Liberia: Civic Groups Want ECOWAS Revisit Small Arms Moratorium Dakar PANA (Internet Version-WWW) in English 28 Nov 00 Tuesday, November 28, 2000 Journal Code: 775 Language: ENGLISH Record Type: FULLTEXT Document Type: Daily Report; News Word Count: 663 Monrovia, Liberia -- A number of civil society organisations in Liberia Tuesday called on the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, to take serious action in implementing its moratorium on small arms, particularly within the Mano River Union, or MRU. The MRU, founded in the 1970s, groups Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The three countries have for a protracted period been trading accusations of harbouring each other's dissidents who rely on the use of small arms to destabilise their territories. Liberia alleges insurgents who launched four attacks into its territory in the past year came out of Guinea, but that country accuses Monrovia of supporting armed men raiding its territory from Liberia and Sierra Leone. For its part, Sierra Leone has repeatedly pointed fingers at Liberia for allowing rebels of the Revolutionary United Front use its soil to perpetuate the nine-year-old civil war it started from Liberian territory. The civic groups pointed out that the current situation obtaining within the MRU states required that ECOWAS revisits the tenure of the moratorium as the sub-region was "now inundated by small arms" and light weapons. The ECOWAS moratorium, signed by 16 West African leaders in October 1998 in Abuja, Nigeria, bans the import, export and manufacture of small arms and light weapons in the sub-region. Initially set to last for three years, the moratorium will expire October 2001. "The number of arms now circulating and causing havoc in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone attests that regional and international efforts must be exerted to control the flow of weapons into the sub-region," a human rights lawyer told PANA. The civil society organisations had gathered at the meeting under the auspices of the Centre for Democratic Empowerment, or CEDE, to discuss the ECOWAS moratorium, proliferation of small arms in the sub-region and their impact on children and the larger Society. "There is a serious problem of gun violence in our Society today. The guns you see around here are not registered and this represents a problem in solving crimes committed by the use of guns, Cecil Griffiths, a former police inspector who runs a non-profit law enforcement association, said. "Our lives have been shattered by small arms. So whether the moratorium has been ratified by the legislature (parliament) or not, we hold our president morally obligated to its implementation once his signature is affixed to the moratorium," a former member of parliament, opined at the meeting. CEDE executive director Conmany Wesseh, who briefed the civic groups on international and regional efforts against the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, spoke of programmes he is co-ordinating for the creation of a West African Action Network on Small Arms. He said world-wide-action on small arms was being undertaken within the context of the International Action Network on Small Arms, and included a UN conference on the illegal trafficking of small arms in all its aspects scheduled for 2001. The meeting set up a working group to create a national action network on small arms to campaign for gun control and the non-proliferation of small arms in the country due to the adverse effect of these instruments of destruction on society. The civic groups also plan to heighten public awareness of the problem of small arms as it relates to peace-building, democracy promotion, national and human security and all aspects of the life of the people of Liberia and the sub-region. The proposed national action network on small arms is expected to bring together organisations, researchers and others, including government agencies, interested in small arms control.