Protest against Oxford University’s involvement in weapons development

PRESS RELEASE: Protest against Oxford University’s involvement in weapons development

Local people and students are joining forces outside Oxford University’s administrative buildings in Little Clarendon Street tomorrow to protest the University’s collaboration with arms companies involved in the bombing of Palestine, Yemen, Kurdistan and elsewhere.

The campaign group Action Against Oxford War Crimes has vowed to ensure there are “reputational and financial consequences” for the University’s collusion with weapons manufacturers supplying states responsible for major human rights violations and breaches of international law such as Britain, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Tomorrow’s protest will be the first of what they claim will be an escalating series of actions designed to pressure the University to sever its contracts with these arms companies.

Oxford University gets research funding from at least eight arms companies, at least seven of whom are liable for prosecution for war crimes according to Amnesty International. This relates primarily to their supply of materiel to Saudi Arabia for use in the war against Yemen, which is currently contributing to the deaths of one child every 75 seconds.

Oxford University also conducts research for at least five arms companies who supply weapons to Israel, including Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the F35 fighter jets which attacked Gaza last month. These jets have components made by Rolls Royce and BAe Systems, both of whom have contributed millions in research grants to Oxford University in recent years.

At least three of the arms companies linked to Oxford supply weapons to the Colombian government, which is currently involved in a massive campaign of repression against protesters demanding an end to the punitive tax reforms of the neocolonial administration. At least three dozen protesters have been killed since the protests began in late April, with reports of the militarised police using torture, sexual violence and disappearances against demonstrators according to Amnesty International.

And despite a ban on British arms sales to Turkey, Oxford University continues to work with BAe Systems, who are helping Turkey to develop its own fighter jet. This jet will no doubt be used in Turkey’s brutal occupation and ethnic cleansing of Kurdish towns and villages in Syria.

Oxford University also has £80million worth of research contracts for the British MoD, responsible for the the devastating and illegal war on Iraq, the invasion of Libya in 2011 (which created a permanent warzone in that country and led to the reintroduction of Black African slave auctions), and over 40 years of near-uninterrupted covert and overt warfare against the people of Afghanistan, pushing the country to the very bottom of the human development index.

Action Against Oxford War Crimes spokesperson Damien Fogarty said “Oxford University has always been central to the operation of British imperialism, and this is as true in the neocolonial era as it was in the colonial. From the financial manipulations that underpin Britain’s global ring of tax havens, to the weapons development feeding into the brutal wars of aggression against Gaza, Yemen and Kurdistan, Oxford University willingly provides the technical knowhow for Britain’s unending war against the self-determination of the peoples of the global South. No wonder the University proudly defends Cecil Rhodes as their symbolic icon, as the violent racism he perpetrated continues to be facilitated by the University to this day. As of now, however, we are putting the University on notice that it will no longer have impunity for its crimes, and there will be painful consequences, both for its reputation and for its finances, should it continue to pursue its current agenda.”

The protest will take place Tuesday 22nd June at 4pm, outside the Oxford University offices in Little Clarendon St.

For more information on Oxford University’s research contracts with weapons suppliers see this excellent article by Ben Jacobs of Disarm Oxford: https://isismagazine.org.uk/2019/11/funding-under-fire/

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