Forget family fun at the British Museum’s exhibit of terracotta warriors — take the kids to this week’s London Arms Fair!

You might as well, since you paid for it: four million pounds of our tax dollars are being used to police it. Thank god our money is going to such worthy causes as arresting peace demonstrators.

The Independent reports,

The exhibition organisers say the event is “not an arms fair”. A spokesman said: “You can’t just walk in off the street and buy weapons.” He stressed that only a small proportion of exhibitors sold actual weapons and that the majority were concerned with such areas as disaster relief, peacekeeping and humanitarian activities and homeland security.

You certainly wouldn’t know it based on the fair’s home page, which prompts gleefully: “CLICK HERE FOR Night Vision, Electronic Warfare,” with no mention of humanitarian products.

An interesting overview of the latest arms trade news, including the BAE bribery scandal, is on the Guardian website.

Next time you go to the polls in your borough and for mayor, remember who opposed this travesty in our city.

Also from the Independent article

What to buy this week

* L96 sniper rifle. Made by Accuracy International and used by British troops, often as cover for bomb disposal experts.

* Hellfire Missile. Made by US-based Lockheed Martin. Normally fitted to Apache helicopters.

* The Nlaw (Next Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon) is a disposable, one man, portable high explosive system made in Britain by the French company Thales.

* THAAD (Theatre High Altitude Area Defence). Designed, says Lockheed, to destroy attacking missiles.

The countries

* CHINA

Invited despite an EU embargo on arms sales and Tony Blair’s statement in Beijing this month that there was a “question mark” over human rights.

* INDONESIA

Dubious human rights record over the conflicts in Sumatra and Irian Jaya has kept Indonesia on the uninvited list since 1999. Campaigners have documented “extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence and destruction of property” by the military in 2004-05.

* COLOMBIA

The Foreign Office said “members of the security forces collude with paramilitaries and are involved in drug trafficking”.

* SAUDI ARABIA

Third-largest recipient of UK arms exports, where Amnesty International last year reported an escalation of “killings by security forcesexacerbating the already dire human rights situation in the country”. Foreign Office said the state “continued to violate human rights”.

* ALGERIA

The Foreign Office says there are “numerous documented allegations of human rights abuses by the security forces and state-armed militias”.

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