Amnesty, Oxfam in arms quest

2003-10-09 18:37

London - Two of the world's best-known non-governmental organisations joined forces on Thursday in a major campaign to get the world's first arms trade treaty in place by 2006.

Amnesty International and Oxfam said they want to stop small arms and light weapons from being exported to places where they are likely to be used to commit grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law.

In a report titled "Shattered Lives: The Case for Tough International Arms Controls", they said they wanted to see a treaty to ban such exports by 2006 - the year that the United Nations is next due to discuss light arms.

To publicise their report, the groups installed a lifesize graveyard in Trafalgar Square in central London, representing the estimated 500 000 people who die each year from "armed violence" worldwide.

Passers-by were invited to have their photograph taken, to be pasted onto a billboard for a giant petition called "The Million Faces."

The campaign against small arms - defined as anything from a pistol to an assault rifle - was being extended to 65 countries by the International Action Network on Small Arms (Iansa).

"The arms trade is totally out of control," Oxfam director Barbara Stocking told a press conference in London.

Eight million a year

Weapons are recycled, changing hands "in a climate of total impunity", said Conmany Wesseh, a Liberian-born co-founder of Iansa, which aims to stop proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons.

The result of this impunity, campaigners said, is that 639 million light weapons circulate around the world - roughly one for every 10 people on Earth.

Furthermore, eight million weapons and 16 billion rounds of ammunition are produced each year.

Amnesty director Irene Khan accused the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - of "hypocrisy," as together they account for 88% of all conventional arms exports.

Britain, France and the United States have also made more money in the last four years from arms exports to Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America than they have offered the regions in humanitarian aid, Khan said.

"The so-called war on terror helps in fact in proliferating arms," Khan said. "But they can't ignore the civilian blood on their hands."

With an annual turnover of $21bn for global arms exports, the military lobby has a weighty argument for convincing government not to tighten controls too much.

But Stocking had figures of her own.

With the $22bn spent each year by Asian, African, Middle Eastern and South American governments on arms, the same nations could achieve universal primary education and reach UN targets for reducing infant and maternal mortality, she said.

- SAPA