Thursday, 1 August – This afternoon activists from the No Border Camp joined with Stop the War on Migrants to do a flyer action at the head office of the Dutch Red Cross in The Hague. We informed personnel of the cooperation of the International Red Cross with the Airbus Foundation. This foundation is part of the arms giant Airbus, which shamelessly profits from arms exports to countries at war, with internal conflict, dictatorships and human rights abusers. Thereby fueling reasons people have to flee. Airbus then again profits from selling border security equipment to stop the resulting refugees at the borders of Europe and beyond. Airbus not only profits from the current militarisation of borders but also actively lobbys for this at a European level. The cooperation with Red Cross, which consists of such things as making aircraft available for transport of relief supplies to refugee camps, seems to be nothing more than a cheap attempt to polish its image by Airbus.

Most employees leaving the office were happy to take a flyer with more explanation and a call out to discuss this within the organisation. A couple of weeks ago we have written a letter to the Dutch Red Cross, based on this opinion article, with the request to stop the cooperation with Airbus.

A spokesperson from the Red Cross told us today that they have contacted the International Red Cross to look into the cooperation with Airbus and that they are now reconsidering this. We hope that the Red Cross will break their ties with Airbus and otherwise we will be back for more action.