Bid to stem small arms trade

2001-07-08 16:13

New York - Diplomats, gun activists and weapons makers from around the world will gather here on Monday for a two-week conference aimed at stemming an illegal trade in small arms blamed for half a million deaths a year.

"These arms are doing incredible damage in cities, and in war-torn areas, and I hope we can get the manufacturers and governments to work with us in controlling the flow of these illicit arms," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said ahead of the conference's start.

The conference is due to culminate on July 20 with the adoption of a global action plan against small arms trafficking by delegates from the UN's 189 member-nations.

The small arms category includes handguns as well as such powerful weapons as grenades, mortars, assault rifles, machine guns and shoulder-fired anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Nations required to only 'give their word'

While anti-gun activists have lobbied hard to have the action plan lead to national commitments that would be binding under international law, the plan is expected only to be "politically binding".

In diplomatic parlance, that means nations are required only to give their word that they will carry out the plan.

Activists also tried to aim the plan at legal arms deals as well as illegal ones, arguing that the vast majority of illegal weapons start their lives as illegal arms.

But numerous countries opposed that initiative including major arms-making nations Russia, China and the United States.

The action plan will call on UN members to develop national systems to regulate the activities of arms brokers and to ensure that manufacturers mark all small arms so their movements can be traced throughout their useful lives.

"Perhaps the document is not going to be as strong as we would have liked, but it is a step in the right direction. It is a recognition by the international community that we need to do something about these weapons," Annan said.

Following the UN conference, rights activists may well rally around the issue as they did in the recent global campaign against landmines, Annan said, "because it's an issue that is of great importance to everybody in every community and everyone with a young child to protect".

Even before the conference began, gun rights activists in the US peppered the UN with angry e-mails and letters, accusing the world body of trying to take guns away from their legal owners.

A UN statement issued last week sought to set the record straight.

Small arms blamed for half a million deaths a year

"The focus of the UN conference is on illicit trade in small arms, not the legal trade, manufacture or ownership of weapons. The UN conference will have no effect on the rights of civilians to legally own and bear arms," it said.

The UN General Assembly voted in 1999 to hold the conference, blaming small arms for half a million deaths a year, more than were killed by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Of the total, some 300 000 deaths result each year from armed conflicts and 200 000 from murders, accidents and suicides, according to UN estimates.

Experts say there are some 500 million small arms and light weapons in the world today. Their low cost, light weight and small size make them easy to use and easy to conceal in situations ranging from civil wars to city streets.

Some 50 to 60 percent of the small arms trade is legal. But weapons that start out legal often find their way into the black market, with arms stolen from state security forces a major source of the supply, studies have found.

The UN puts the value of the illicit arms trade at $1 billion a year. Part of the problem is nations that are irresponsible while others are incapable of tracking and seizing illegal arms, the world body says.

- Reuters