Greenacres Road, Waterhead, Oldham, Lancashire, OL4 3JA, http://www.ferranti-technologies.co.uk/,

View on Campaign Against the Arms Trade’s interactive map.

Ferranti’s website advertises naval, air and ground systems including head-mounted displays for armoured fighting vehicles and power supplies for military aircraft.^cv

UAV Engines Ltd, Lynn Lane, Shenstone, Lichfield, WS14 0DT, View

UAV Engine’s website advertises engines for drones.^cvi In 2010 UAV Engines applied for two military export licences to Israel for engines for drones. The UK government has previously claimed that equipment provided by this firm has “only been issued for the engines to be incorporated in Israel and then exported.” However, doubt has been cast on this claim by many commentators, including Amnesty International.^cvii

Elite KL, Sandy Way, Amington Industrial Estate, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B77 4DS, http://www.elitekl.co.uk/military/, View

Elite KL’s website advertises military cooling systems.^cviii

Instro Precision, 15 Hornet Close, Pysons Road Industrial Estate, Broadstairs, Kent, CT10 2YD, http://www.instro.com, View

Instro’s website advertises camera systems for surveillance and target acquisition.^cix

Instro are in the process of moving to a new premises. The new address will be Discovery Park Site North East, Ramsgate Road, Sandwich, CT13 9ND. It is anticipated that this address will eventually replace the Broadstairs address.

Elbit’s Headquarters:

Advanced Technology Center, POB 539, Haifa 31053, Israel.

Company website: elbitsystems.com

Ownership

As of late September 2018, Elbit is controlled by the Federmann Family through Federmann Enterprises (46%). Other major investors are Psagot Investment House, FMR, Invesco, Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co, Renaissance Technologies, Altshuler Shaham, Delek Group, Vanguard Group and Deutsche Bank.^cx

The Canadian Public Sector Pension Investment Board, the Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank of Canada also hold shares.^cxi

Two UK High Street banks, HSBC and Barclays, have historically been listed as shareholders in Elbit. Both banks own shares on behalf of their clients through stockbroker services which facilitate the buying and selling of shares. While the decision to buy or sell the shares remains with the banks’ clients, banks could take the ethical stance of excluding Elbit and other arms companies from their platforms.

In 2015, campaigners celebrated that Barclays was no longer listed as a shareholder in Elbit.^cxii However, at the time of writing, Barclays was again listed as a shareholder in the company on NASDAQ.^cxiii

HSBC announced that it had divested from Elbit in late 2018 (see below).

A full list of Elbit’s investors can be found here.

Products manufactured by Elbit

Drones, helmet mounted display systems, display and weapons systems for Apache helicopters, rockets and guidance systems, fuel tanks for F-16s, unpiloted boats, systems for civil aviation, remote control turrets for armoured personnel carriers, artillery systems, systems to control firing from tanks, remote control ground vehicles, radio and satellite systems, electronic fence systems, thermal imaging cameras, satellite technology for space programmes, systems for Bradley fighting vehicles, flight simulators, medical instruments.^cxiv

Manufacturing: Elbit says it manufactures the majority of its products in the US, Israel, Europe, India and Brazil.^cxv

Shippers: US shipping firm APL and Maersk, a Danish shipping conglomerate, have both transported Elbit products in the past.^cxvi In 2018, Seamax Shipping, based in Dubai, transported a consignment from Elbit Israel to Triumph Aerostructures in the US.^cxvii

Drones currently manufactured by Elbit:^cxviii

Skylark I Lex mini-UAS; Skylark II, Skylark 3, Skylark C (for naval use)

DA-VINCI Multi-Rotor Mini-UAS

Hermes 90

Hermes 180

Hermes 450

Hermes 900

Hermes 1500 (with Israeli company Silver Arrow)^cxix

Watchkeeper WK450 (as part of the U-TacS partnership with Thales)

Seagull unpiloted boat

The Hermes 450 and 900 have been used to carry out attacks by the Israeli air force.^cxx

Elbit also produces the Skystriker suicide drone, a cross between a missile and a drone.^cxxi

Countries Elbit has exported drones to:^cxxii

Argentina (joint partnership)

UK

USA

Philippines

Azerbaijan

Botswana

Brazil

Chile

Colombia

Croatia

Czech republic

France

Canada

Uruguay

Sweden

Hungary

Macedonia

Netherlands

Poland

Slovakia

South Korea

Australia

Canada

Georgia

Italy (joint venture)

Mexico

Singapore

South Africa

Uzbekistan

Thailand^cxxiii

Switzerland (to be delivered in 2019)^cxxiv

Major corporate partners

Babcock (UK),^cxxv Thales (France),^cxxvi KBR (US),^cxxvii Rockwell Collins (US),^cxxviii Embraer (Brazil),^cxxix Kraken (Canada),^cxxx GRSE (India),^cxxxi Boeing (US),^cxxxii Adani (India),^cxxxiii General Dynamics (US),^cxxxiv Ashok Leyland (India).^cxxxv

Participation in arms fairs

Elbit regularly promotes itself at international weapons exhibitions including DSEI (London), Land Forces (Australia), MSPCO Kielce (Poland), ADAS (Philippines), Paris Air Show (France), Farnborough Airshow (UK), Singapore Airshow (Singapore), ADEX Baku (Azerbaijan), BIDEC (Bahrain), Eurosatory (France), IDEF (Turkey)^cxxxvi, DefExpo (India).^cxxxvii

Resistance

Since the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions was made in 2005, there has been a divestment campaign against Elbit. The Norwegian state pension fund, leading Danish bank Danske Bank, Dutch pension giant ABP, the Swedish AP pension fund and Folksam have all divested their shares.^cxxxviii Investment experts have told campaigners that Elbit now appears on most blacklists prepared by ‘socially responsible’ investment research companies.

Barclays is the only European high street bank to appear on the list of institutional shareholders investing in Elbit published by NASDAQ.com. This suggests that most European banks believe that the company’s role in Israeli war crimes make it an inappropriate investment.

In 2011 a Palestinian civil society call demanded a two way embargo on arms sales to and from the Israeli state and Israeli companies.^cxxxix Anti-militarist campaigners have targeted Elbit in line with this call and launched campaigns calling for investors to divest their shares from the company.

The campaign has gathered momentum since the Israeli attacks on Gaza in 2014. During the attack, activists occupied the roof of Elbit’s UK subsidiary in Shenstone, closing the factory for 48 hours. A similar occupation was held in Australia.^cxl Demonstrations continue to be held at Elbit’s factory in Shenstone.

In response to the 2014 massacre, social movements and trade unions in Brazil pressured the government of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul to end a collaboration deal with Elbit. The state government eventually agreed to cancel the contract, citing ethical concerns. The cancelled plans included a $17m project to build military satellites.^cxli

In 2016, the Brazilian Ministry of Defence, then headed by a member of the pro-Palestinian Communist Party of Brazil, refused to approve funds to a drone research and development project with Elbit. Elbit was forced to abandon the project, and later closed down Harpia Sistemas, the company’s joint venture with Brazilian company Embraer.^cxlii

Campaigners in Wales have been protesting for years against the testing of the Watchkeeper drones at ParcAberporth in West Wales.^cxliii

Activists also held an intensive campaign calling for Barclays to divest from Elbit, holding pickets, blockades, occupations and demonstrations at Barclays branches. In a day of action in November 2014, 15 simultaneous actions were held against Barclays branches across the UK. In 2015, campaigners celebrated as Barclays divested their shares.^cxliv However, in 2018 Barclays were again listed as a shareholder in Elbit on NASDAQ.^cxlv

A successful divestment campaign took place against HSBC, calling on them to stop their clients from buying shares in Elbit through their investment platform. In July 2017, campaigners held demonstrations at HSBC branches in Brighton, Manchester and London, dubbing it “the world’s lethal bank”^cxlvi Protests were also held at HSBC’s 2018 AGM and a further day of action was held at HSBC branches across the UK in September.^cxlvii

Brighton PSC Protest

Ryvka Bernard of War On Want said:

“HSBC has taken a positive first step in divesting from Elbit Systems, the notorious manufacturer of drones, chemical weapons, cluster bomb artillery systems, and other technology used in attacks against Palestinian civilians, and to militarise walls and borders around the world. Doing business with companies like Elbit means profiting from violence and human rights violation, which is both immoral and a contravention of international law.

“However, HSBC continues to do business with over a dozen companies selling military equipment and technology used in human rights violation, including Caterpillar, whose bulldozers are used in demolition of Palestinian homes and properties, and BAE Systems, whose weapons are used in war crimes by Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other repressive regimes. Until it ends its support for companies arming repression, the campaign will continue!”.

Blockades, demonstrations, occupations

The bi-annual DSEI arms fair held in London, where Elbit is a regular exhibitor, meets with resistance currently organised by the Stop the Arms Fair coalition. 2017 saw the biggest mobilisation for many years, with thousands of people attempting to block the weapons exhibitors from getting into the fair.^cxlviii The next DSEI arms fair is in September 2019.

Resistance has also focused on Thales, Elbit’s partner in the Watchkeeper programme. In June 2014 a demonstration was held at the company HQ in London. In October 2014, a rooftop occupation was held at a Thales plant in Glasgow.^cxlix

Activists in Kent have been taking direct action against the Instro Precision factory, with numerous rooftop occupations and lock-ons.^cl Campaigners were able to contribute to the local council’s decisions to turn down a planning application for a new site for the Elbit subsidiary at Kent’s Manston airport.^cli

Elbit has been very cautious in prosecuting activists. In 2015, the Crown Prosecution Services dropped the case against nine protesters who had occupied the roof of the UAV engines factory the previous summer. The defendants had been arguing that their actions were justified as Elbit was complicit in war crimes. Crucially, the defendants’ lawyers had been asking for disclosure to the court of documentation of Elbit’s export licenses.

It seems likely the company pulled out of the prosecution to avoid public scrutiny. Ewa Jasiewicz, one of the defendants, said that Elbit was now a “prime target” for direct action to shut the factory down.^clii

Later in 2015, as Palestine Action groups organised Block the Factory protests, a civil injunction was granted to Elbit’s Shenstone factory by the High Court. The police violently tried to enforce the injunction, leading to 19 arrests. However, at a hearing in October the injunction was lifted, as Elbit had failed to provide the correct documentation to the court. A spokesperson for Block the Factory said at the time: “It’s Elbit Systems and its arms factories that should be facing a ban, not our protests. Today’s decision will bring even more energy to our campaigning.”^cliii

Since then, there have been no criminal prosecutions of activists who have targeted Elbit’s subsidiaries in the UK, and very few arrests.

In 2017, five protesters at Elbit subsidiary UAV Engines’ Shenstone factory were arrested under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 for blocking the gates of the factory, however charges were, again, eventually dropped.^cliv

Recently, activists have held coordinated days of action, taking action simultaneously at all of Elbit’s subsidiaries in the UK, in Kent, Staffordshire and Manchester.^clv Some of these have also targeted Elbit’s partner, Thales.^clvi At the most recent event, in June 2018, activist Susannah Mengesha explained her reasons for taking part:

“Elbit commodifies the murder of Palestinian people on an industrial scale. Every day that their factories remain open will have a civilian cost. A direct line can be drawn from the manufacturing processes in factories such as Instro Precision to Israeli war crimes. I refuse to believe that the lives of people in places like Gaza are worth any less than those elsewhere. My heart goes out to the mothers in Gaza, who surely have suffered more than most in the last few weeks and years. I want to tell them that the people here do not consent to these factories being here, and we will do all we can to stop them.”^clvii

Campaigners are also pressuring the EU to exclude Elbit and other Israeli arms companies from its research funding. War on Want, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other grassroots campaigners in the UK have been involved in an EU lobbying campaign, in conjunction with grassroots activists.

In France, action against Elbit has also been intensifying. Elbit’s inclusion in the tendering process for a new French drone sparked a wave of protests across France, calling for the company to be excluded from the tendering process. Elbit was eventually passed over, in favour of a drone manufactured by Sagem (which, ironically, contained Elbit components).^clviii In 2017, BDS France disrupted Elbit’s stall at the Paris Air Show.^clix Similar protests against Elbit’s presenceat the fair happen every year. Activists have also begun a campaign against the French insurance giant, AXA, calling on the company to divest from Elbit.^clx

Call for increased action

In 2018, Abdulrahman Abunahel, the Gaza Strip Coordinator for the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), reiterated the call for a two way arms embargo. This came after Israel’s gunning down of Palestinian protesters at the Great Return March and the worst aerial bombardment of Gaza since 2014. He said:

“The global military and security industry plays a central role in helping Israel maintain its half-century of military rule over 4.5 million Palestinians, including its devastating and illegal siege suffocating nearly two million of us here in Gaza, its ongoing, illegal theft of Palestinian land, and its apartheid policies that systematically discriminate against us indigenous people of this land.

“Since March 30th alone, when we Palestinians in occupied Gaza participated in mass demonstrations to simply express our demand to be free and our right as refugees to return home, Israel has killed more than 130 of us and repeatedly bombed densely populated areas.

“Israel is effectively “field-testing” weapons on us Palestinians here in Gaza before exporting them to other countries, mainly in the global south. At the same time, governments and international private military and security companies from the Global North are providing arms and technology to Israel, which Israel used to kill and repress Palestinians.

“The world must act to end these deadly relations and stop arming Israel. I take hope in the fact that more and more people and institutions are calling for an end to all forms of military and security cooperation with Israel and seeking to impose a comprehensive military embargo until it ends its gross violations of Palestinian rights.”

About the prospects for the campaign against Elbit, Maren Mantovani and Jamal Jumaaof Stop the Wall are confident:

“Elbit Systems, big as it is, is particularly vulnerable to activist action. It is the only Israeli private military company of this size and hence is more vulnerable to crises, risks of financial speculation, and economic restructuring. Elbit Systems is highly indebted and needs to ensure a continuous cash flow to service that debt. Its ever more global presence makes it easier for activists in different countries to take on Elbit or its subsidiaries. In addition, the growing dependence of the military industry on the Israeli state budget to rescue it also makes it vulnerable, while increasing the vulnerability of the state.

“When questioned recently about the impact of BDS on Elbit Systems’ operations, CEO Bezhalel Machlis admitted: ‘I’m not saying it’s not a threat, but I think that altogether we can handle it.’ Human rights advocates now face the challenge of increasing the capacity of the BDS movement so that it pressures the Israeli war economy to the extent that it moves from being a threat to a definitive impediment.”^clxi

Background

The battlefields of Israel’s militarism and occupation have proved effective testing grounds for new types of weaponry. Israel’s constant state of warfare has ensured a reliable marketplace for Israeli arms manufacturers. According to Drone Wars UK, surveillance drones were first used in Egypt in the lead up to Israel’s 1973 attack. The first recorded use of an Israeli drone to help piloted warplanes bomb targets was in 1982, in the run up to the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon.

The Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights say the first recorded use of an armed drone by Israel was in 2004. The experience gleaned during years of military repression has made Israel the largest exporter of drone technology in the world. Israeli arms companies have sold drones to over 50 countries.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW):

“the missile fired from a drone has its own cameras that allow the operator to observe the target from the moment of firing. The optics on both the drone and missiles include imaging infrared cameras that allow operators to see individuals at night as well as during the day. With these visual capabilities, drone operators should have been able to tell the difference between fighters and others directly participating in hostilities, who are legitimate targets, and civilians, who are immune from attack, and to hold fire if that determination could not be made. If a last-second doubt arises about a target, the drone operator can use the missile’s remote guidance system to divert the fired missile, steering the missile away from the target with a joystick.”

Despite this, the number of deaths (as a proportion of total deaths) caused by drone strikes has been increasing. During our 2013 visit to Gaza, Corporate Watch interviewed several survivors of Israeli drone attacks who had not been involved in any fighting before they were targeted, while many of those killed by drone attacks are children. The Gaza based Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights provided Corporate Watch with these figures for the years 2000-2012:

Israeli drone strikes are carried out from the Palmachin and Tel Nof air force bases.^clxii

Written by Tom Anderson of Shoal Collective, a cooperative of writers and researchers writing for social justice and a world beyond capitalism. @shoalcollective

Tom’s writing in support of the BDS movement can be found at corporateoccupation.org. @CorpOccupation

The post Elbit Systems: company profile appeared first on Corporate Watch.

£1 million per month for security at Tidemill

The guards at Tidemill are themselves paid £15 per hour for a day shift, and £24 at night. There are between 40 and 60 guards on site at any time. Taking an average of wages and guard numbers, and ignoring wage differences for supervisors and specialists (for example, dog handlers), the wage bill for the occupation is roughly £23,400 per day.

County Enforcement will charge Lewisham substantially more than that. For example, it will factor in any employer costs such as insurance and National Insurance, its management and admin, payments to any agencies or sub-contractors, and of course its a profit margin. We will use a very conservative estimate and assume that these costs are only 50% of the wage cost.

That gives a rough but conservative estimate of £35,000 per day. In other words, £245,000 per week – or over £1 million per month, if the siege continues.

The real figure could in fact be significantly higher. People have submitted Freedom of Information requests to try to get the exact figures, but we do not expect the council to reply before December.

Who are County Enforcement?

County Enforcement is a name well known to squatters and housing activists in London. They are the “go to” bailiff company firm used by many London councils when evicting occupied buildings or protest sites, as well as by many big banks and property developers. They are known for their readiness to use force.

County is a family business. It was founded by “senior partner” Peter Mooney, and his son Marc Peter Mooney is “head of enforcement”. According to the story on County’s website, the elder Mooney started out as a private detective and bailiff mentored by his stepfather, an ex-cop called Frank Sherlock. Mooney appears particularly proud of two jobs he carried out as a young bailiff:

“Peter was the process server who personally served Arthur Scargill and his fellow union representatives with the injunction that froze the assets of the union and ended the minors strike. He also served the union representatives in the disputed move from Fleet street to Wapping by the Sun newspaper group with the injunction that seized the assets of the Unions that ended the dispute.”

So the favourite security company of “left-wing” Lewisham Labour council is run by a man who boasts of his role in smashing trade unions.

Mooney also owns a valuers and auctioneers company called Sherlocks. This sells goods seized by the police and other bailiffs – as well as by County itself. So the Mooneys can make a double cut by evicting and seizing people’s property, then selling it on.

Both the County and Sherlocks businesses are operated from a small shopfront at 16 Bourne Road in Bexley, Kent.

County claims to be a “small company”, exempt from publicly declaring its income and detailed accounts at Companies House.ⁱ “Small companies” typically have income under £10 million per year, and employ less than 50 staff.

Although there are well over 50 guards working for County at Tidemill, it is likely that very few of these are direct or permanent employees of the company. Most are likely to be temporary or agency staff, or sub-contracted from other security firms.

Testimonies of violence

We would like to collect more information on County Enforcement, and on any other security companies working at Tidemill and other gentrification schemes. In particular, it would be helpful to collect testimonies of violence committed by guards, and any information on guards’ possible links to far right movements – as potentially suggested by the use of skull masks. Here are some witness statements we have received so far.

Account from someone who tried to take pictures of the eviction of the Royal Mint protest in 2015:

“I arrived there outside the occupation and took out my phone to take a picture to put on twitter. Suddenly three or four guys just grabbed me from behind. They were all big guys, without any warning they wrestled me to the ground and literally dragged me along the gravel, banging me on the ground along the alley. That was just for trying to take a photo of what was happening.”

An account from someone involved in the Elephant & Castle social centre in 2015. (This was a 200 year old pub, threatened with redevelopment, which was occupied and became an important flashpoint in the 2015 anti-gentrification struggle):

“That was the the only time I’ve ever woken myself up with my own screams. Me and *** were sleeping upstairs, they bust in through the windows, like 5 massive guys at once, I was screaming before I was awake. We’d had some trouble with a local dealer and I thought it was them at first because they were so violent with us, I thought I was gonna to die, wasn’t really dressed much. I was getting my clothes on, they grabbed *** and dragged him down the stairs head-first hitting him. He was really fucked up. I ran after but they’d already got him down. Was too quick to film anything. I didn’t talk really till the end of the day when I started laughing. Think it’s had an massive effect on ***, he was pretty traumatised, he put a brave face on straight away after but I think it really affected him. The County people were smiling and laughing after the eviction.”

Please get in touch if you have any information to share. All information will be treated confidentially. Email us on contact(at)corporatewatch.org. You can also contact us using PGP encrypted email or through our secure contact form.

Footnotes

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At this time of year, people wearing red poppies are a common sight. Less known is that many of Britain’s poppies are made in prison sweatshops paying prisoners less than £10 for a full working week.

For many, poppies are a symbol of remembrance for lost relatives and those that have died at war. For others, they represent British nationalism, imperialism and militarism. Donations for poppies go to The Royal British Legion, a UK charity providing lifelong support for the Royal Navy, British Army, Royal Air Force, Reservists, veterans, and their families. Interestingly, veterans make up 3.5% of the total prison population itself, with more than 2820 people locked up according to research.

The poppies are manufactured at HMP Ford in West Sussex, which holds more than 521 prisoners. Prisoners writing to the prison newspaper Inside Time have described the prison as “a hostile environment” and ”glorified super-enhanced C-cat”. The prison itself was previously an army base.

Faith Spear, former member of the Independent Monitoring Board at Hollesey Bay prison, has visited many prisons including HMP Ford. She described the work as “all mind numbing and boring” and says that jails are “akin to mental torture” due to the “abject lack of purposeful activities for inmates, with some forced to carry out effective ‘slave labour’ for big business, for hours on end”.

Prison labour for poppy production is also exploited internationally. Prisoners in New Zealand manufacture poppies across three different prisons in the country, working six hours a day to assemble thousands. Since 2014, prisoners in Canada have been making poppies for the Royal Canadian Legion in partnership with a private printing company and company Trico Evolution. The Corcan job-training program of the Correctional Service Canada uses prison labour across 10 minimum security and healing lodge prisons. Healing lodge prisons are part of the Canadian Carceral State, a symptom of high rates of indigenous incarceration. 30 per cent of prisoners in Canadian prisons are Indigenous, although Indigenous people only make up 4.1% of the population of the colonised country.

Project Claustrum: Prison Labour and the British Armed Forces

In 2014, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and Ministry of Defence (MOD) joined forces to create prisoner workshops to manufacture supplies for the armed forces. Project Claustrum (Claustrum means prison in Latin) uses over 1000 prisoners to make items such as sandbags, camouflage nets and Demountable Rack Offload and Pickup Systems (DROPS). Former Justice Secretary Chris Grayling boasted of how the initial six-month trial of the project at HMP Coldingley saved the government nearly £500,000 in costs.

Project Claustrum’s first lead manager, Michelle Downer, described the possibilities of what the MOJ could offer to the armed forces as ‘endless’. Meanwhile, the then Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology, Philip Dunne, shared how “during times of austerity we’re always looking at ways to be more efficient and this is a fantastic initiative”.

Exploiting the prisoner workforce is a dangerous step in building the state’s capacity to continue its repressive operations at home and abroad. Workers in prison have no rights to organise, no contracts, no pensions, no right to choose what they do, and if they do not work they can be punished. Likewise, having such an accessible workforce to exploit makes military operations even easier.

The Government’s Prison Education and Employment Strategy published in May 2018 paves the way for the escalation of the exploitation of prisoner labour. It creates a dangerous situation whereby the criminal justice system is entrenched further in a web of capitalist exploitation: from privatised prisons and probation services, to prisoner labour being sold as a solution to bosses experiencing the impact of Brexit on migrant labour.

The Prison Industrial Complex and the Global War Machine

Why does it matter if prisoners are manufacturing items for the British Army? It only takes a look across the Atlantic to see how wars such as the invasion of Iraq were economically enabled by prison labour. In 2004, more than 21,000 prisoners across the US were working for Federal Prison Industries (also known as UNICOR) run by the Bureau of Prisons in the United States. Prisoners made everything from uniforms, helmets, night vision equipment and blankets to bomb components. Research by Ian Urbina, a reporter for the New York Times, showed that 300,000 pairs of trousers bought by the Department of Defence made their way to war zones, with at least three out of four active-duty soldiers in Iraq and the Middle East wearing clothes made by prisoner factories in Atlanta and Texas. Prisoners in the US also made significant volumes of gear for the 1990-1991 Gulf War.

In addition to manufacturing, prisoners are also used to clean, recycle or reassemble components and wash military uniforms. This often creates toxic consequences for prison workers. Sara Flounders shares how “prison work is often dangerous, toxic and unprotected. At FCC Victorville, a federal prison located at an old US airbase, prisoners clean, overhaul and reassemble tanks and military vehicles returned from combat and coated in toxic spent ammunition, depleted uranium dust and chemicals”.

Prisoners being exploited for national war efforts is nothing new. It is well-known that hard labour forced upon prisoners and the poor in 19^th century workhouses often involved picking oakum (separating strands of rope) for the British Navy. Not forgetting the powerful historical role of penal colonies in the creation of the British Empire and other colonial projects.

One thing is clear: the prison industrial complex and the global war machine are intimately connected. This summer’s prison strike that began in the United States and spread to other countries was the largest in history. It shows more than ever that prisoners are resisting this penal regime, often at great risk to themselves. The battle to end prison slavery continues.

The post Poppies, Prison labour and the War Machine appeared first on Corporate Watch.

The show discusses the new Prison Island report. The show includes conversations on prison expansion, carceral colonialism, connecting abolitionism to multiple struggles and more.

Listen to it here: https://cape-campaign.org/podcast/prison-island-conversation-with-nicole-from-corporate-watch/

The post No Prisons Podcast appeared first on Corporate Watch.

The Tattoo Circus is a non-hierarchical, non-competitive and non-commercial event where all the funds raised go to prisoner support projects and various campaigns for social change.

You can learn more about the workshops and see the full program for the weekend here: https://bristoltattoocircus.org/

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