Economy & Trade, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Human Rights

DISARMAMENT: U.N. Embargoes No Bar to Illegal Arms

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 11 2007 (IPS) - The Hollywood actor Nicholas Cage, playing the role of an unscrupulous arms dealer in the 2005 film “Lord of War”, contemptuously dismisses military embargoes – whether imposed by the United States or the United Nations – as little or no hindrance to the world’s thriving illegal arms trade.

“If I do my job right,” he tells the leader of a rebel group seeking illicit arms, “an arms embargo should be practically impossible to enforce.”

A new U.N. study on the illicit trade in small arms, which cites Cage, says his remarks are “a cynical but convincing illustration of the growing problem of illicit brokering in small arms and light weapons.”

The 26-page report, which will go before the upcoming session of the General Assembly beginning Sep. 18, points out that illicit brokering activities are conducted mostly through “intricate arrangements involving complex transportation routes and opaque financial transfers.”

But they do have “a profound destabilising effect and have been an important factor in violations of arms embargoes imposed by the U.N. Security Council.”

Using false documents and bogus end-user certificates, arms dealers have been able to violate embargoes in several African countries, including Angola, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan.

The violations have been attributed mostly to an international network of middlemen involved in the illicit brokering of small arms.

By mid-2007, about 40 countries had enacted national laws, regulations and procedures against arms brokering. Still, it is far cry from the entire U.N. membership, which comprises 192 countries.

As a result, the loopholes in most countries are big enough to fly through a jumbo jet with a massive load of AK-47s, one of the most heavily used automatic weapons in insurgencies throughout the world.

When Mikhail Kalashnikov, the Russian creator of the AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikov, first produced in 1947) was asked whether he has had sleepless nights having nightmares about the hundreds and thousands of people killed with his destructive weapon, he said: “I sleep fine. It is politicians that are to blame, because they fail to come to agreements and instead resolve their problems with violence.”

Daniel Prins, chairperson of the group of inter-governmental experts, says that research has shown that arms brokers play a critical role in the illicit trade of small arms and the widespread availability of these weapons.

Since small arms are considered the weapons of choice in most insurgencies and low-intensity military conflicts worldwide, they have been described as “the real weapons of mass destruction” – not nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam of Sri Lanka, who presided over the 2006 U.N. conference on small arms, told IPS that setting up an arms embargo would address only part of the problem because it leaves some of root causes untouched.

“Arms embargoes mostly address the demand side but not the supply side,” he added.

As in the case of drug trade, where international action is primarily on supply side, Kariyawasam said there should be a greater focus on supply side of the illicit trade of small arms and light weapons.

“We need to address both supply and demand side equally to curb illegal small arms proliferation,” he argued.

The U.N. study says that illicit arms brokers – operating in a particularly globalised environment – often do not own the goods they deal in but capitalise on the increased opportunities in international transportation, finances and communications.

“Research has shown that brokers play a critical role in the illicit trade of small arms and light weapons and the widespread availability of these weapons,” the study notes.

The United Nations also points out that small arms – including assault rifles, grenade launchers and sub-machine guns – are primarily responsible for much of the death and destruction in conflicts throughout the world.

Currently, there are more than 600 million small arms and light weapons in circulation worldwide, according to U.N. estimates. And small arms were instrumental in the deaths of over half a million people – 10,000 per week, on average.

But despite the availability of millions of small arms in open and underground markets, there is no international treaty to control the reckless proliferation of these light weapons worldwide.

“Dinosaur bones and old postage stamps, yes, but a treaty on small arms, no,” says Sarah Margon, director of Oxfam.

“No one but a criminal would knowingly sell a gun to a murderer, yet governments can sell weapons to regimes with a history of human rights violations or to countries where weapons will go to war criminals,” she points out.

Ambassador Kariyawasam said that curbing and eradication of illicit trade of small arms and light weapons are important objectives for an overwhelming majority in the international community.

In 2001, he said, “we agreed on a global Programme Of Action (POA) for this purpose.”

However, implementation of most objectives of the POA, as well as several other unresolved issues like civilian possession and how to combat the involvement of non-state actors in this illegal trade, remain as “unfinished business.”

“And in this context, illicit brokering is only one issue, but of cross cutting nature, affecting our efforts to curb illicit trade,” Kariyawasam said.

However, he argued, to succeed in this endeavour, the cooperation of supplier countries is essential. “Most issues involving illicit trade in small arms are interconnected and global in its scope,” he said. “The absence of overall progress therefore can affect the progress in the brokering issue as well.”

While some regions in the world are taking resolute action to curb illicit trafficking and trade in small arms, he pointed out, the absence of an effective and credible follow up to the POA, globally, is the biggest draw back.

“It is unfortunate that some leading nations in the world are not interested in this issue, despite many deaths on a daily basis, due to the rampant illegal arms trade and its illicit supply chains,” Kariyawasam added.

But he also emphasised that “the legal trade or legal possession of small arms is not the problem. The problem is the illicit trade and illegal supply.”