DISARMAMENT: G-8 Urged to Curb Traffic in Small Arms

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, May 5 1998 (IPS) - U.N. officials and several human- rights and disarmament groups are pressing the Group of Eight (G- 8) industrialised nations to introduce measures at their summit this month to restrict both the legal and illicit world arms traffic.

The G-8 leaders – who meet in Birmingham, England May 15-17 – already have agreed to consider a “stronger international regime for import and licensing of firearms” as part of an “international instrument” to counter illegal arms trafficking.

Some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) estimate that illegal trafficking accounts for as much as half of all light weapons transfers worldwide. According to the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), a disarmament group operating from London and Washington, such traffic has contributed to the use of small arms as the primary weapons in all 49 international conflicts reported in 1995, and as the only military equipment in 46 of them.

For those favoring disarmament, however, the push by several G-8 nations – most notably Canada and the United States – to curb the illicit weapons trade is not enough. In particular, BASIC argues, G-8 countries account for 90 percent of licit arms sales – which, the group adds, is often the starting point even for illegal trafficking.

“Controls on illicit weapons in a crime context will not be enough,” Carol Bellamy, the executive director of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said Tuesday. “After all, most illegal weapons were first traded legally.”

A large part of the problem, says Bellamy, is the easy availability, whether throught legal or illicit means, of cheap weapons. In Uganda, AK-47 rifle can be bought for the price of a chicken, while “in Mozambique, a rifle can be traded for a box or two of maize.”

“The illicit traffic in light weapons is only one aspect of the problem,” argues Joost Hiltermann, director of the arms division of Human Rights Watch (HRW). “It is mainly governments that supply weapons, overtly or covertly, to clients that abuse human rights, and it is governments that fail to prohibit private arms sales to such clients.”

As a result, groups like BASIC and HRW have argued in recent weeks, the G-8 countries meeting in Birmingham should try to counter the flow of legal arms traffic by seeking the destruction of seized arms stockpiles and incorporating human rights concerns into the definition of illegal arms transfers, among other steps.

Some countries unilaterally have adopted efforts to destroy arms stockpiles. Recently, South African police melted down 20 tonnes of firearms and designated the metal left from the process to be used for vehicle parts, noted Jean du Preex, counsellor for South Africa’s U.N. mission.

Few U.N. diplomats, however, believe that a campaign against all small arms traffic is achievable, and many urge focusing instead on only the illegal transfers.

“We have to be more realistic,” argued Andras Vamos-Goldman, counsellor to Canada’s U.N. mission. “It is probably easier to start in the illicit trade than in the licit trade.”

Canada and the United States have joined in an Inter-American Convention, signed last November by the Organisation of American States (OAS), to monitor arms sales more carefully and prevent illicit diversions of weapons. The White House is now urging adoption of a similar instrument by the G-8.

The OAS convention, among other steps, asks weapons importing nations to approve formally of the movement of weapons and to mark the weapons, so that their travel can be traced after any initial transfer. “It means that when weapons get diverted, and some invariably do, they can be traced back to the last seller,” U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Jonathan Winer declared recently.

Arms control supporters hail such measures as important initial steps in the campaign against weapons trafficking. But they are also cautious of the uphill struggle that is being waged over small arms.

Oxfam-Great Britain, the British charity, in a report last month accused the British government of selling small arms to more than 100 countries. “Not only are current controls inadequate, but…information held is inaccurate and a poor foundation on which to build the greater (arms) controls advocated by the current (British) government,” Oxfam-GB Director David Bryer wrote in the report, titled ‘Small Arms, Wrong Hands’.

Officials clearly hope that the G-8 – which comprises Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United States and Canada – will rally behind an effective crackdown on at least illegal transfers. However, du Preez cautions, “if the major powers in the world do not play ball, we will be performing an exercise in futility.”