DISARMAMENT: U.N. To Seek Transparency from Arms Producers

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 9 1995 (IPS) - The United Nations will try to convince the world’s arms manufacturers to reveal some of their most well-kept secrets: what they produce and how much they produce.

A resolution, currently being discussed here, calls for an expansion of the present U.N. Register of Conventional Arms to include a breakdown of the fighter planes, warships, missiles, battle tanks and artillery produced by each country.

The resolution, which has the backing of more than 79 countries, is being supported by the North and the South.

“A growing number of states agree that the Register will become more complete and useful by covering military stocks and procurement from national production,” Ambassador Jaap Ramaker of the Netherlands told delegates here Wednesday.

The present Register, established by the General Assembly in 1991, covers only the imports and exports of seven categories of weapons systems: fighter planes, helicopters, warships, missiles, battle tanks, armored combat vehicles and large calibre artillery.

The Register is skewed because it excludes billions of dollars worth of military equipment purchased locally from domestic arms manufacturers for deployment by national armies.

The Netherlands, which is leading the campaign for an expanded Arms Register, is getting support from some of the world’s major arms producers, including the U.S., France, Russia, Britain, Germany and Italy.

All of these arms producers are cosponsoring the resolution which is expected to go before the General Assembly in late November.

The resolution urges all member states “to provide data on their imports and exports of arms, as well as on information regarding their military holdings and procurement.”

Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali is one of the strongest advocates of an expanded Register.

“If the Register is to achieve its full potential, participation in it needs to be increased, and the Register expanded in scope,” he said.

A 26-member panel of North-South experts, however, failed to reach agreement last year on widening the scope of the Register.

The Group, chaired by the Netherlands, is expected to meet again in 1997 to review the operation of the Register and “its further development.”

In a letter to the Secretary-General in April, Britain regretted that the Group failed to reach consensus on the expansion of the Register.

“The United Kingdom believes that the inclusion of this information (procurement from national production) would increase the effectiveness of the Register in identifying destabilizing accumulations of conventional arms and hence in building confidence.”

China and Israel, two of the world’s relatively big arms producers, are not among the cosponsors of the resolution.

Some major Third World arms producers, including Egypt, India, Indonesia and Pakistan, have declined to cosponsor the resolution.

In May, the 15-member European Union (EU) said “it believes that the inclusion of data on military holdings and procurement through national production will make the Register more complete and useful.”

“Accordingly, the European Union invites states members of the United Nations to submit data on their military holdings and procurement through national production,” it said.

The EU also said that it is convinced that “transparency in armaments is an important factor in creating an atmosphere of confidence between states, particularly at the regional level.”

Meanwhile some of the world’s major arms buyers continue to boycott the annual Arms Register.

In the latest Register released last week, only 84 of the 185 member states disclosed their arms transactions.

The major buyers who have opted out of the Register include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Iran, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.