Burma to attend Indian Arms Fair

The arms show will allow the Burmese junta an opportunity to negotiate new arms contracts, expand their arms trading partners and attend seminars on new weapons technology.

The Indian Defence Exhibition Organization, the main sponsor of Defexpo, confirmed that Association of Southeast Asian Nations member countries including Burma will attend the international arms show, but declined to say who would participate from the Burmese military government.

Other countries attending the fair are the United States, Canada, South Korea, South Africa, France, Germany, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Italy as well as countries that regularly sell arms to Burma—Russia and Ukraine. China has said it will not attend the event. Indian arms corporations will have a large presence at the exhibition.

Asked if EU member states' participation in Defexpo condones arms sales to Burma, Christiane Hohmann, a European Commission External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy spokesperson, said there is no official European Community position on attending foreign arms fairs like Defexpo.

“This is an exhibition organized in India,” she said. “The participants have to decide on their own who wants to participate. There is no EU policy on that so the member states can decide to go there. It's their decision.”

Since 2006, the Council of European Union has renewed restrictive measures against the Burmese government and has adopted common positions which state that EU members cannot participate in activities that circumvent the prohibition to “provide technical assistance, brokering services and other services related to military activities and to the provision, manufacture, maintenance and use of arms and related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment, and spare parts for the aforementioned, as well as equipment which might be used for internal repression, directly or indirectly to any natural or legal person for use in Burma.”

According to the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade, which campaigns against UK participation in global arms fairs, in the last Defexpo in 2006, the UK Minister for Defences Procurement, Lord Drayson, led the official of UK delegation.

Bo Hla Tint, a member of Burma's government-in-exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, and an elected member of the parliament, told The Irrawaddy that Western participation in Defexpo shows the hypocrisy of arms embargoes against Burma.

“They look out for their own interests,” he said. “If Western governments don't want Burma to participate in Defexpo, they can easily ask the Indian Government to exclude them, but they don't do it. It is much more important for them to show their new arms technology to other countries rather than making a fuss about Burma. Big countries don't think about Burma when their interests are at risk.” 

According to News Post India, the US has the largest representation at Defexpo, with 46 companies including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, along with the US Defense Department.

India is a growing export market for US arms.