Catherine West MP gave the 110th Swarthmore Lecture on 31 July in which she encouraged Quakers to champion the cause of equality in their own communities. She gave the lecture in memory of friend and colleague, Jo Cox MP, murdered whilst doing her job in her constituency last year.
READ the lecture by clicking this link.
Paul Parker is Recording Clerk of Quakers in Britain, the closest the 13,000-strong Quaker community gets to a chief executive. Based at Friends House in Euston, he is responsible for Quakers’ work on peace, social justice and sustainability, and for supporting nearly 500 Quaker meetings across Britain. In the NPC Blog of 4 August he shares what centuries of activism has taught the organisation, and how they’re working to increase their impact.
Refugees and responses to refugees are headline news at present. The 100 years of work by the AFSC is thus of significant interest.
A thoughtful article by an American Quaker, shared by Nancy Fee. Click the link below to read it.
A treaty to rid the world of nuclear weapons was formally adopted today at the United Nations.
Quaker observers hailed the historic treaty as a huge step, saying such weapons of mass destruction should be illegal and unacceptable.
This item was followed a week later by an item on the Inter Press Service News Agency site:
MYRM 2017 approved a logo for SAYM. It can be downloaded from a password protected page accessible via the Publications and Resources page on this site. Also available is a customisable MS Word letterhead for use by meetings.
Today the UK High Court ruled that local councils can use ethical investment criteria in making investment decisions.
British Yearly Meeting joined in this legal action.
The more detailed report that contains the background to the items Minuted at MYRM 2017 is now available. It is behind the new SAYM password and can be reached via the SAYM page.
The minutes from the MYRM held at Koinonia in Johannesburg from 27 April-1 May are now available. Access them via the SAYM page.
The Quaker Peace Centre was founded in 1987 in response to the repressive policies of the apartheid regime. Although QPC is now independent of the Quakers in Southern Africa, in a sense, it still operates under the Quaker banner.
As conditions in South Africa have worsened in terms of corruption, state capture, and theft from the poorest of the poor in the SASSA debacle, the Board of Directors of QPC has taken a stance against these violations of human rights, in line with similar actions by the SACC and SAFCEI.
Today – Monday, 22 May – QPC and their lawyers will hold a press briefing in Cape Town, outlining their course of action.
The Board of Directors has done us, as YM Clerks, the courtesy of informing us ahead of time, so we can pass on the information to all Quakers in Southern Africa. We realise the events in South Africa do not impinge directly on Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe, but we pass on the attached press briefing for your full information.
On a personal level, we are encouraged that faith-based communities are taking our leaders to task and demanding more honest care for the people they govern.
MEDIA RELEASE
Quaker Peace Centre seeks to overturn R35 billion in Arms Deal
Cape Town 22 May 2017
The Quaker Peace Centre (QPC) has instituted a claim against the South African government to cancel that component of the Arms Deal with British Aerospace [Operations] limited (BAe) and to recover some R35 billion for the beleaguered SA fiscus.
The claim which is based on the unconstitutionality and illegality of that component, concentrates on the biggest of the arms deals, that with BAe. In terms of this deal, Hawk and Gripen fighter jets were acquired at a cost of R35 billion [at 2015 currency exchange rates, including interest accrued and with provision for fluctuations in the value of the currency].
The BAe deal is not only the biggest but also the most discussed in the books and documents generated in the wake of the arms deals. Gripen fighter jets are manufactured in Sweden, however, in this instance BAe procured them for South Africa. The BAe transaction is assailed both because it is tainted by corruption, and because it is invalid for want of compliance with tender criteria laid down in the Constitution and because the loan taken to pay BAe was unauthorised.
BAe won the contract for the Hawk and Gripen fighter aircraft (in partnership with Swedish defence group SAAB). When the US State Department charged BAe with violating its arms export regulations through its unregulated and covert use of an offshore company (which operated with specific “intent to circumvent the normal payments reviews”) and middlemen all over the world, including in SA, in 2011, BAe settled, and agreed to pay a penalty of $79 million rather than face these charges.
A year earlier (in 2010), BAe was fined $400 million after pleading guilty to knowingly and “wilfully failing to prevent and detect corruption and bribery in its operations, as well as conspiring to impede the related US investigations”.
In addition, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office’s investigation of BAe’s use of agents and secret commissions worldwide, (including in South Africa) revealed that £103-million (that’s around R1,79 billion) was spent on covert payments.
It is on the basis of three independent causes of action that QPC seeks to overturn the procurement agreement and ensure the return of all monies already expended to the National Fiscus.
Two of causes of action relate to the invalidity of the deal; the third relies on the deal being tainted by the corruption that attended its conclusion.
The first invalidity claim is based on a failure to comply with tender requirements of the Constitution and the second upon the lack of authority of the Minister of Finance to borrow money offshore to finance the deal. Should either of the invalidity claims succeed, the invalidity of the deal will involve returning the military hardware, with all money paid to date refunded.
A cancellation due to bribery and corruption has a penalty provision that kicks in and which entitles South Africa to 5% of the purchase price of hardware as pre-estimated damages.
The Quaker Peace Centre, Cape Town, was founded in 1987 by the Cape Western Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in response to the repressive policies of apartheid and the need for developing non-violent methods of problem-solving, interaction and conflict resolution in South African society.
In the development of participatory democratic life in South Africa today, these founding Quaker values, peace testimony and principles remain central to the Centre’s programme, as it broadens its base of membership and governance and responds to emerging needs in society.
It is QPC’s considered opinion that the Arms Deal in its entirety works against peace in our country. Andrew Feinstein, formerly a senior ANC MP and chairperson of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA), and subsequently author of After the Party: Corruption and the ANC (2009), highlighted the negative impact of the Arms Deal on democracy and socio-economic development. In fact, he argued, that Arms Deals are intrinsically corrupt and the global arms trade undermines accountable democracy.
In a country with amongst the highest levels of all forms of violence in the world (interpersonal, sexual, community), investing such huge amounts of money in an Arms Deal with such significant negative impacts in not only inappropriate but obscene. A society at peace with itself and its neighbours, and protecting the full range of rights provided for in our landmark Constitution neither needs nor can afford such a deal.
This is especially true in the case of the BAe component of the Arms Deal.
In addition, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office’s investigation of BAe’s use of agents and secret commissions worldwide, (including in South Africa) revealed that £103-million (that’s around R1,79 billion) was spent on covert payments.
Ends
For more information please contact:
Carol Bower, Chairperson, Quaker Peace Centre 061 414 6889
Rommel Roberts, Secretary, Quaker Peace Centre 079 888 7285
Paul Hoffman, Accountability Now, 082 888 0821
