Britain sold arms worth £3 million to Zimbabwe

Despite their public diplomatic spats, Britain and Zimbabwe are in business. A report released by the British parliament yesterday revealed that the United Kingdom had sold arms worth £3 million to Zimbabwe.

The report by the Committee on Arms Export Control said Britain sold arms worth £12.3 billion to 27 countries that are considered human rights violators.

More than half the value went to Israel which bought arms worth £7.9 billion. Saudi Arabia and China were in second and third place with £1.9 billion and £1.5 billion, respectively.

The Insider has so far not been able to identify what Zimbabwe bought but this consisted of 46 licences.

The Committee recommended that the British government should state for each country the extent to which it contravened its stated policy that: “We will not issue licences where we judge there is a clear risk that the proposed export might provoke or prolong regional or internal conflicts, or which might be used to facilitate internal repression”.

Who was sold what:

Country	Value of SIELs (£)	Number of extant licences (SIELs and OIELs)	Country	Value of SIELs (£)	Number of extant licences (SIELs and OIELs)
Afghanistan	23,847,337	80	Pakistan	49,802,833	219
Belarus	128,042	11	Russia	86,329,387	271
Burma	3,332,192	8	Saudi Arabia	1,863,182,251	417
China	1,486,415,462	1163	Somalia	1,914,694	26
Colombia	20,089,524	53	South Sudan	0	0
Cuba	0	3	Sri Lanka	8,084,759	49
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea	0	0	Sudan	7,642,480	14
Democratic Republic of Congo	2,127,980	20	Syria	143,867	3
Eritrea	960,031	6	Turkmenistan	1,022,016	17
Fiji	35,555	4	Uzbekistan	7,405,718	19
Iran	803,440,351	62	Vietnam	13,371,242	74
Iraq	15,915,430	69	Yemen	64,784	10
Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories	7,878,776,714	381	Zimbabwe	2,992,390	46
Libya	54,583,388	49	Total	12,331,621,526	3,074

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Charles Rukuni

The Insider is a political and business bulletin about Zimbabwe, edited by Charles Rukuni. Founded in 1990, it was a printed 12-page subscription only newsletter until 2003 when Zimbabwe's hyper-inflation made it impossible to continue printing.