Workshop Report from SGR Conference 'Sharing the Responsibility' (1997)

Non-Lethal Weapons - The Revolution in Flexible Tools of Political Control

Report by Alan Mayne, SGR

The workshop examined some recent developments in 'non-lethal' weapons, coming out of the US nuclear weapons laboratories of Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge. These weapons are not actually non-lethal, only less lethal. Their technology lays people open to be  killed after being restrained. Steve Wright works for Omega, linked to Amnesty International. He analysed some human rights implications of 'non-lethal' weapons and refuted the argument that they only provide modern tools for law enforcement. Using US and British cases, he discussed the flawed research on which some of these weapons were based, and the role of 'white-collar mercenaries' in business and universities in advancing a new science and technology of suppression. The main users of the weapons were the police and military. It was dangerous that they would be very easy to obtain, and be produced by organisations not directly controlled by governments. Someone in the workshop related a very traumatic experience of attack by one of the weapons. Steve can provide information about them, via the SGR Office. He said that a technical document was available to the European Parliament. There was an interesting discussion about the issues raised in the workshop, in the final plenary session of the conference.