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Plans Underway to Reduce Small Arms Trade in Africa - UN Security Council - Global Policy Forum Plans Underway to Reduce
Small Arms Trade in AfricaBy Peter Owuor
Inter Press Service
January 18, 2000
African nations, alarmed by the booming illegal trade and uncontrolled availability of small arms on the continent, have agreed to address the growing problems of illicit trafficking. All over Africa small arms proliferation has fuelled internal conflict and rebel wars, cross-border fighting, and increased domestic violence, according to a report by the U.N. African Institute for the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders (UNAFRI).
UNAFRI held a conference in Kampala, Uganda, from Jan. 10-12, where arms experts said the first concerted step was taken by African governments to address the growing problem of illegal arms trafficking on the continent. The experts from 17 African countries and their counterparts from the United States, Canada, Norway and Belgium, resolved to set up "The African Firearms Center," with a specific mandate to help combat trafficking in firearms.
The center, which will be under the auspices of UNAFRI, currently based in Kampala, will carry a survey of the African Firearms situation before calling another regional workshop to review the survey findings and recommend an appropriate plan of action.
"The overall objective of this project is to enhance the capacities of African governments to combat, prevent and ultimately eradicate illicit trafficking in small arms and uncontrollable general availability of small arms in Africa," said UNAFRI Deputy Director Eric Kibuuka.
Illegal arms are prevalent in practically every African country and trafficking in them is a major factor in the escalation of conflicts on the continent. It is also responsible for a high incidence of violent crime and misuse of weapons. UNAFRI believes that "tens of millions" of light weapons, including rifles and machine guns flood the African continent every year. Where conflict has occurred, the abandoned weapons find their way into illegal possession and add to the continent's arsenal of illicit small arms.
In Angola, for instance, the rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), headed by Jonas Savimbi, trade precious minerals for illegal arms, while dissidents in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), acquire illegal arms through sale of minerals. Countries with high incidents of crime such as South Africa as well as Nigeria have a criminal population that obtains many of their arms illegally, UNAFRI says.
"Prevalence of firearms (and) proliferation of illegal firearms throughout Africa that are finding their way into the hands of ordinary unscrupulous offenders, organized criminal groups, terrorists, quasi-militias and other elements poses a threat to the public and individual security," said Kibuuka.
"I am particularly worried about increasing numbers of firearms supplied through breach of legal sources and by illegal means," Uganda's Minister of State for Security, Muruli Mukasa told the conference, singling out international trafficking networks as the major source of the illegal weapons.
Kibuuka said gun runners in 1996 illegally brought into Mozambique alone approximately 1.5 million AK 47 rifles. But he pointed that even then accurate records of the illegal firearms trade were hard to come by. "In some countries, there is information indicating the absence of correct records of legally acquired firearms," said Kibuuka.
On the Uganda-Sudan border for instance, deserters of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), sell an AK 47 rifle in markets in Karamoja region for as little as $ 20. Traders who buy the rifles later sell them inside Kenya's West Pokot and Baringo districts at $ 108. Ugandan security officials, who offer covert support to the SPLA, claim that the region, which is semi-arid, is hard to police.
"There are fears that expanding transnational illicit drug trade in a number of African countries may be facilitated by easy accessibility of the AK 47 rifles," Mukasa said. Up to 50 percent of firearms transactions on the continent are illegal, the Minister said.
UNAFRI, which attributes the proliferation of the weapons to weak cross-border regulations, urge African nations to strengthen their laws, as well as the law enforcement and judiciary systems, and collaborate with each other in combating the practice.
The Kampala conference came in the wake of renewed calls to combat illegal arms trafficking. Former International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Michel Camdessus told a European radio station early this month that the war in Africa could be reduced significantly by reducing small arms trade.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in September called upon the Security Council to control small arms trade. A U.N. brochure produced during the September Security Council meeting stated that an AK 47 rifle could be bought for the price of a chicken in Uganda, the price of a goat in Kenya and the price of a bag of maize in Mozambique or Angola.
The Stockholm International Peace Institute, also in its report last year, said Africa had more armed conflicts in 1998, than any other continent. The Institute, which is based in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, attributed the escalating conflict on the continent mainly to large-scale trafficking in small arms.
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