ECOWAS Workshop on Small Arms Opens in Abuja

The Guardian (Lagos; Internet Version-WWW) in English
30 August 2000

[FBIS Transcribed Text]

DEVELOPMENT of a curriculum for the training of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) military, security and police forces is the focus of a four-day sub-regional workshop which opened at the organisation's
secretariat in Abuja yesterday.

It will also develop a curriculum for the training of these forces on the control of small arms in line with the plan of action of the moratorium adopted in March 1999 by ECOWAS Ministers of Foreign Affairs.

Executive Secretary of ECOWAS, Mr. Lansana Kouyate described the workshop as "historic" in the effort to promote regional peace and stability.

"It is common knowledge that the West African sub-region has experienced sporadic and often times prolonged outbreak of armed conflicts that have resulted in great loss of human lives, displacement of persons and destruction of infrastructure, he said at the start of the workshop.

To the participants, drawn mostly from the police, Customs and gendarme of the member states, he pointed out that such armed conflicts have also undermined the community's development efforts.

Kouyate, represented by the Deputy Executive Secretary for Economics and Research, Mr. Frank Offei, said that four member states - The Gambia, Liberia, Mali and Niger - have set up national commissions for implementation of the sub-regional moratorium on the importation, exportation and manufacture of light weapons.

The moratorium was declared by ECOWAS leaders for an initial period of three years in October, 1998 as one of the practical measures to check the proliferation of light weapons, which has been blamed for the recurrence of
violence in the sub-region.

A recent report concluded that there were 500 million such weapons circulating in the world with eight million of this in the sub-region.

Foreign Affairs Minister, Alhaji Sule Lamido said the workshop would help address a critical element in the promotion of sub-regional peace and stability noting that some two million people have died since 1990 in West
Africa from conflicts fuelled by these illegal arms.

Nigeria last year banned the circulation of such weapons as its contribution to curbing the scourge, but to be effective, the ECOWAS initiative must be complemented by the manufacturers, the minister said.

The workshop is jointly organised by ECOWAS and the Programme for Co-ordination and Assistance for Security and Development (PCASED).

It would offer participants an opportunity to initiate a process of establishing an information exchange network and strategy for controlling the scourge.

The curriculum to be developed would include general information on the diffusion of arms, modern methods and techniques of maintenance of law and order, methods of collecting small arms and dealing with drug trafficking.

It would deal with cross border crime and effective ways of maintaining national weapons arsenals.

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