Three East Timorese refugees took part in further nonviolent resistance to British weapons exports to Indonesia at the beginning of May, painting various half-assembled armoured vehicles with the message, "NOT FOR EXPORT TO INDONESIA."

In the early hours of Monday May 5th, accompanied by seven British activists, they used step-ladders to scale the fence at Glover-Webb's Hamble factory near Southampton. Glover-Webb is exporting three hundred Tactica armoured personnel carriers, patrol vehicles and water cannons to Indonesia. Despite undisputed evidence that such vehicles were used for internal repression in Indonesia last year, the British goverment, both in its Conservative and now "New Labour" incarnations, has so far persisted in breaking its own export guidelines by going ahead with the deal.

Calling themselves the "Citizens' Arms Control Group," they fly-posted and painted all the vehicles they found, before being arrested on suspicion of burglary. At Southampton police station, police officers were visibly disturbed by the East Timorese's stories of human rights abuses in Indonesian-occupied East Timor. After investigations by immigration officials, the three refugees were released without charge. The other seven activists were bailed to report back to the police station in September, a request they intend to decline.

In a statement issued by the group, they said they were acting to "uphold international agreements on arms control, as Britain's previous government refused to comply with such standards." Increasingly, both in anti-arms trade and anti-nuclear weapons actions, activists are describing themselves as the law-enforcers and governments and companies as the criminals and law-breakers.

This is the second action this year that East Timorese activists have taken part in at British weapons sites. On Easter Monday four refugees and four Merseyside activists entered British Aerospace's Warton site, where Hawk ground attack aircraft are finally assembled, and held an East liturgy near the runway. All four East Timorese employed a policy of total non-cooperation, and were eventually, and surprisingly, released on unconditional bail-and told they would be informed of a trial date (despite the fact that the police know neither their names nor their addresses).

The newly elected British government has been making noises about introducing "ethical standards" into its foreign policy, but it remains to be seen if they will risk the wrath of British weapons producers, especially British Aerospace, by placing embargoes on weapons exports to such enriching customers as the Indonesian regime. The resistance looks set to continue.