Lockheed Martin’s Dirty Secret

Croydon council pension funds has investments in over 25 arms companies. This includes investing over £1.2 million in Lockheed Martin – the world’s largest arms manufacture.

Lockheed Martin is infamous for its F-16 and F-35 fighter aircraft, which it describes as the “most lethal fighter jet in the world”. It has been extensively used by Israel in its genocide in Gaza – “enabling the dropping of 85,000 tons of bombs [exceeding the amount of explosives used in World War II], most of them unguided, killing and wounding more than 179,411 Palestinians and devastating Gaza” (UNHRC report June 2025), as well as in a litany of war crimes in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and now Iran. On its website it acknowledges its central role in the slaughter: “Lockheed Martin is proud of the significant role it has fulfilled in the security of the State of Israel.”

But what is not as well know – Lockheed Martin’s dirty secret – is Lockheed Martin central role in the production of outlawed cluster munitions.

Cluster Munitions

Cluster munitions warhead consist of a shell containing hundreds of bomblets. The shell explodes above the ground, randomly scattering the bomblets over a wide area. The bomblets are designed to explode on contact with the ground – creating a saturated indiscriminate killing zone larger in size than 4 football pitches (200m diameter). Often the bomblets fail to explode and become de facto land mines, killing civilians for decades to come.

Unsurprisingly 93% of casualties are civilians, children making up nearly half (from unexploded bomblets which resemble toys).

One Million Unexploded Bomblets

US supplied cluster munitions used by Israel in Lebanon in 2006, in just 72 hours, resulted in an estimated one million unexploded bomblets scattered across southern Lebanon. To this day they are claiming the lives of children.

Zahra's Story

Zahra Hussein Soufan, 12, Southern Lebanon

(Photo Credit: Alison Locke, https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0802/S00280.htm)

Jwaia, Zahra’s mother: “It was the middle of Ramadan and we were having our evening meal. My daughter was going out afterwards to a religious recital. Just after she left we heard a loud bang. Her sister had gone out to play and found something like a toy in the tangerine orchard. Zahra said it was shaped like a colouring box with a kind of pyramid on top”

Zahra: “My sister found it and gave it to me. As I took it from her it fell on the ground and when I picked it up it blew up and hurt my hand. I fell down on the ground and my friends carried me home. My mum took me to the doctor and he said my hand had to be cut off. My mum started crying so they took me to the hospital and did an operation.

“It was very loud when it went off. It burst my ears. I couldn’t hear much afterwards. My sister was with me. She got shrapnel in her finger and she couldn’t hear.

“It hurts a lot and it always feels cold. I keep having to warm it up.

“I can’t play. I don’t go out. I used to have fun with my friends. But I can’t play with them anymore. They keep teasing me about my fingers and they tease me about my thumb – that it won’t grow back. I just want my thumb to grow back and my hand to be ok. That’s all.”

Illegal

Cluster munitions are illegal because they cause unacceptable harm to civilians due to their indiscriminate area effect, and unexploded ordnance risks. Over 120 countries, including the UK, are signatories to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The convention prohibits all use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions. Further it prohibits assistance, encouragement or inducement of these activities.

The US and Israel have refused to sign the convention, and continue to manufacture and use cluster munitions. Under Trump even the limited restrictions the US had imposed on cluster munition production and use were scrapped.

At least 38 signatories, including the UK, have specifically stated that investments in cluster munitions production is a form of assistance that is prohibited by the convention (Cluster Munitions Monitor 2024).

Elbit

Threatened with divestment by European financial institutions, Israel’s cluster munitions manufacture Elbit Systems claimed it had “discontinued production, sales and deliveries” of cluster munitions in October 2020. Yet in December 2022 Israeli-made cluster munition mortar projectiles were photographed in the possession of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Lockheed Martin

One of the major producers of illegal cluster munitions in the world is Lockheed Martin. Their patented delivery system for these outlawed munitions is the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) which can fire 12 cluster munitions rockets – approximately 11,400 bomblets, the size of baseballs, in less than 60 seconds at ranges exceeding 165km.

A new “lethality-enhanced” version randomly scatters 182,000 deadly diamonds shaped tungsten fragments per rocket – thats over 2 million in less than 60 seconds. It has a much larger kill area than traditional cluster munitions, and is more efficient at killing as there are no dud bomblets. This Lockheed Martin claims this makes them more humane. They don’t label them as cluster munitions and claim they have stopped the production of cluster munitions. Even if we ignore their latest “lethality enhanced” war heads, evidence shows they are still very much in the cluster munitions business through their contracts for the maintenance, support and upgrading of the huge existing stockpiles of cluster munitions and launchers, ensuring they are ready for use.

The Cluster Munition Monitor report 2024 states that “the US is developing and producing several replacements for cluster munitions that may fail to meet the submunition reliability policy of its own Department of Defense, and that may still fall under the definition of cluster munitions prohibited under the convention”, and continues to lists both US and Israel as “Current Producers” of cluster munitions.

The US has recently provided Ukraine with Lockheed Martin MLRS launchers along with cluster munitions. This was condemned by NATO signatories of the convention, including the UK government. In Ukraine cluster munitions have been used by both sides in densely populated areas. Jay Malave, the chief financial officer for Lockheed Martin boasted to investors that the Ukraine War is fueling “$10 billion of opportunities” for Lockheed Martin.

The US has also sent cluster munitions to Israel in at least two shipments starting Oct 2023, alongside other weapons like Lockheed Martin’s lethal Hellfire missiles which are fired on Gaza from Apache Attack Helicopters (NBC news).

Lockheed Martin Blacklisted

11 states have enacted legislation that explicitly prohibits investments in cluster munitions.

Many signatory countries across the world have placed Lockheed Martin on black lists for exclusion from pension fund investments due to their links to illegal cluster munitions.

These include pension funds in Australia, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

In the UK, Merseyside Pension Fund – one of the largest pooled local government pension funds, with assets worth over £10 billion representing 5 councils, just a few weeks ago divested from Lockheed Martin. They have blacklisting it from all investments including passive funds due to its involvement in the production of cluster munitions.

Corporate War Crimes

Just this month a A United Nations report titled “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide” accuses pension fund managers of participating in an “economy of genocide” in Gaza via their investments in guilty companies. It specifically mentions investments in Lockheed Martin and warns that “important precedents exist. The post Holocaust industrialists’ trials, such as the I.G. Farben trial, laid the groundwork for recognizing the international criminal responsibility of corporate executives for participation in international crimes.”

Last year the United Nations Human Rights Council (20th June 2024) warned financial institutions, including pension funds, that investment in companies providing Israel with weapons or military technology could lead to “repercussions for complicity in potential atrocity crimes.”

‘Atrocity crimes’ refer to the three legally defined international crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Croydon - Complicity In Crimes Against Humanity

This begs the question, why has Croydon council pension invested £1.2million in these illegal weapons which our government has condemned and outlawed, which the UN says may make our council complicit in “crimes against humanity”?

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