Posted on 13-10-2003
Small Arms Big Death
Toll
by Owen Bowcott and Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, 10
October 2003
The "war on terror" has weakened
national arms controls and fuelled the proliferation of conventional
weapons, a coalition of leading human rights charities warned yesterday.
Launching a global campaign to regulate the arms trade, Amnesty
International, Oxfam, and the International Network on Small Arms said
that on average 500,000 people were killed each year by armed violence -
roughly one victim a minute.
Existing arms control laws, including those in
Britain, are riddled with loopholes, the agencies claim, and what is
needed is a common approach similar to the initiative that produced the
1997 Ottawa treaty banning landmines.
The charities' proposed international arms trade
treaty would outlaw weapons sales involving exportation for use entailing
"violations of international human rights or humanitarian law".
The plan will be presented to a United Nations conference on small arms
in 2006.
"A new urgency has been created by the so-called
war on terror," said Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty.
"This is fuelling the proliferation of weapons rather than combating
it. Many countries, including the US, have relaxed controls on sales of
arms to allies known to have appalling human rights records.
"In the past two years, the US has increased arms
sales to [such states] and Britain has followed suit. British arms sales
to Indonesia [the second highest recipient of UK overseas aid] rose from
£2m in 2000 to £40m in 2002."
Shipments of arms had been delivered on the basis that
"the enemy of my enemy is my friend", despite knowing that
allies could become future dangers, said the charities. In June 2003,
there were thought to be 24m guns in Iraq - enough to arm every man,
woman and child. The charities term small arms the true "weapons of
mass destruction", which claim hundreds of thousands of lives,
destabilising countries and prolonging conflicts.
Britain, the second largest exporter of arms, is
urged, in a 100-page report entitled Shattered Lives, to sign up to the
arms trade treaty. It is criticised for military aid and arms sales to
Pakistan and Uzbekistan, which soared after the September 11 attacks on
the US.
Shipments of weapons to Saudi Arabia, where thousands
of people are detained arbitrarily, and Jamaica, where the police have
killed more than 600 people in the past four years, are also highlighted.
Britain's recently introduced arms control legislation
is blamed for failing to outlaw the activity of British arms brokers who
work outside the UK, despite an earlier manifesto commitment.
The report notes that in 2002 the G8 group of
industrialised countries allocated $20bn (£12.5bn) to a programme
designed to prevent terrorists acquiring nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons. But "the G8 failed to address the proliferation of
conventional weapons, including small arms, to states and armed groups
that they know will abuse such weapons to terrorise [civilians]".
Kofi Annan, UN secretary general, has said the death
toll from small arms "dwarfs that of all other weapons systems, and
in most years greatly exceeds the toll of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
atomic bombs. In terms of the carnage they cause, small arms could well
be described as weapons of mass destruction - yet there is still no
global non-proliferation regime to limit their spread".
The small arms trade has widespread repercussions,
especially in poor countries, Amnesty and Oxfam say. Weapons in the wrong
hands prevent access to hospitals, markets, schools, and productive land.
Poverty fuels conflict and vice versa, and the problem is compounded by
corrupt, and often scarce, official security forces. Weapons have
permeated daily life to such an extent that in northern Uganda AK-47s are
replacing spears; in Somalia some children are now named AK.
Most of the estimated 639m small arms in the world are
in private hands. And the problems facing countries after an armed
conflict often overwhelm them. "Half of newly pacified countries
revert to war within a decade," adds the report.
The campaign follows concern also about Britain, where
use of firearms in violent crime grew by 35% last year.
Yesterday, the campaign also launched a petition to
gather a million signatures supporting the draft arms treaty. Showing the
cost in human lives, 300 model gravestones were erected in Trafalgar
Square, London, each with the slogan "One person every minute killed
by arms".
Mike O'Brien, the Foreign Office minister, yesterday
welcomed the report, but added: "Britain has been in the forefront
of efforts to improve arms controls and we have one of the toughest
export control systems in the world."
Counting cost
- 500,000 people, one a minute, killed by conventional arms every year
- 639m small arms circulating in world today, produced by more than
1,135 companies in 98 countries
- In June there were 24m guns in Iraq, enough to arm every man, woman,
and child. They could be bought for $10
- Over 59% of small arms are privately owned, 38% are in hands of
government forces, less than 3% held by police
- Nearly 8m small arms made a year
- Up to 100m Kalashnikov rifles have been produced
- 300,000 children are fighting in conflicts around world As many as
70,000 boys serve in Burma's national army
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