World's favourite killing machine
2006-06-26 13:15
London - The most widely used weapon in conflict zones around the world in the next 20 years will be the Kalashnikov assault rifle because its trade is so poorly regulated, arms control campaigners said on Monday.
The claim, made by Oxfam International, Amnesty International and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), is contained in a report issued as a UN conference on small arms and light weaponry which opened on Monday.
The groups, whose report is entitled AK-47: The World's Favourite Killing Machine, say the gun's inventor, Lieutenant General Mikhail Kalashnikov, supports them in seeking a global arms trade treaty that would make suppliers more accountable and prevent weapons falling into the hands of unscrupulous regimes.
Before the two-week UN conference opened in New York, the groups delivered a petition made up of one million faces from 160 countries to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, calling for tougher arms controls.
'Used to murder and maim'
"Out of control and unregulated, AK-47s have been used to murder and maim, fuelling conflict and poverty in the world's poorest countries," said Jeremy Hobbs, the director of Oxfam International.
"One million people have signed this petition calling for tougher arms control. At this UN conference governments must agree global rules for arms sales and help put an end to this suffering."
The report estimates that there are up to 100 million AK-47s and variations of its design around the world. The rifle, which can fire up to 600 bullets a minute, is made in at least 14 countries and used by at least 82 state armies, it says.
Bloody history
The study argues that the gun's prevalence, plus the absence of global standards and laws to regulate its transfer, makes it easy for the weapon to be traded by unscrupulous arms dealers.
The AK-47 - "Avtomatni Kalashnikova" - won a competition in 1947 to find the ultimate submachine gun for the Red Army.
It first saw service in 1949, and during the Cold War Russia encouraged its allies to produce the weapon. But there was little control on the production agreements and in some cases, no production agreement at all.
Others were supplied to regimes around the world and are still in circulation.
Kalashnikov was quoted as saying: "When I watch TV and see small arms of the AK family in the hands of bandits, I keep asking myself: 'How did these people get hold of them?'"
Can be bought for $30
Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International, said the AK-47, which can reportedly be bought for as little as $30 in parts of Africa, was a symbol of how the arms trade had "run amok".
"Only global rules to control who produces the weapons and to whom they are sold, will ensure that they don't fall into the wrong hands," she said.
Rebecca Peters, director of IANSA, said: "It will be five years until the next global small arms meeting.
"If governments don't take this opportunity to prevent guns falling into the wrong hands, another 1.8 million people will die before there is another chance to take action."