Europe, Headlines, Human Rights

DISARMAMENT-BALKANS: A Lottery for Safer Surroundings

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Nov 17 2006 (IPS) - An unusual lottery is taking place this month in Bosnia, where the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is offering motor scooters and kitchen appliances to individuals who hand over to the authorities any weapons they have been keeping illegally in their homes.

“According to our survey, an incredible number – 1,000 deaths per year – happen through the abuse and mishandling of small arms and weapons in Bosnia,” UNDP country representative Stefan Priesner told local media. “That means that a lot more people die from weapons than from landmines, which is a huge security problem” he added.

The UNDP statistics, which include both legal and illegal arms possession, state that 19 percent of the civilian population in Bosnia owns weapons, most of them illegally. The total reaches 500,000 in a country of some 3.8 million people.

Bosnia-Herzegovina went through a bloody war fought between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs that claimed more than 100,000 lives in the 1992-95 period.

Earlier this year, Bosnia saw a major action by the international peacekeepers that remain there. Dubbed “Harvest”, it entailed gathering up all kinds of illegal stockpiles of weapons and ammunition.

In a matter of months, more than 30,000 hand grenades, 9,000 small weapons and 200 kilos of explosives were collected. “Together with 500,000 rounds of ammunition this was enough to arm a brigade,” Julio Garcia from European Forces (EUFOR) in Bosnia commented at the time.

Since 1998, peacekeepers have collected about 52,000 small arms, 38,500 landmines, over 225,000 hand grenades, about 15.5 million rounds of ammunition, 33 tonnes of explosives, and even a couple of tanks, according to locally available statistics.

The UNDP and local authorities estimate there are 350,000 tonnes of surplus ammunition in Bosnia that could take more than 20 years to eradicate.

But Bosnia is not the only place in the Balkans where both legal and illegal weapons are an issue.

A recent UNDP study entitled “A house is not a home without a gun”, about tiny Montenegro and its population of 650,000, showed that 13.5 percent of its people legally owned small arms.

Montenegro tops the list of former Yugoslav nations in this area, followed by Serbia and Bosnia, while 6.5 percent of Croats, 5.2 of Macedonians, 4.2 of Kosovars and 41. of Slovenes legally possess arms.

“It’s usually said that there is a tradition of possessing arms in the Balkans,” military analyst Aleksandar Radic told IPS. “But the numbers were significantly smaller in the decades following World War II, with hunting rifles or trophy weapons being the favourites. However, the wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia re-introduced weapons to the scene and the consequences will be felt for decades.”

In Serbia, gunshots have become the trademark of many events, with firing automatic weapons into the air being the sign of joy during weddings; the same goes for outdoor New Year celebrations, or when a popular basketball, water polo or volleyball team wins gold medals in international competition.

Ahead of each New Year’s Eve, Belgrade police issues warnings to the public to refrain from firing weapons, as on many occasions this has led to deaths of innocent people, killed in their homes by stray bullets.

Every year, dozens of children in the Balkans fall victim when mishandling their parents’ improperly kept guns.

Veterans of the wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia on all sides may pick up their weapons in family feuds, which frequently means mass killings. They even use their left-over hand grenades to blow themselves up in public, as many suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

It comes down to one point, military analyst Radic said: “Illegal or legal, arms kill, and much should be done to eliminate them, which is almost an impossible task.”

However, small weapons are not the only in Serbia. Seven years after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) heavily bombed the country, unexploded bombs and rockets are being found all over.

Several unexploded cluster bombs were discovered last month on the roof of an elementary school in the southern city of Nis.

The school was closed for reconstruction when the workers saw the cluster bombs on its flat roof, which was to be dismantled. On May 16, 1999, 16 people were killed in Nis when NATO aircraft dropped cluster bombs near an open air market in broad daylight.

An area of the Kopaonik ski resort in southern Serbia was only recently open to the public after it was cleared of unexploded NATO cluster bombs.

According to military expert Petar Mihajlovic, there are still 43 locations in Serbia that are to be decommissioned. They contain at least 60 NATO heavy bombs or missiles, the exact types yet to be identified.