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Trading Guns for Peace
Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2001 16:15:09 -0400 (EDT)
Dear All,
"And they shall beat their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation
Neither shall they learn war any more"
On July 9, a United Nations conference on the illicit trade of small
arms and light weapons will begin. The conference will produce a Program
of Action seeking to stem the illegal flow of these weapons, the "weapons
of choice" in today's mostly internal wars. See
http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/CAB/smallarms/about.htm.
A strong document, with political support and an aggressive timetable
to implement it, could be a meaningful step towards a more peaceful world.
For even as the sale of missiles and other large weapons grabs headlines
and political attention, it is small weapons that shatter the peace of our
own neighborhoods, and make peace so elusive in other parts of the world.
The world is awash in guns. There are over 500 million small arms
and light weapons in our world, and they kill about 500,000 people every
year. See International Herald Tribune, July 3, 2001. Rifles and
grenades played a central role in the Rwandan genocide, and small arms
have been central to horrific civil wars in such countries as Liberia and
Sierra Leone, the killings in East Timor. Indeed, they were the main
weapons used in 46 of the 49 major conflicts in the world in the 1990s.
See http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/CAB/smallarms/presskit/sheet1.htm;
http://www.sciam.com/2000/0600issue/0600boutwell.html (this article also
has information on the arms trade).
Guns do not cause these conflicts, but they enable poverty and
inequality, political repression, ethnic tensions, and other factors
to explode into violence that can shatter and consume societies. And it
is societies, not only opposing armies, that are the victims of these
weapons: 90 percent of direct victims of war in the 1990s were civilians.
Small arms are easy enough for children to use, hence contributing to the
tragedy of child soliders. Small arms threaten humanitarian relief
workers, making it difficult for them to deliver assistance, and putting
some populations beyond their reach. See
http://www.fas.org/asmp/campaigns/smallarms/sawg.htm.
About a dozen countries supply most of the world's small arms. The
most common types of small arms and light weapons are produced in the
United States, Belgium, Germany, Russia, and Israel. Other major
suppliers are Brazil, Bulgaria, China, France, Italy, South Africa, and
the United Kingdom. See
http://www.sciam.com/2000/0600issue/0600boutwellbox1.html.
The upcoming United Nations conference can lead to new efforts to
control the flow of small arms and give important support to ongoing
efforts. A draft Program of Action from early this year pledges
governments to important steps, including: to create mechanisms to mark
and trace small arms; to destroy unmarked and surplus arms; to create
mechanisms to help ensure that the weapons reach their intended
destination; to create records of arms transfers and regulating arms
brokers, and; to sell small arms only to governments. Governments also
pledge to consider a treaty to restrict arms production and trade to
registered manufacturers and brokers. See
http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/CAB/smallarms/files/2001confpcl4rv1e.pdf.
There are areas in which the document could be strengthened, such as
by committing governments to create criteria for which states may receive
arms, based on their respect for human rights, humanitarian law, and
international peace; to require all gun owners to be licensed and
to record all firearm sales; to create an international register of
information on the manufacture and transfer of small arms, and; to
challenge and reverse "gun cultures" where they exist. See
http://www.iansa.org/calendar/2001/documents/iansa/focus.htm.
You can sign and e-mail a letter at
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?ItemId=11480 urging
Secretary of State Powell to attend the Conference and commit the United
States to a strong Program of Action. A version of a letter is already
written, though you may want to urge the Secretary to push for the
inclusion of an aggressive timetable, including a timetable to negotiate
treaties setting forth normative criteria that states must meet in
order to receive arms; controlling the activities of arms brokers (the US
has progressive domestic legislation in this regard); creating a system of
marking and tracing arms, and; creating a global register for small arms
and light weapons transfers and acquisitions.
You might also e-mail the President (president@whitehouse.gov) urging
his administration not to sell weapons to regions of conflict or countries
that do not respect the human rights of their citizens. You might also
urge him to support an extension of background checks to gun shows and
other areas not covered by the Brady Act. Despite the President's
politics, this might be achievable; the Attorney General has praised the
effectiveness of the Brady Act, even as he has proposed weakening it by
quickly deleting information from the background check from a national
database (NY Times, 7/3/01, temporarily available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/03/opinion/03TUE2.htm).
Background checks, export controls, tracing mechanisms, controls on
arms brokers -- these will still leave us far from the time when nation
will not lift sword against nation, rebel faction against government,
person against person. But these steps could lead to fewer swords and
more ploughshares, and a little more peace in our world.
Thank you for your time and efforts,
Yours,
Eric
"I have only dreams: to build a better world, a world of harmony
and understanding, a world in which it is a joy to live. This is not
asking for too much." -- Yitzhak Rabin
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