Arms and peace

What is unethical about arms production and trade?

According to the Campaign against Arms Trade, Manchester University is doing something wrong by holding shares in BAE Systems ("College pension funds put your money where your ethics are", THES, July 28).

How about arms and armies keeping the peace, preventing conflict and fighting in such places as Kosovo and Sierra Leone and engaging with the United Nations?

It is unethical when arms are used for suppression and repression (East Timor) but not always.

G. P. H. L. De Silva

Windsor

Berkshire