I. The human costs of unrestrained arms transfers and the response to date

Health effects of weapons - issues and ICRC experience

By Dr David Meddings, Epidemiologist, Medical Division, ICRC, Geneva

Two recent studies by the ICRC's medical division were presented, which examined the occurrence of weapons injuries in settings with high levels of weapons availability.

Northwestern Cambodia, 1994-95

This study analysed both the circumstances surrounding injury, and the combatant status of people injured by weapons in northwestern Cambodia over a 12 month period.

Cambodia's combatant factions signed peace accords in October 1991, clearing the way for the arrival of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). By October 1992, UNTAC was supposed to have disarmed and demobilized 70% of Cambodia's combatant factions. In November 1992 - with an estimated 25-50% of troops disarmed - UNTAC announced it could not meet its disarmament objectives due to non-compliance of some of the factions.

Five months following UNTAC's departure, a study was conducted at Mongkol Borei hospital in northwestern Cambodia in order to characterise who was being injured by weapons and under what circumstances. Mongkol Borei hospital was the principal surgical facility in the region, and had been supported by the ICRC since 1990.

Methodology

From March 1994 to February 1995 all people with weapons injuries admitted to Mongkol Borei hospital were interviewed. Information obtained included whether the person was a combatant, the type of weapon with which the injury was inflicted, and a description of the circumstances surrounding the injury. People with weapons injuries were then classified into four groups separated along two broad axes. Firstly, whether their injury was sustained in inter-factional combat or not (giving rise to the categories of 'combat-related' and 'non-combat' injuries), and secondly, whether they were combatants or not (giving rise to 'civilian' or 'military' injuries). People with combat-related injuries were defined as those injured as a direct result of inter-factional fighting or from stepping on a land mine. Injuries sustained in all other contexts (e.g. banditry, interpersonal violence, etc.) were defined as non-combat injuries.

The study also compared occurrence of weapons injury during the study period with that observed preceding UNTAC's arrival and during the UNTAC period. To do this, annual incidence rates of weapons injury were calculated using population figures for the province and historical data providing monthly admissions to Mongkol Borei hospital from 1991 to 1995.

Results

863 people sustained weapons injuries and were admitted to Mongkol Borei during the study period. Despite an 18% increase in the provincial population, mean annual and seasonally- adjusted mean annual incidence of weapons injuries were higher during the study period than during the period preceding UNTAC`s arrival.

The study allowed for the following further characterisation of this level of weapons injury:

 

•Nearly one in three people injured by weapons had not sustained their injury as a direct result of combat (e.g. had sustained non-combat injuries).

•Intentional firearm injuries affecting civilians was by far the largest category of non-combat injury.

•Civilians accounted for 71% of people who sustained non-combat injuries, 42% of people who sustained combat-related injuries, and 51% of people who sustained injuries of either type.

•59% of people injured by weapons were either civilians, did not sustain their injuries as a direct result of inter-factional fighting, or both.

•37% of all people injured by weapons were injured by mines.

•78% of civilians who sustained combat-related injuries requiring an act of volition (e.g. all combat-related injuries excluding those due to mines) were injured by fragmenting munitions. By contrast, combat-related injuries requiring an act of volition amongst military personnel were split between those due to firearms (60%) and those due to fragmenting munitions (38%).

This study provides some insight into the scope of civilian weapons injury and demonstrates that the likelihood of civilian injury is greater in non-combat contexts. Injuries inflicted in non-combat contexts account for a significant component of all weapons injuries. There are very different implications for addressing the issue of civilian injury based on whether one considers combat-related or non-combat contexts. In combat-related contexts, the principal problem is one of inappropriate use of fragmenting munition weapons. Combatants need to receive better training in both the use of these weapons, and the rights of protection of civilian populations under international humanitarian law. Civilians who sustain their injuries in non-combat contexts are most likely to have been intentionally injured with firearms. Here the response needs to squarely address the issue of weapons availability.

These findings bolster previous studies concluding that disarmament and the decomissioning of weapons are essential to curbing social violence and providing the conditions requisite for social development. They also underline the importance of considering the implications of weapons availability and transfer.

Weapons injuries during conflict and post-conflict periods

A second analysis of weapons injuries has recently been published in a major medical journal. The objective was to assess the relative frequency of weapons injuries during and after periods of conflict in the absence of disarmament.

The study setting was a region situated within a country with an ongoing civil war. This region had been subject to protracted conflict between rival combatant groups, but by March 1995 had come under the uncontested control of a single faction which subsequently went on to assert control over much of the rest of the country. This military transition was accompanied by an increasing number of returning refugees, a number of humanitarian organisations beginning programs of support, and a shift in the zones of active conflict shifted to areas hundreds of kilometres away from the study region. There was clearly no attempt at mass disarmament.

ICRC has provided surgical care to people injured by weapons from this region since 1983. Reasons of security and neutrality for continuing ICRC operations preclude identification of the region concerned.

Methodology

The study consisted of a retrospective analysis of the ICRC war wounded database, which began in 1991. The rates of weapons injury for the region were compared between the 50 month period of January 1991 to March 1995 and the 18 month period of September 1995 to March 1997. These two periods were labelled the 'conflict' and 'post-conflict' periods respectively. All people injured by weapons during either the conflict or post-conflict periods and admitted to hospital within 24 hours were included in the study. Population estimates for the region were used to account for population growth over the study period.

Results

A total of 2,332 people were wounded by weapons during the study period, and the mean monthly admission rate for weapons injuries decreased by only 23% between the conflict and post-conflict periods. After controlling for population growth, the annual incidence of weapons injuries decreased by 33% between conflict and post-conflict periods. Mortality rates for weapons injuries increased during the post-conflict period from 2.5% to 6.1%. This increase was of such magnitude that, despite the decline in weapons injuries, more people died per month from weapons injuries during the post-conflict period. The increased mortality likely relates, at least in part, to shorter delays in reaching hospital during the post-conflict period. However, other potential explanatory mechanisms include the laying of new mines with a higher explosive charge, and the resettlement of new areas where mines of a higher explosive charge had previously been laid.

This study demonstrates that the level of weapons injury observed during a period where one faction exerted uncontested control over the region was only somewhat lower than that observed during a period of armed conflict. It is important to note that much of this injury was not related to landmines but to the use of weapons which require an act of volition on the part of the user (e.g. firearms, mortars etc.). The implication is that the continued availability of weapons provides a means to resolve differences through armed violence. Viewed in the context of the other issues addressed here, these findings support the contention that weapons availability poses significant risks to societies attempting to emerge from the aftermath of an armed conflict.

Experience of ICRC Field Personnel

The presentation also included results from a recent survey which was undertaken to examine the perceptions and experiences of a number of senior ICRC field personnel regarding the issues of weapons availability and violations of international humanitarian law or deterioration in the situation of civilians. The survey used a questionnaire which elicited information concerning weapons availability, and the effect of this on ICRC operations and civilian populations. Respondents were asked to provide information for the country and time period where they had spent their most recent mission.

Thirty-four people completed the questionnaire. Five respondents completed additional questionnaires based on their experiences during other missions, bringing the total number of missions for which data was reported to 41. Respondents had an average of 8 years ICRC field experience, and 4 years headquarter experience.

The missions upon which the survey information is based lasted an average of 13 months and took place between late 1989 and early 1998. The geographic regions in which the missions were spent reflected ICRC’s overall operations - 16 of the missions took place in Africa, 10 in Asia, 5 each in Eurasia and Western Europe, 3 in the Middle East, and 2 in Latin America. Thirty-two of the missions were spent in situations described by the respondents as armed conflict, whereas nine took place in situations described as post-conflict. In these 9 post-conflict situations, the degree of social violence was characterised as being ‘high’ by five respondents, ‘moderate’ by three, and ‘little or no’ by one. It is therefore important to note that the settings for which data was being collected in this survey were settings where the ICRC was operational, and usually a context of armed conflict. Consequently, the results reflect this particular type of setting and may not be generalisable to settings without armed conflict.

The detailed findings of the survey will not be presented here. However, the survey revealed broad consensus amongst those surveyed in relation to a number of important issues, leading to the following general conclusions:

 

•Weaponry has diffused throughout the societies examined to an appreciable extent. Assault rifles are the most common weapon type to be found across various segments of society, and are the weapon believed by most respondents to be the principal cause of civilian death and injury.

•ICRC operations are frequently suspended or delayed due to security threats, and use of weapons in incidents involving either local or expatriate ICRC personnel is common.

The majority of respondents believed weapons availability negatively affected the safety and security of civilians, and that there was a relationship between weapons availabililty and both violations of international humanitarian law and deterioration of the situation of civilians during or after armed conflict.

Case study: southern Africa

By Jakkie Potgieter, Senior Field Researcher, Arms Management Programme, Institute for Security Studies, South Africa

Introduction

The glut of weapons, contained politically by the realities of the Cold War’s international context, was freed from its constraints as a direct result of the changing international environment. At a time of this change, when non-state became as primary as state actors and when alternative vehicles -- often illegal-- for interactions multiplied, Southern Africa was faced with extensive stockpiles of unused weapons, and even greater stockpiles of weapons which were used and then circulated by secondary or tertiary actors to other conflict areas in ever widening circles of distribution.

Internationally emerging new actors (both legal and criminal), and traditional state actors of the cold war era --many of which became new democracies in the 1990s-- found themselves alone but financially strapped and, therefore, did not place a big emphasis on the conversion of their military industries because they were reluctant to put a stop to an industry that provided revenue and employment to many at a time when there was no recognisable enemy. If anything, there was an incentive to export weapons widely because these were available and because they were not needed in vast quantities for home defence anymore. If this principle applied to industrialised countries in the nineties, it also applied to weaker developing nation-states in Southern Africa, which were recovering from decades of internal struggles, wars of liberation, and civil wars. In the latter case, weapons were not so much owned by states but by individuals and gangs who then started trading them for money, food, or minor commodities.

Deprived from enemy images and clear political direction, and utilised by weak state actors and by emerging non-state organisations, such as trans-national criminal cartels, light weapons flowed uncontrolled and uncontrollable from region to region. In Africa these uncontrollable flows have reached alarming proportions and have begun to figure in various priority agendas across the region. Nevertheless, in Africa, the national capacity to control and reduce these flows depends on many variables: the lack of sufficient verifiable information on the extent of the problem in national territories which are vast and which include long porous borders; the lack of human and financial resources to cover the areas and the issue; the lack of national inter-agency co-ordination structures in the fight against firearm abundance of both the licit and the illicit trade; the lack of capacity both technical and human to grapple with the issue even if the will and the co-ordination are present; the pervading presence of corruption; and finally, the impossibility of isolated action unless neighbouring states share the same willingness and means to fight against weapons proliferation in their regions(s).

Because the issue of small arms proliferation in Southern Africa is both a product of the legacy of the past, and of the new demand for arms for specific political, security, and criminal purposes, the possibilities for control and reduction must necessarily be multi-faceted, addressing not only the reduction in local demand but also the reduction of existing stocks (legal and illegal) circulating in the region. Both tasks are monumental and cannot be accomplished by any one actor alone.

The role of international organisations, both governmental and non-governmental, in weapons control depends largely on the function of each individual organisation. Thus, some organisations are well positioned to place the issue on the agenda, and some are positioned to implement agenda recommendations. Unfortunately, not all organisations have the capacity to do both. For this reason, there is a third role for internationally-driven processes on the issue of arms control, that of assisting organisations either in placing the item in their agendas, and/or assisting them in the implementation of practical actions to stem the flows. This refers not only to global initiatives and actors such as the United Nations or the ICRC but also regional initiatives which could influence the development of bi-regional co-operation and consultation mechanisms to combat illicit small arms trafficking, among others).

The Impact

A culture of violence has begun to emerge in the region and democracy and development are threatened as a result. The creation of a culture of violence as a direct consequence of the increase in availability of small arms and light weapons is to be found in many walks of life. Examples touch upon such diverse elements as demobilised soldiers, refugees and other migrant communities, urban populations and rural communities. In all of these cases, the easy availability of weapons has turned the people to violence.

A. Demobilised soldiers

One of the most traditionally violent element of society, demobilised soldiers --which in some cases are just children— have only one skill and only one livelihood: the gun. Ineffectual quartering and demobilisation during peace processes has often led entire platoons to defect and transfer their military structure to crime. In Angola, the countryside between Luanda and Cuito and the coastal strip tying Luanda to Benguela and Namibe is terrorised by such armed and militarily structured groups. In situations such as this, it is insufficient to just inform people that they are no longer in the service of an army. Without job alternatives, retraining, adequate compensation, and disarmament, men and boys will hold on to their guns and utilise them as an unlimited source of wealth and power, not for ideological purposes but for personal gain. In time, the activities of criminal demobilised soldiers will lead to the creation of uncontrolled living spaces where not even relief operators will dare to work. The clash between these armed groups and rural communities is perhaps the worst type of emerging conflict. It has led otherwise innocent villagers to arm themselves in self-defence and to acquire a culture of intolerance towards foreigners. The results of this intolerance are rife in most of Africa and affect very much social patterns, from the creation of vigilantism at one end of the social spectrum to the downright massacre of economic and political refugees on the other. In this case, arms and military skills without proper controls and regulations can lead to entire regions laid to waste, the abuse and enslavement of local peoples, the proliferation of illegal trading centres for ammunition and weapons vis-a-vis endangered species, drugs and smuggled goods, and the deterioration of the nation-state even further. In such a society, there is no place for education or tolerance and the abuse of international humanitarian law is constant.

B. Refugees and displaced people

An element drastically different from that of demobilised soldiers is that of refugee communities. When situations in the rural countryside become untenable by the abuse of power in the hands of a few or for other survival imperatives, the first migration pattern targets the urban areas as a source of security and of opportunity. The flooding of cities with migrant communities leads to an increase in crime, repression, and intolerance between locals and newcomers. When this new source of income and security becomes sterile and dangerous, the second enlarged migration pattern takes the refugee community abroad. As the refugee progresses from one bad situation to a worse one, he or she develops the skills for survival which are often associated with the possession, trading and use of guns. It also leads to the need to develop a micro-enterprise for military supplies: home-made guns when there is a monopoly of the actual ones, or home-made ammunition when the real one cannot be easily found. Thugs and leaders of groups sustain their leadership ‘skills’ by force and, more often than not, drive a large group of innocents as if they were cattle since they seek anonymity and impunity in their midst (as Hutu rebels hiding among Hutu refugees in Zaire). In traditional societies, force might have signified strength or the ability for combat with traditional weapons such as spears, sticks, and knives. Today, force and power are held by those who own the most efficient and deadly weapon without having to put their own security at risk. Light weapons and small arms distort the elements of risk associated with traditional conflict patterns. It is not necessary to seek an enemy or challenge him, it is only necessary to pull the trigger and see him die.

In the society of refugees, the introduction of guns serves many purposes and changes the mentality of people whether in an individual basis or a communal one. Individually, refugees who dare to leave everything behind and walk towards a new future, will not take skills or possessions with them. Often they have none. If they had wealth in the shape of cattle, money or goods, these would be stolen on the way. If they have a gun they can use it for self-protection first and then transform it into cash to start their new life across the border or in a major city. They can also use it for a livelihood if no employment is found, robbing from their new neighbours to survive. This will naturally increase distrust and a desire for revenge in affected communities which ultimately leads to intolerance and the proliferation of weapons for self defence, so that even if weapons are not easily accessible, they become prime property and therefore people will rob gun owners of their guns. The first casualty of the individual migrant armed with a gun is the solidarity between peoples and the humane treatment of weakened groups. Communally, explosions of violence and random killings can lead to massive exodus of people as happened in the Great Lakes region of Africa. If the Rwanda genocide can be explained from the point of view of ethnic tension and overpopulation, the instruments for eradication of entire communities went over and beyond the use of traditional weapons. If killings started under one construct, they were maintained with another. After three years, the main element for maintenance of order, power and the principal instrument to cause death is the gun. This can clearly be seen in the situation of refugees in Zaire and Zambia.

C. Rural Communities

Urban populations and rural communities, even if they succeed in not being dislodged by events around them are profoundly affected by gun-related violence. Peace in Mozambique without adequate disarmament and demobilisation structures, originated a massive influx of guns across borders, flowing to the North to feed the ethnic conflict in the Great Lakes region and to the South to feed the growing black markets of Southern Africa with guns.

If at first the flood of weapons was tied to individuals selling one weapon for food or commodities, soon the weapons smuggling business became organised. The main groups to handle the business where a reflection on badly demobilised soldiers and poorly paid security officials. Since the border with South Africa was more heavily defended than that of other countries, the effects of the gun trading businesses have been more serious in the rural communities of countries such as Swaziland. A traditionally peaceful rural community which lived of its cattle production, the Swaziland country bordering with Mozambique became quickly destabilized. Small villages along the border had traditionally protected their business with communal support groups. A group of young men of the village would patrol the cattle enclosures at night and, if a thief was found, he was beaten up as a means of deterring theft. Since the gun smuggling across borders started, guns from Mozambique are traded for money of for cattle and other goods from Swaziland. This means that cattle theft is up so that it can be traded for more and more weapons. This has profoundly changed the community directly in the path of the weapons smugglers. Today, there are no more village posses to deter sporadic theft. The posses stopped when the thief was seen to be armed with an AK-47. The villagers straddling the border today stay home at night, not venturing to cross paths known to be used by smugglers. By the same token, women stay at home since they have often been raped by smugglers and thieves when they ventured to collect water in the streams. More importantly, villagers save money to buy guns of their own since the only protection against an assault rifle is another assault rifle. But the community has not only suffered a change in cultural patterns as a direct result of increased availability of guns, it has also suffered a change of faith in the ability of their own security forces to protect them. Instead of there being more policemen and security forces patrolling the area, there are less. This is due to corruption of authority on the one hand, and to fear of loss of life and limb on the other. As a result of violence and distrust, traditional society is beginning to disintegrate and the law means only one thing: possession of a gun.

D. Urban Populations

For urban populations, a similar process is transforming societies. Since the increased availability of small arms in cities such as Maputo, Windhoek, Luanda, and Johannesburg, to name but a few, there is also an increase in the cities’violence, gangsterism, and intolerance. From the AK-47 violence of the "Taxi-Wars" in South Africa --which represent the degeneration of the concept of free enterprise and legal competition— to the pistol wielding thug in Maputo and Luanda, easy access to guns has reduced the power of the state to control violence, has led to the desertion of the inner city for the suburbs, and has increased the levels of random violence. But the urban gun-related violence phenomenon in itself also points to further erosion of societies at large. Above all it robs societies of hope and of belief in a common future, undermining efforts at development and progress. Hope in a common future could, in fact, be measured in levels of gun possession at any one time. The city of Luanda is a good example. By April 1997 a peace process seemed to have reached fruition in Angola and yet the people remain armed. At the end of the previous peace process in 1992, both warring parties reignited hostilities. At the time, the government of Luanda decided to arm its population --most of which were migrants from rural areas who had migrated seeking security in the great capital— more than half a million small arms were distributed among the civilian population in Luanda. Since peace was restored and a last peace process initiated, the government has been unsuccessful in recalling those weapons back. Only 500 guns have been recovered. The reason why the people cannot be convinced in surrendering the weapons is their insecurity related to the future. This is a case where weapons and weapons possession not only serve to degenerate cultures but to imperil their social future. This same process took place in Maputo at the height of the civil war and today, guns passed out at that time are still in the city or have made their way to fuel other conflicts such as those of the Great Lakes region or the disturbances in Kwa Zulu Natal between the two principal tribes in residence there.

Conclusion

The connection of despair, violence, and intolerance to the increased availability of small arms is becoming more apparent in the daily lives of entire populations. If one also would take into account further connections such as those between organized crime and guns, and between international relief organisations and guns, the international community would have no choice but to accept that the control and regulation of small arms and light weapons is of equal if not higher priority than arms control of a different kind. At the very least, the community should acknowledge that all conventional weapons issues are linked and that a solution to their proliferation, therefore, is also linked.

It is in such holistic views that solutions are to be found. Firstly, when looking at the linkage between the legal trade in conventional weapons system and the illegal proliferation of small arms and light weapons we notice that the former is considered national in character and international in consequence, while the latter is international in character and national in consequences. Secondly, when analysing the effects of increased availability of unregulated and uncontrolled small weapons on a national society we notice that the influx of guns change the value systems of individuals and societies as a whole, making them more --not less— insecure, as well as more violent. Thirdly, as long as there is a market for light weapons and small arms, there will always be a market for conventional weapons systems because small weapons destabilise societies, generating the need for increased protection and increased control, which --in turn— is reflected in higher military and security budgets. And finally, if light weapons are not controlled, the negative impact of their presence in societies will continue to produce intolerance, abuse, and death.

Discussion of presentations by Dr D. Meddings and J. Potgieter

Discussion revolved around the nature of the problem of arms availability (how best to define it, its economic aspects, etc.) and its magnitude. There were proposals on how best to address small arms proliferation and the scale on which such action should be taken. The potential and applicability of international humanitarian law were also considered.

A participant took issue with the term "post-conflict", his point being that a peace agreement worked out in a fancy hotel did not necessarily mean the end of conflict or of the potential for violence. Formal hostilities might cease, but the warring parties tended to hang on to their weapons, if only as an insurance policy. Military organizations were seldom demilitarized, armed groups seldom disarmed. Indeed, there was widespread failure to reintegrate former combatants into society and peace-time normality.

Another participant voiced agreement with David Meddings' contention that the extensive availability of small arms and light weapons was a public health issue. Governments should devote the same resources to dealing with it as they would to countering any other threat to public health. Governments levied taxes on tobacco and alcohol. Why not on small arms as well? This would constitute no more and no less than a traditional fiscal measure to promote public health. (Arguments based on morality would not work – the manufacturers were too well entrenched.) The revenue from such a tax could then be used like a sponge to soak up the small arms and light weapons with which the world was awash. Buying up surplus weapons would cost an infinitesimal fraction of Western military budgets. Indeed, why not involve the World Bank? If, as had been suggested, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons curtailed economic activity by an estimated 25% in the areas affected, what more promising project for the Bank than to invest the funds needed to wipe the market clean?

In southern Africa, there was simply not enough money available locally to buy up all the weapons on the market. On the positive side, however, now that apartheid had been eradicated, the way was clear for full cooperation between South Africa and its neighbours and, through the Organization of African Unity, with the entire continent.

One participant warned of the risk of engendering myths by focusing on internal conflicts in Third World countries. The figures he had heard quoted thus far in the proceedings sounded to him less dire than those applicable to the large US city in which he had been living for the past 10 years. In defining the problem and seeking solutions to it, where exactly was the line to be drawn in terms of international humanitarian law or in terms of the calibre of the weapons doing the damage? He defied anyone present to cite a single truly internal conflict anywhere in the world, including Ireland.

Where, asked another expert, should the line be drawn, for the purposes of applying international humanitarian law, between combatants in the traditional sense of the term and simple gangs of bandits? One problem for the ICRC these days was the collapse of State structures and the resulting lack of authorities, in any meaningful sense of the term, with whom the ICRC could deal.

The problem was partly the sheer scale on which small arms were stocked and available. In Argentina, for example, they were disappearing from military and police supplies at an appalling rate, with the authorities too often turning a blind eye. A study conducted in South America had shown availability to be the main factor prompting people to even consider using firearms. In Africa, possessing firearms was viewed as an economic asset regardless of whether you actually planned to use them as a weapon. If you got hold of one, you knew you might be able to sell it for quite a profit when the time was right. Middlemen were thus not always sinister criminals, and in border areas where there was substantial arms smuggling, entire industries sprang up to provide the smugglers with food, drink and other services. Development-aid programmes should therefore seek to support alternative economic activities for people living in such areas.

In analysing the problem, one participant questioned the usefulness of systematically differentiating between semi-automatic weapons and handguns. The problem was the availability of firearms. South Africa, for example, was simply full of handguns – being sold, being stolen, being used. They, and not semi-automatic weapons, were a growing source of chaotic violence. Merely confiscating them was not enough; you had to actually destroy them. Buying up the guns on the market would not resolve the issue; it would simply drive the price up and further enrich the manufacturers. People's mentality was a key factor. After all, Switzerland was full of widely distributed and extremely lethal small arms but no particular problem resulted. A great deal depended on general attitudes regarding their legitimate purpose.

The view was expressed that dealing with the proliferation of small arms and light weapons could be likened to the war against illegal drugs in that the focus of any successful action had to target both the point of production and the end-user.

The problem of violence committed by demobilized but still heavily armed combatants was addressed in the context of east Africa. In Kenya and Uganda, civilians frequently victimized by gangs had themselves been armed by governments lacking the manpower to protect them. The result was a balance of terror that had turned entire districts into no-go areas and posed a major challenge to State authority.

As the most universally binding set of rules regarding armed violence, international humanitarian law seemed an obvious vehicle for attempting to deal with the glut of small arms and light weapons. But this would require coming to grips with the issue of applicability. Just who were civilians these days? Street gangs in Washington DC? Colombian drug mafias?

 

Case study: India - Pakistan - Afghanistan

By Tara Kartha, Researcher, Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, India

Trends in warfare have for some time now, been moving towards lower, though more extended levels of violence, shifting from being primarily an intra state phenomenon to long drawn out debilitating intra state warfare, with a strong outside content. As ethnic and religious minorities fight each other and government forces alike, no longer is it possible to differentiate clearly between the fighters, the civilians and the state forces causing even the basic norms of the Geneva Conventions to be ignored. International humanitarian law can scarcely operate when no one can differentiate between the soldier and a civilian. This kind of warfare is intrinsically "rights abuse intensive" (to coin a phrase) since it targets the civilian unarmed population, even as its fighters arise from among their numbers and espousing their cause.

The primary input that has transformed war from an action involving two or more armed forces into one involving myriad non-state actors and government security forces, lies in the fact that the weapons of violence - light weapons like assault rifles, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, grenades and mortars - have moved out of state control into the hands of non-sate actors whose war arms involve a systematic erosion or state machinery and power. Thus it is no accident that this decade has seen the threat of "failed states" in the face of a massive proliferation of light weapons and an unprecedented effort by the international community to prop up others that threatened to go the same way.

Once the exclusive domain of police forces, and criminal investigations departments, the issue of gun and light weapon proliferation has thus rapidly assumed all the qualities of a threat to national security. In India, weapons availability jumped from next to nothing in the mid-1980's to staggering proportions in the mid-1990's. In 1984, militancy in one state led to the seizure of not more than 475 weapons in all - out of which 377 were 303's. Exactly a decade later, the count was more than 15,672 out of which 12,471 were AK-47's. By 1997, four more border states were witness to violence and criminal activity allied with weapons' movements. During the Afghan conflict it is estimated that some 1 billion a year of mostly light weapons were ferried into that country. It was soon victim to a massive diffusion of weapons. On the Pakistani side experts suggest that there were around a million guns along the frontier, a gun in every family in Daluchistan, and 100,000 within the commercial capital of Karachi. Weapons bazaars sprouted in all major cities, while even rural areas were awash with weapons - for instance, one nondescript village, boasted around 20,000 weapons of all kinds, as criminal elements mingled with sectarian quasi-political groups. The direction of arms trafficking indicates that the continuing conflict in Afghanistan is at least one major input into the proliferation of weapons. A peculiar admixture of crime, conflict and weapons seems to form a conflict pattern, the whole influenced heavily by the methodologies adopted by non state actors to acquire weapons and therefore power. This may be best understood by a brief evaluation of the various steps of conflict, which illustrates the vital role of the gun is not only sustaining conflict but in the committing of the most abhorrent human rights violations.

The weapons and the progress of conflict

- Noticeably, all conflicts in south Asia are situated along borders. Non-state actors (NSA) depend on support or at least some sympathy from a neighbouring state/areas.

This is vital in moving or acquiring weapons and ammunition, besides providing a safe haven for medical care and training centres for its recruits.

- This external input, requires the NSA to "control" an area close to the international border.

Here they will duplicate as far as possible the functions of a state - funds through "taxation", courts which dispense harsh justice, and sometimes even "visas" for cash are not uncommon. Afghan Mojahideen concentrated in the area around Khost, and Parachinar where over time, militants has set up torture centres, maintained their own "offices" and demanded huge sums in "tax" from refugees fleeing to Pakistan. Similarly, in the Valley of Kashmir, militants of various nationalities have "married" and looted, with the local population helpless in the face of the gun.

- The area controlled is sought to be increased steadily requiring more and more weapons and recruits, trained over a relatively short space of time (as compared to state training of it's troops). Conversely, low recruit quality requires him to be able to use the simplest weapons (hence the popularity of the assault rifle).

Thus local recruits are often raw and untrained, being simply "cannon fodder" to the fire of opposing forces. Militants in the Kashmir valley tended to be between the ages of 18-25 years, an age group which succumbs readily to the lure of wielding a weapon. Some were given the most basic training lasting barely a month, and were usually arrested or killed within two months. Since 1995, as enthusiasm waned, recruitment was a point of a gun, with family members threatened in case of refusal. Similarly a large proportion of recruits to the Taliban are from the most impoverished sections of Pakistani society. Here, family members are often "compensated" for the loss of their son, though tales of forced recruitment abound. Many also return - still in their teens - as drug addicts, unable to adjust to home life.

- Militant strategy requires a high death toll and continued instability to enable him to get "prime time" media attention, and patron support.

Thus the death of local "boys" at the hands of the Security forces widens his popularity base (for a while). Further, security forces are drawn into "reprisals" by targeting them from behind a civilian shield, thus eroding their image locally. The primary weapon of war - the assault rifle - a short range weapon with a high rate of fire - usually meant that ill-trained militants preferred urban warfare, where the primary targets were unarmed civilians. Only specially trained "core" groups used weapons like the sniper rifle. Favoured targets are school children, and women, which creates a ripple effect within the entire community. "Ethnic cleansing" allows the non-state actor to nurture a tactically useful "we-them" mentality, while additionally (and often overlooked) it also allows the possibility of great profit to his followers who promptly acquire the property and assets of the fleeing groups. In Kashmir, property of some 500,000 Kashmiri Pandits, worth several million dollars, have been apportioned among vested interests. In Pakistan, the debilitating war between Shia and Sunnis, became a war of "reprisals" with each targeting the other's religious institutions. Worshippers were mowed down by a hail of bullets, in random acts of violence that left entire communities stunned.

- The necessity of a source of funds led to considerable trafficking in narcotics, which gives the best profit to weight ratio.

With neighbouring Afghanistan fast competing with Myanmar as the primary source of opium, the resistance movement was linked closely to the movement of narcotics into Karachi and Lahore for onward shipment to European capitals. Soon Pakistan's addiction rate was climbing from near nothing (in 1979) to a staggering $3 million and growing. A similar problem was faced in the Indian state of Punjab, where militants tied up with drug barons as "mules" for narcotics trafficking. Since narcotics addiction typically exists among the most productive sectors of the population - the youth - the effects on social development are incalculable.

- The necessity of funds for weapons and sustaining militant recruitment, also leads to large scale extortion, kidnapping, bank heists and criminal behaviour.

This is a common point in all militant/separatist movements, and while initially the people may give willingly after a period money is given at the point of a gun. The source in the Kashmir valley was initially the rich apple growers, but when this section began to move out, the brunt fell upon the villagers of areas near the border.

- In order to access weapons and money, non-state actors have to go to smuggling gangs, and criminals of the underworld who have the necessary infrastructure on the ground. Soon the two mesh together making it difficult to ascertain where conflict ends and crime begins.

Many "militants" interviewed were found to be fugitives from justice (both in Pakistan and India) together with a generous sprinkling of former drug smugglers. In Kashmir, these are found to have committed the gravest human rights abuses. This input is largely responsible for turning the conflict into a business, where weapons are sold off to wealthy customers or used for heists and extortion.

- In their objective of undermining the state, militants target schools and teachers, development projects, and other socio-economic targets.

In Pakistan, religious places which impart valuable education for the poor have been torched, while in Kashmir, over 702 schools have been attacked. Target killing and kidnapping of foreign tourists has led to a loss of more than Rs 6 lakhs a year. Loss of such revenues to locals is calculated to set them against the administration, thus earning point for militants (however this tends to work negatively after a period of time).

Faced with a light weapon war, state forces usually respond with repression and drastic laws curtailing civil rights. The Anti-Terrorism Law in Pakistan is one example, while the now defunct Terrorism and Anti Defection Law in India is another.

Conclusion

From the above, it is clear that "light weapons wars" are inextricably tied to human rights abuses and casualties that are far higher than conventional conflict. In the quest for weapons, it is the civilian population that is ultimately affected, in terms of deaths, human rights abuses, crime, and underdevelopment. The following points may be noted for action in limiting the dangers inherent to these wars.

- The arms embargo in Afghanistan has to be made a reality, with priority on a complete cut off of ammunition supplies.

- NGO's in the areas, must be encouraged to "reward" local destruction of weapons, with increased aid or exchange of agricultural equipment.

- Pressure on the Taliban is needed to speed up weapons destruction programmes in Afghanistan.

- Illicit gun industries have to be brought under control, as also the free for all trade in weapons that goes on in the Frontier regions.

- India needs to ensure that stringent gun laws are matched by speedy justice.

- The South Asian Regional Co-operation forum has to be beefed up to defend against a common security threat: the proliferation of weapons of civilian destruction.

Case study: Mali-Towards a moratorium on arms import, export and manufacture

By Ibrahim Ag Youssouf, Advisor to the United Nations Development Programme, Bamako, Mali

At an important meeting held in Oslo on 1-2 April 1998, 13 West African governments and 23 Wassenaar States agreed on a "Moratorium on Arms Import, Export and Manufacture" in Mali. The main features of this Moratorium are described below.

Un moratoire sur l'importation, l'exportation et la production d'armes comme facteur de développement et d'intégration en Afrique de l'Ouest

Le moratoire est par essence une mesure d’établissement de la confiance : confiance des citoyens dans l’armée de leur pays lorsque celle-ci contrôle effectivement son arsenal et peut donc mieux traquer le trafic illicite des armes, confiance entre pays voisins désormais convaincus que la transparence et la non-violence procurent une meilleure sécurité que les armes, confiance de la communauté internationale dans un peuple épris de paix et dans un Etat soucieux de réduire le fardeau de l’armement pour pouvoir consacrer davantage de ressources à la bonne gouvernance, au développement économique, social et culturel, seuls garants de la sécurité à long terme.

L’objectif premier du moratoire est le renforcement de la capacité du gouvernement à exercer un contrôle plus strict sur des armes dont il est établi qu’elles tuent plus que toutes les autres. Ces armes font l’objet d’un commerce qui échappe aux contrôles internationaux, qui est si lucratif que même les arsenaux nationaux sont pillés. Presque toujours, ces armes, ramassées sur les multiples champs de mort de la planète, servent au banditisme, au trafic de drogue et aux tentatives de déstabilisation de jeunes démocraties. Inévitablement, l’insécurité créée par ces armes asphyxie l’économie, détruit le capital social accumulé pendant des siècles, interdit toute activité de développement.

Ainsi, au Mali, 200 millions de dollars de projets en faveur des régions du Nord sont restés bloqués tant que l’insécurité régnait dans ces régions, enfermant celles-ci dans un cercle vicieux : la pauvreté et la marginalisation politique avaient engendré la rébellion et l’insécurité concomitante, mais l’insécurité empêchait les activités de développement qui apportaient les solutions. L’enthousiasme et l’efficacité des partenaires au développement resteront mitigés tant que seront perpétrés des actes de banditisme.

Le deuxième objectif du moratoire est de permettre à l’armée de mieux contrôler son équipement, de vérifier que celui-ci correspond à ses besoins réels, de bénéficier de l’assistance technique des institutions internationales spécialisées dans ce domaine. Les mécanismes de mise en œuvre du moratoire contribueront à rendre l’armée plus professionnelle, plus qualifié à détenir le monopole des armes de guerre, plus digne de la confiance et du respect des citoyens.

Le troisième objectif du moratoire est d’instaurer un climat de paix et de confiance entre les pays de la sous-région, voire du continent, en instituant la transparence en matière d’armement et la collaboration dans la lutte contre la prolifération des armes légères.

Le quatrième objectif du moratoire est de réduire les dépenses d’armement : les pays fabricants et marchands d’armes continueront d’imposer à nos pays pauvres des armes dont ils n’ont guère besoin tant qu’ils ne maîtrisent pas leurs arsenaux nationaux et tant que des progrès substantiels n’auront pas été accomplis dans la lutte contre la détention illicite des armes de guerre. Nos pays pauvres doivent aboutir à faire reconnaître le fardeau de l’armement comme un indicateur négatif majeur dans la coopération au développement, parvenir à stigmatiser celles des grandes puissances qui nous offriront plus d’armes que d’écoles ou de vaccins.

De par ces avantages aux plan militaire, économique et politique, le moratoire sur les armes légères constituera sans nul doute un facteur de développement et d’intégration d’une grande importance pour l’Afrique d’aujourd’hui déchirée par de multiples guerres civiles aux conséquences désastreuses.

Case study: sub-regional efforts in Central and South America

By Virginia Gamba, Head, Arms Management Programme, Institute for Security Studies, South Africa

Central America

The existence of expanding light weapons pipelines in Latin America respond to complex situations. On the one hand, the United Nations Peace Operations in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the early nineties failed to adequately disarm the region.This happened because both ONUCA (United Nations Observer Group in Central America) and ONUSAL (United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador) did not originally have mandates to disarm and demobilize, but rather these grew as part of the evolution itself of the missions.

In ONUCA not only did disarmament –when envisaged– failed, but it only was referred to warring parties and did not have an element for controls in respect of the armed civilian population of Nicaragua, Honduras and el Salvador. To make things more complex, as warring parties partially disarmed during this operation, it is now evident that the surrender of weapons of forces was much lower than weapons availability. The posterior dispute relating to demobilised and reintegrated soldiers –many of whom had been child combatants– and their access to land, development opportunities and state subsidies, led to an increased in armed violence, insurgency and banditry. This, in itself attests to the inadequate accounting of weapons in this conflict. In ONUSAL, an operation which started after ONUCA’s problems had become manifest, there was a much more serious attempt at facing the disarming of the factions and the disarming of the population. The government of El Salvador in 1993, passed legislation to attempt to control, reduce, collect and destroy massive amounts of weapons in the hands of the population. This exercise is still underway and is so closely related to the culture of violence and the legacy of conflict in the region, as well as the lack of developmental activities, that its progress has been uncertain and slow.

As a result, massive amounts of weapons remain in Central America. The result of this is not only the continued threat to democratic and developmental processes in the region but also the migration of vast quantities of light weapons to the North and South of the Americas. Some of these weapons made their way to fuel the Chiapas conflict in Mexico, similar to the way in which weapons that come from Mozambique are used to fuel the political disputes in KwaZulu Natal. Others travelled South to the hands of paramilitary organizations such as the drug lords of Colombia, the Peruvian and Bolivian insurgent movements, and for the use of the private security firms in the region.

Thus weapons have made wide circuits from Central America to Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and ultimately to the Amazon jungle of Northern Brasil, ultimately heading for the city of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo where they have been used to fuel the increase in criminal activities by both the existing mafias and the petty criminals of the inner city slums.

South America

Although some weapons pipelines in South America –most notably those of Colombia and Venezuela– are influenced by the legacy of conflict in Central America and the proximity of the large North American supplier communities, others have emerged as a result of other specific regional processes.

For many decades the countries of South America have been over-stocked with light weapons, mostly of domestic production. This happened as a result of the existence of military governments with strong geopolitical competitive streaks and a desire to keep their national boundaries free from political unrest. The twin motives of exerting regional hegemonic status vis-a-vis their neighbours, and of keeping ideological uprisings at bay by control and repression, started a major arms race in the region. Military governments in the region, mostly those in place during global Cold War years profited from the ongoing ideological disputes between the superpowers to modernize, rearm and sustain large conventional military forces supplied at low prices by either the United States or the Soviet Union. The late 1960s and early 1970s were particulary pernicious for the arms race in South America.

By and by, with the second detente between the superpowers in progress and the continued failure of military governments to gain the respect of the people or serve basic socio-economic imperatives of developing countries led to a return to democratic structures in the early and mid 1980s and an opening of commerce and trade with erstwhile competitors and enemies. The interesting factor is that the improved interactions between South American partners in the 1980s was largely due to a lack of policy from the United States to the region, a fact that was not reversed until 1990. Impoverished, isolated from their North-South axis and alienated from Europe, South American states began to look at each other for their own survival. Thus, the mid-1980s saw a reversal of old doctrines and patterns of international affairs leading from competition to cooperation in the region.

The principal vehicles for this new found willingness to cooperate in the region were

1) commercial and economic integration principles as those in the North by the resurrected Andean Pact regional process and encapsulated in the Common Market of the South or MERCOSUR (Mercado Común del Sur) uniting Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and ultimately Chile, and

2) the willingness to abandon old territorial disputes between neighbours.This principle was a basic one: if there are no hypothesis of regional conflict, the need for a strong military is not required. If the military presence is downgraded and reduced, the defence budget can be lowered and the armed presence along borders can be diluted or terminated. If borders are demilitarized, then integration mechanisms for the free flow of people and goods can be consolidated, thus serving the greater needs of socioeconomic development.

Although the logic of this argument was impeccable at the time, the results of its application have not produced greater safety for the people in the region. What actually happened was that by liberalizing and privatizing economies, by generating easy access across borders, and by making military materiel redundant rather than controlling or destroying it, vast amounts of existing light weapons and small arms have made their way to fuel international criminal organizations, drug dealers, corrupt security and armed forces officials, ongoing insurgency movement, and the smuggling communities of the region. As a result, there is a vast amount of light weapons and small arms that are flowing uncontrolled from sub-region to sub-region in South America; this has made it one of the most violent sub-continents in the planet.

There is a difference between the small arms proliferation in the Northern South American tier –comprised of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and the Northern tiers of Brasil– and those that circulate within Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and the South West and South East of Brasil. Pipelines and small arms trading processes although naturally connected, have differences.

The Northern tier in South America suffers from an ongoing legacy of struggles between poor and rich; it has no effective control over borders or territories; it houses the most powerful criminal cartels in the world; it has ongoing insurgencies; and it is in close proximity to the vast legal and illicit arsenals of North and Central America. In historic perspective the traditionally violent Central American cultures, where a culture of the gun and the violent resolution of disputes have always influenced social behavior, carries an influence into Northern South America, an influence that has become manifest now that the arms pipelines from Central and South America have intensified mostly due to the demand for criminal activities and insurgencies in these regions.

The glut of weapons in Central and Northern South America is not only due to criminal, rebel, and state activities, most peoples are also armed for self defense, machismo, tradition, or as a result of the mushrooming activities of private security firms. The demand for weapons is high. As long as the demand is high and the ability to control licensed weapons remains low, the Northern tier of South America will become a major motor for small arms proliferation.

The Southern tier is slightly different. Societies are historically richer and control over territories has been better than in the Northern tier. Insurgencies in the South are now at an end, and democracy is well established in the region. Nevertheless, the growth in the transit and in the sale and sourcing of small arms in this region is on the increase. Here is one example:

Institute for Security Studies (ISS - South Africa) researchers travelling through the heart of the South American integration community uniting Brasil to Paraguay and Argentina have found a nightmarish situation were violence, arms and drugs have acquired massive proportions. A case in point was that seen in the triangle of Iguazu covering a 40 square kilometer perimeter where three borders interact, each with its own city and its own airport. The disparity in the region is intense: in the Argentine border, the city of Puerto Iguazu with a population of 23,000 people lives of tourism and basic agriculture. The city is extremely safe and the border police and coast guards are very efficient in controlling dubious material crossing the borders into Argentina. In Brasil, the city of Foz of 240,000 inhabitants lives of the illegal and legal trade with Paraguay, is very rich and is the city with the greatest criminal rates in Brasil, far surpassing Sao Paulo or Rio on the ratio of murders per capita. The local police is extremely corrupt and refuse to control material flowing north of Argentina (since they do not consider it of importance) or into Paraguay since they do not care what leaves their country. Furthermore, the city boasts an international airport that connects directly with other regions of the world.

Ten kilometers away in Paraguay is the City of Ciudad del Este, again with a population of 250,000 inhabitants and with an international airport. This city, which emerged as a result of peace in the region and the ability to trade freely plus the status of duty free port has produced the biggest economic boom in the region. The city produces an annual profit of 12,600 million dollars, that is 12.6 billion US dollars. The price of such prosperity is high. The city is the criminal outpost of all mafias in South America, China, and the Middle East. It lives of counterfeit goods, smuggling, cheap electronics and clothestuffs, drug trafficking, prostitution, the trade of minors, and the arms trade. Four out of five people are illegal immigrants, most of Asian and Middle Eastern extraction. Major terrorist organizations use the city as headquarters and as economic hub. The reason for this is that the Paraguayan authorities prefer economic prosperity to regional security, thus, they do not have border controls whatsoever, and they refuse to provide a police or military presence in the region. The borders are unchecked to and from Paraguay.

As a natural consequence of this situation, it is now possible to see the massing of weapons and drugs in Paraguay, unchecked by authorities who are often part of the corruption rackets, flowing to Brasil where the buyer market exists and the criminal activities are spiralling in the major cities of Rio and Sao Paulo. Drugs flow out of Paraguay, via Brasil --often using African couriers-- into Europe and Asia. In return Africa and Asia provide arms, most of which are the stocks left over from the Cambodian peace operation, the Vietnam war, and the many UN peace operations in Africa. But weapons are not only brought in from other regions, they often come from the more developed countries in South America. Thus, Argentina has the most developed weapons and ammunition infrastructure in this region. The stocks are not well guarded and the legal system does not consider trading in weapons as a criminal offence. Private dealers and corrupt officials sell their wares to the Brasilian underworld.

The whole of this process is aided and fuelled by three issues: the lessening of border controls, the existence of free markets and integration mechanisms, and the appetites of the growing international criminal organizations that prosper in such circumstances. In May 1996, the Argentine authorities in the border discovered a weapons racket in Argentina which was flowing to Brasil. The modes for taking the guns, machine guns, silencers, surface to surface rockets, and night vision equipment from Argentina to Brasil took advantage of the relaxed customs and border controls existing as a result of the MERCOSUR agreement which granted a safe corridor for people of the three nationalities in a perimeter of 60 kilometers inland all of these. Furthermore, the suspicion became rife that weapons amassed in Paraguay were being sent to Argentina to be resent to Brasil through this relaxed border mechanism since there was more control from Brasil vis-a-vis Paraguay than vis-a-vis Argentina. As a result, the local authorities (police, gendarmerie and defence authorities in the three borders) organized themselves in an ad-hoc way to be able to control security more tightly. They then encapsuled these ad-hoc processes in an Act of Cooperation which was forwarded to the capitals for official institutionalization via an Agreement between the three countries.

This is the first instance of a local initiative between local authorities because their governments free-door policy was seen as backfiring. The ad-hoc agreements at local level called for a combined and rotational headquarters to this security border command with weekly meetings for the exchange of information. The idea was that a final institutional agreement would eventually cover many things: corruption, arms sales, traffic of minors, drug deals, terrorist activities, explosive availability, and illegal immigrants. A final agreement was finally institutionalised in 1997.

Conclusion

When analysing the potential for sub-regional and regional groupings in South America to manage action leading to the control of illicit small arms trafficking, it is extremely interesting to note that both the top-down approach taken by the Governments of Mexico and Colombia for the passing of an Initiative to control illicit arms trafficking in the Americas through the Organization of American States, AND the bottom-up approach taken by local officials within the MERCOSUR process to suggest revisions and additions that deal with security, information exchange and hot pursuit (which eventually became institutionalized in the MERCOSUR itself) have attained equal importance.

As a summary, it is possible to state that:

A) the differences in the proliferation processes and demand between sub-regions in South America, make it imperative that controls are formulated simultaneously at Continental and Sub-regional levels. The OAS is the first process in place, which at least attempts to harmonize legislations in the region to allow for controlling illicit weapons. It is a start but it does not address the more fundamental issues of the relationship between legal and illicit in Latin America; the reduction and destruction of stocks in indigenous industry and national holdings; nor tightening the licensing patterns and enforcement of regulations nationally. All of these can only be managed at sub-regional and national levels.

B) the lessons in the underestimation of the disarmament components in Central American peace processes, are not only a lesson to the region but are directly related to other processes worldwide. Lessons learnt out of the lack of effective disarmament in ONUCA and ONUSAL must be pursued as well as lessons related to the post-conflict situation in Central America and the incidence of availability of small arms in the ongoing culture of violence in the region. These lessons also could be applied to other regions.

C) although it is difficult to prove that small arms have degenerated the culture of the people of Central America into an increasingly violent one, they have perpetuated this tradition and done nothing to stop the practice of violent resolution of personal and communal problems. But it is is easier to prove that the increased availability of small arms in South America is changing the culture of South Americans. The increase in violence, armed robbery, murder, and criminal activities in Brasil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay among others, attest to this issue. The culture of violence prominent in Central America has now migrated to the South and the preferred vehicle for this migration has been the gun.

D) democratization, development, corruption, small arms availability, and violence are issues that are linked in one way or the other. In some societies that are perceived as transformed economically for the better, the violence and gun availability is on the increase, making the personal safety equation worse than before. South America can become an interesting laboratory to demonstrate that not all issues related to gun availability and violence relate to depressed development or survival but to more complex issues which need to be unbundled, analysed and addressed.

Discussion of presentations by T. Kartha, I.A. Youssouf and V. Gamba

The profusion of small arms and light weapons played a role in such a vast range of situations around the world that no single body of law, be it international humanitarian law, human rights law or any other, could possibly cover them all. Multifaceted problems demanded multifaceted solutions (aviation law, commercial law, etc.). The effects of the superabundance of these weapons were not confined to physical injury but were very wide-ranging: a pervasive atmosphere of aggression – with banditry, rape and other violence being committed on a large scale – destruction of economic infrastructure, etc.

The conviction was expressed that action by individual States would not – could not – be sufficient. A regional approach was needed. New modes of cooperation must be found between the producing countries and the end-users.

One participant asked whether the assembled experts were looking at international humanitarian law in terms of the situation or the situation in terms of humanitarian law. Clarity about this was vital as the many problems involved (conflict, drugs, corruption, etc.) were inextricably intertwined. The biggest drug traffickers in some regions were often military officers; as were the biggest arms dealers. What was needed was greater civil authority. There was also the structural obstacle of unemployment: the decision-makers in producing countries were reluctant to shut down factories that exported small arms and light weapons because people would lose jobs and the decision-makers would then lose votes. Economic imperatives were also a factor on the other, user side of the equation.

This was countered by the view that the production of such arms was not a profitable endeavour. The industry was in fact in fairly poor shape.

It was pointed out that any number of factors could fan the flames of violence (money pouring into Sri Lanka from the Tamil diaspora fuelled the conflict there, for example, and stocks left over from the Second World War were still aggravating instability in Myanmar). Tolerating an unrestrained flow of arms made everything far more complex and ultimately undermined society itself. Judicial systems were rendered ineffective in countries as any witnesses who dared testify did so at the risk of their lives, and obtaining convictions by due process of law became impossible.

Another participant stated that armed groups with a vested interest in the conflict continuing sometimes targeted development projects.

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