Campaign to oppose a privatised military academy for St Athan - biggest PFI/PPP ever, with arms dealers Raytheon Serco. John Pilger "a British "School of the Americas" is to be built in Wales, where British soldiers will train killers from all corners of the American empire in the name of "global security". Tony Benn “The thought of privatising the training for the Armed forces was morally abominable”
FEARS over “Olympics-style” spiralling costs at the £13bn Defence Technical
Academy have been raised by politicians in a furious row over the St Athan-based development.
Tensions between Labour and Plaid Cymru over the academy scheme have been simmering for several months.
But they have boiled over with the recent announcement that the planning application for the development will be submitted to the county council this spring.
Labour councillors have taken exception to a series of statement made by
Plaid politicians, including councillor Nic Hodges, a Vale councillor and leader of the Plaid group on Barry Town Council.
Labour Councillor and former RAF St Athan worker, Rob Curtis, said: “I’m sick and tired of hearing numerous Plaid Cymru politicians criticising and running down the golden opportunity of having the multi-billion-pound DefenceTrainingAcademy located in Wales.
“Numerous negative anti-academy comments were made by their president and former vice -president, Dafydd Iwan and Jill Evans MEP.
The latest attack has come from Barry Plaid Cymru Councillor Steffan Wiliam,
who appeared on a recent BBC report saying that well-paid positions would go to people from outside the Vale, with local people left to do ‘menial jobs’.
Mr Curtis reserved particular criticism for Coun Hodges.
He said: “Coun Hodges has already been quoted as saying the academy would be an ‘isolated gated village’ and also added that ‘nearby towns would see an
increase in squaddie rowdiness and drop-outs from the academy’.
“These are irresponsible and naive comments. The training academy will
provide vital jobs for the South Wales region for generations to come.”
The new armed forces tri-service centre is expected to create about 5,000 jobs when operational.
Mr Hodges responded: “Labour’s cheap histrionics do not wash with me.”
He added: “What I have said is that I am concerned by the lack of detailed
information coming out on this scheme.
“The £12bn scheme costs are already starting to overrun and I am concerned it could spiral, just like the London Olympics.”
“I am also staggered to hear the continuing claims that sports facilities
will be open to local residents.
“This will be a hugely restricted security area and public access will be
largely unwelcome.
“Let’s have a proper debate based on detail and facts.”
So desperate is the government to cling to its £12bn PFI scheme to privatise defence training, involving the construction of a huge new "defence academy" in South Wales, it has happily replaced the building company with ...a caterer!
The deal was originally lined up with Metrix, a consortium owned 50/50 by technology company Qinetiq and property developer Land Securities. On this dream ticket " Metrix achieved the highest technical score" and was named "preferred bidder".
When Land Securities withdrew in December because of delays and cost overruns, the Ministry of Defence scrambled around desperately for a replacement. As the deal requires the owners to stump up hundreds of millions in hard to come by capital, only one firm came forward: French caterer Sodexo. The MoD bit its hand off without apparently considering whether this affected the "highest technical" qualities it was once so keen on.
The defence training project was intended in the words of former defence minister Derek Twigg , to "focus on how best to improve our accommodation and training facilities, and meet our commitments following the review by Nicholas Blake QC [into the deaths of five trainees at Deepcut] to improve support, welfare and well being of our trainees". Which makes Sodexo an odd choice. In 2006 Harmondsworth immigration centre, run by Sodexo subsidiary Kalyx was condemned by prisons inspector Anne Owers for "failing to provide a safe and stable environment"
Latest series of articles featured in the Telegraph and Guardian and additionally a European publication.
Who would have thought seeing the Telegraph with an article where a Conservitive MP is opposing a privatisation scheme while a Labour MP is defending using PFI.........how times have changed.....
Whilst there is nothing new in the articles it is of interest that the main stream media are now focusing on issues that we and PCS have been raising for the past few years.
Credit crisis puts £12bn MoD training project in jeopardy * Defence training review20delayed for two years * Downturn may finish off PFI scheme, says ministry • Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian, Monday 9 February 2009 • Article history
The government's biggest private finance initiative, a multibillion-pound plan to hive-off training for the armed forces, is in trouble, subject to delays, financial problems, and increases in cost, the Ministry of Defence has said. The long-planned project, known as the defence training review, first proposed a decade ago, has been put off for at least two years and its estimated initial cost has risen from £11bn to £12bn. The entire project is in doubt, according to independent observers. Even inside the MoD, there is scepticism despite official optimism. "No decisions have been made, it involves a huge amount of money and the [current] proposal does not meet the needs," a defence official told the Guardian.
Problems faced have been compounded by the economic and banking crisis. Under PFIs, government departments and public institutions, such as schools and hospitals, sign decades-long contracts with firms who then run and finance the projects by borrowing funds. The idea behind the review is to contract out training for the navy, army, and RAF in a single place, a former RAF aircraft repair base at St Athan, south Wales. Training establishments are currently scattered around the country.
The project involves planning applications and big investments in infrastructure projects as well as the sale of large amounts of existing MoD property. Defence officials have expressed doubts about the impact on military ethos.
Mark Pritchard, Conservative MP for The Wrekin, who stands to lose the Defence College of Aeronautical Engineering at Cosford in his constituency if the project goes ahead, describes it as a "privatisation too far".
He added: "St Athan does not have the infrastructure so it needs new roads etc. We have all that in the West Midlands." The consortium and finance is unravelling, he continued, giving the MoD a "massive headache". He called on ministers to make an urgent statement in the Commons on the project. A consortium called Metrix, consisting of Qinetiq, the MoD's privatised former research and development agency and Land Securities Trillium as equity partne rs, was set up to finance and manage the project. But Land Securities recently dropped out, leaving Qinetiq having to look for a new partner.
The review has two phases. The first, now estimated to cost £12bn, covers technical training, including aeronautical engineering and communications and information systems. The second phase, would include logistics, personnel administration, security, languages, intelligence, and photography.
In a statement to the Guardian, the MoD said the project had been "more difficult and prolonged than expected" and could fall victim to the "abnormal market environment" - a reference to its dependence on banks affected by the credit crunch. The MoD also appeared to be referring to the collapse of the commercial property market and the problems that it may have selling its existing property. It said "considerable progress has been made towards achieving an affordable, value for money, acceptable and deliverable project". But no contract was likely to be signed until next year at the earliest.
John Smith, Labour MP for the Vale of Glamorgan, which includes the St Athan site, said "the momentum is well and truly with the scheme". He added: "The MoD will find the money." A spokesman for Metrix told the Guardian: "The programme is going well." Such confidence is not widely shared. "By ploughing on, the MoD is wasting more and more money. The whole thing is a mess," said Alex Flynn, spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services Union which represents many of the workers involved.
Mark Hellowell, research fellow at Edinburgh University and an expert on PFI, told the Guardian: "Even if the project was affordable, the liquidity in the banking sector is not there to fund it. Given market conditions, it seems likely that some form of government intervention is necessary."
been developed - in part - in a country proud to be committed to a sustainable future: Wales. While the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) talks of having “a real part to play in influencing change at home and on the international stage”, the truth is that Welsh taxpayers’ money is being used to subsidize the arms industry in Wales - an arms industry that is deeply implicated in Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
Israeli Hermes 450
The Israeli military employ UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) to target Palestinian homes, schools and hospitals. These are the Hermes 450, made by the Israeli firm Elbit Systems, using engines built in Birmingham. The pilotless drones are then brought to Parc Aberporth in west Wales for testing. This facility has been supported by £8.7m in grants from the WAG.
Israeli Apache attack helicopter
Once the “targets” have been identified, next come the bombs. The Israeli military use Apache attack helicopters, which Palestinian human rights activists have described as “a symbol of indiscriminate military violence.“ The Apaches rely on transformers made by Penny & Giles Controls of Cwmfelinfach, Gwent. Then there are the F-16 fighter jets, using components made by BAE Systems, which operates a munitions factory in Glascoed and runs a military training school in Cwmbran. These same jets bombed the Shij’ia Family Health Care Centre in Gaza , which runs a mobile dental clinic wholly funded by the people of Wales through the Near East Council of Churches.
The ruins of the health care centre
Incredibly, the health care centre was telephoned 15 minutes in advance by the Israelis to warn them that they would be attacked - no case of “collateral damage” there then.
Of course the Welsh arms industry doesn’t end there. With over 180 companies in the aerospace sector in Wales, we are now home to the likes of General Dynamics and Raytheon, makers of tanks, submarines, bombs, rockets and much much human misery. If only these companies would get together in one room so outraged Welsh taxpayers could show what they think of them… Well, quit dreaming. All of these and more will be attending the Aerolink Wales 2009 exhibition, to be held at the Vale Hotel in Cardiff, on 7th April this year.
Penny & Giles Controls, 36 Nine Mile Point Ind. Est., Cwmfelinfach, Gwent NP11 7HZ Tel: 01495 202000. sales@pennyandgiles.com
BAE Systems Land Systems Munitions, Usk, Monmouthshire, NP15 1XL. Tel: 01291 672211.
BAE Systems: Cwmbran Training College, Beacon House, William Brown Close, Llantarnam Park, Cwmbran, Gwent. Tel: 01633 835123. trainingcollege@baesystems.com www.cwmbrancollege.com/
Qinetiq chairman Sir John Chisholm set to retire Telegraph.co.uk, Sir John Chisholm, the Qinetiq chairman who controversially made more than £20m from the privatisation of the government defence company, is preparing to ...
£20m boss of Qinetiq set to retire Times Online, UK - SIR JOHN CHISHOLM, the executive who controversially made more than £20m from the privatisation of the government defence agency Qinetiq, is to step down. ...
Qinetiq yesterday refused to comment on Chisholm’s future, and it is not certain whether the group will announce his departure with its interim management statement on Tuesday.
The company may, however, say it has secured a new partner for its troubled Metrix military-training consortium. It is in talks with catering group Sodexo after its original partner, Land Securities, withdrew.
As well as his £220,000-a-year role at Qinetiq, Chisholm is chairman of the Medical Research Council.
The ministry and the message Index On Censorship - London,UK But its attempts to gag officials of the PCS union over the defence training review (DTR), show it taking a pretty tough line. The DTR is potentially New ...
The story behind Sodexo (tippped to replace LST and have a major role in Metrix) -
Sodexo shame - prisons, Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) near Heathrow Airport, the largest deportation center in the U.K.
Sodexo Meals Support Deportation and Oppression the story from facebook
A capacity-building group for everyone who is aware that Sodexo Alliance "builds, finances, and manages" 127 prisons in 7 countries around the world, profiteering high crime rates, working class, and racial socio-economic oppression.
Students in over 900 United States school districts, colleges, and universities are purchasing Sodexo meal plans and spending their lunch money that augments the financial capital Sodexo can use to bid on and build prisons.
There is a great chance that Sodexo is your school's food contractor.
In at least four countries, Sodexo finances and manages the operation of their prisons beyond simply food provision.
In the U.K. they have an exclusive decades-long contract for Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) near Heathrow Airport, the largest deportation center in the U.K. From that facility, asylum seekers from Zimbabwe, Iraq, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and many other impoverished, war-torn nations have endured the "worst" conditions ever reported by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons. They are deported in military jumpsuits on military planes back to airports to areas of their countries they are not familiar with. Often, they are not adequately checked for signs of torture and testimonials indicate many have disappeared or been killed after extrication.
The process is called "fast track deportation" by U.K. bureaucrats.
At least seven detainee suicides have taken place at Harmondsworth and in 2006, the Inspectorate found that the Sodexo guards had only two noose-cutters in the 500 bed facility.
Two immigrant uprisings have occurred at Harmondsworth in the last three years, one in 2006 after the TV news reporting the conditions at Harmondsworth was turned off (aerial photo is pictured), and one on April 1st, 2008.
Currently, Sodexo is bidding on two new prison contracts in the U.K. that are a direct result of a higher demand for prisons, a higher crime rate.
Sodexo is opening a new prison December 2008 in Addiewell, Scotland.
The answer to crime is not for-profit prisons, it is affordable housing, free education, living wages, and full employment.
The answer to asylum demand is not extrication, it is amnesty for those escaping regimes, poverty, hunger, war, imperialism, torture, and death for something better.
Sodexo Alliance, a corporate citizen, is a foot soldier for the prison industrial complex and racist immigration policies.
We have been deceived and we must not be silent.
This group description is not a comprehensive or exhaustive list of Sodexo's injustices, so post your news, stories, and organizing methods related to the prison industrial complex.
Not With Our Money, a 1999 student-led direct action campaign on 60 college campuses, was successful in forcing Sodexo to divest from the Corrections Corporation of America.
Together, we can once again build a national movement resisting Sodexo and force them to end their prison profiteering and speak out against deportation and prison expansion.
French firm firm Sodexo is tipped to replace Trillium on the MoD’s £12bn Defence Training Programme PFI deal.
Trillium quit as the equity partner in the consortium Metrix in December last year, citing concerns about rising procurement costs on the scheme.
Land Securities has since sold Trillium to rival Telereal. Following the sale Trillium has pulled out of bidding for anymore PFI deals. Metrix, which is led by QinetiQ and includes Laing O’Rourke, was chosen as preferred bidder on the scheme in December 2007.
The £12bn deal includes the construction of the £1bn Defence Technical Academy.
A Metrix spokesman declined to identify Trillium’s replacement but said an announcement would be made “soon”. Sodexo was unavailable for comment.
Sodexo provides fm and equity to a number of PFI schemes. It is also a recent entrant to the Building Schools for the Future programme but has yet to be shortlisted on a BSF scheme.
By Ian Drummond, Respect National Committee member and SOAS student
On the evening of Tuesday 13th January a group of students at the School of Oriental and African Studies occupied the Brunei Gallery Suite at SOAS. This room, and the entire Brunei building it is in, is subcontracted to the company Sodexo, which also provides catering for the US army at Abu Ghraib prison (where standards infamously slipped after the end of Saddam’s regime) and runs brutal immigration detention centres in Britain. The company charges £1000 a night for the Suite, permanently pricing out the Student Union and student societies, but had given the space for free to an exhibition sponsored by the Ministry of Defence, aimed at schoolchildren, on ethnic minorities in the British Armed Forces from colonial times to the present....
UK Indymedia | Demo at Kalyx in support to the Harmondsworth detainees Source: www.indymedia.org.uk
Following a protest by over 200 detainees at Harmondsworth immigration prison around 30 people turned up last Wednesday at the anonymous looking headquarters of Kalyx/ Sodexo, the company that runs the prison, in Edgware Road (just in front of the tube station).
Name
http://www.psiru.org/justice/PPRI74W.htm
UK Detention Services Ltd has changed its name to Kalyx Ltd. Another company, Kalyx Services Ltd, has also been registered. Kalyx is still owned by Sodexho...
Video of the protest outside Kalyx-Sodexho headquarters. photographs of Kalyx-run HMP Peterborough and a report on Kalyx and the Sodexho Alliance - listed as one of the companies profiteering from GuantanamoBay.
Spotlight on Sodexho Sodexho was the family business of JP Bellon of Marseille, who is still its main shareholder. The company, once mainly involved in catering, has expanded to supply armed forces, oil rigs, run privatised prisons and security services and is involved with supplying the US forces in Iraq and with GuantanamoBay.
After Belon's financial support of Sarkozi's election campaign, Sarkozi made Bellon president of the French commission on selective immigration policies (managed migration). The most remarkable suggestion Bellon has so far made is that the average duration of immigration detention in Europe should be expanded to 18 months. Who profits?
Sodexho wins major MoD contract
(10 January 2008 16:53)
Sodexho has won its second major Ministry of Defence (MoD) contract in as many months in a deal worth £84m in total turnover. The company has signed a seven-year deal to provide catering, facilities management and domestic services to military personnel in Wales and the West Midlands.
Armed forces under the control of 143 (West Midlands) brigade, headquartered in Shrewsbury, and those training at facilities operated by 160 (Wales) Brigade, such as the Infantry Battle School at Brecon, are included.
Sodexho will look after 16 catering, retail and leisure sites along with 72 other locations. It will run them with a staff of 750 and update 50 catering, retail and bar units as part of the deal.
The caterer estimates it will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner to 5,500 service personnel a day and through its high-street like HUB! offer will introduce the MoD’s "Pay As You Dine" service.
In December, Sodexho signed a £50m plus deal with the London military at locations including the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace!
In Planet magazine there is an email exchange between Stephen Thomas (Director of the Welsh Centre for International Affairs) and Sara Koopman, an academic who is an activist with the School of the Americas Watch, they exchange their experiences of campaigning against St Athan and School of the Amer...icas.
Campaign Objections to defence technical college here
State underwrites UK defence’s PFI project By Alex Barker, Political Correspondent
Published: February 25 2009 02:19 | Last updated: February 25 2009 02:19
Ministers have quietly offered contractors bigger state guarantees as a means of rescuing the £12bn ($17bn) private finance project to centralise the military’s training, the Financial Times has learnt.
See OU society matters article here Metrix shambles and OU here Should the OU be involved in the ARMS TRADE? here OU OU partnerships with armed forces? here Daily Mail - controversial £11bn contract to provide training to
Britain's armed forces is in danger of collapsing as a result of the credit crunch.herePlaid chief opposes St Athan Academy 6-Sep-08 hereWales must not be a cog in the war machine - Daily Post..here‘St Athan jobs dwindle while the costs rise’ here
Meet the mystery defense contractors that are raking in billions in taxpayer dollars without notice. Read more » "We recommend that people throughout the world launch nonviolent actions against US and UK corporations that directly profit from this war” - 7th Recommendation of the World Tribunal on Iraq, June 2005; http://www.worldtribunal.org/
What are the 'benefits' to the MOD of transferring risk to the private sector?
Derek Twigg MP, Under Secretary of State for Defence, talks to PSCA International's Matthew D'Arcy about what lies ahead in bringing a new flexible approach to learning through the Defence Training Review. “Partnership with the private sector does give us flexibility, and this is the key point here, to decrease or increase student throughput. The partner will be able to generate third party income from spare capacity and also dispose of surplus capacity. It also allows for a very important part of the role for industry to bring private sector management expertise and the ability to include significant capital investment at this stage. It is really about delivering a modern and flexible learning environment that will be fit for our service personnel of the future.” Facilities key to defence trainingThe PPP Journal Issue 56 - Thursday, April 12, 2007
Raytheon News
Raytheon Raytheon Tucson is a pretty awful place to work. If you're thinking about working there, you should think long and hard before you accept the offer. ... Raytheon Says 12 Private Wells Are Polluted Raytheon: Plume Is No ThreatTampa Tribune - USA.. environmental experts from Raytheon told a crowd of about 700 people in St. Petersburg on Friday that a toxic plume of chemicals that ...
Rhodri Morgan should be ashamed of himself for supporting raytheon with no supporting evidence
Ending Contractor Impunity see here The Center for Public Integrity, The Windfalls of War. Global Policy Forum. “State Sovereignty and Private Security Companies” webpage with documents, analyses, articles and links. Available here Human Rights Watch, Private Military Contractors and the Law. See here International Committee of the Red Cross, Privatisation of War section. See here Private Military Companies. See here War on Want, Getting Away with Murder. See here Sourcewatch. See here
News: Officials: Hundreds of Iraqis Killed By Faulty Grenades ..failure rates as high as 40 percent. Hundreds and possibly thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed or maimed by outdated, defective U.S. cluster weapons that lack a safety feature other countries have added, according to observers, news reports and officials……… Britain, which joined the USA in the fight to oust Saddam Hussein, fired 2,000 artillery cluster weapons in the war. All were equipped with Israeli-made grenades with secondary fuses and a 2 percent dud rate, the British Defense Ministry said…….."The funding for R and D [research and development] in the Army was minimal, and fusing was the last on the list," said Bruce Mueller, a former Army lieutenant colonel who managed the fuse program for defense contractor Raytheon. "They develop weapons, then they develop munitions, and after they develop munitions, the last thing they worry about is how to fuse them."
Raytheon. The company makes the guidance systems for many of the missiles that are sold to Israel and that caused so much civilian death in the conflict, including the 51 people crushed to death in a bunker in Qana.
Download Corporate Mercenaries [pdf]: War on Want's report on PMSCs - Private Military and Security Companies - Corporate Mercenaries: The threat of private military and security companies…..Northrop Grumman and Raytheon are major arms contractors also selling PMSC services.
Clusterbombs - On April 1st an undetermined number of BLU-97/B submunitions hit Hilla, with reports claiming that at least 33 civilians were dead and around 300 injured.
America Cluster Bombs Iraq - UN Security Council - Global Policy Forum The missile is described by the Navy, its primary developer, and Raytheon Systems, its manufacturer, as a long-range glide bomb. Acting Pentagon spokesman ... www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/2001/0226cstr.htm - 14k -
Dozens of Iraqi dead after cluster bomb attack in Hilla Amnesty International has condemned the Hilla bombing and the US use of clusterbombs, saying that the use of cluster bombs against a civilian area of Hilla... www.ccmep.org/2003_articles/Iraq/040403_dozens_of_iraqi_dead_after_clust.htm - 14k -
The use of cluster bombs Human Rights Watch "U.S. Use of Clusters in Baghdad Condemned" 16 April 2003) The cluster bombs that were used in Hilla were identified by Landmine Action, ... www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3463.htm - 31k -
been developed - in part - in a country proud to be committed to a sustainable future: Wales. While the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) talks of having “a real part to play in influencing change at home and on the international stage”, the truth is that Welsh taxpayers’ money is being used to subsidize the arms industry in Wales - an arms industry that is deeply implicated in Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
