NGOs Call On UN Members To Banish Sale Of Arms

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By Zimbeat Zimbeat

Johannesburg, January   10,   2006, (‘AND’African News Dimension) – The Control Arms Campaign, an organisation fighting arms proliferation has called on UN member states to govern the sale of weapons which have led to bloody conflicts across the world. This comes ahead of a UN meeting this week to prepare the ground for a conference on small arms controls in June. Control Arms Campaign argues that existing arms controls are powerless to protect innocent civilians. There is no international agreement governing the transfer of arms.

"In 2006, the world has a choice. Either it continues to ignore the massive human cost of arms proliferation or it finally acts to control the arms trade," says Colin Roche, Advocacy Executive of Oxfam Ireland .

”Governments must kick start negotiations on an international Arms Trade Treaty this year,” the Control Arms Campaign said yesterday as the UN launched its first major review of small arms controls in five years.

Existing arms controls are powerless to protect innocent civilians, according to three reports on the human cost of arms transfers to Haiti , Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sierra Leone launched yesterday by the Campaign. Amnesty International has documented the involvement of an Irish registered company in the shipment of weapons to both DRC and Sierra Leone .

”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," added Roche.

There is no international agreement governing the transfer of arms. Amnesty International argues that by contrast, there is a legally-binding global treaty governing the transfer between countries of items such as dinosaur bones and old postage stamps.

"Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone manufacture very few arms, yet they have been flooded with weapons, which have been used to kill, maim, displace and impoverish hundreds of thousands of people,” said Jim Loughran, Amnesty International’s Campaigns and Communications Manager.

“Time and again, peacekeeping efforts have been undermined by the failure of governments to introduce effective arms controls. For the sake of millions of men, women and children who live in continual fear of armed violence, world leaders must seize this historic opportunity to begin negotiations on an Arms Trade Treaty," added Loughran.

The Control Arms campaign is a joint initiative by Amnesty International, Oxfam International and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA). It aims to reduce arms proliferation and misuse and to convince governments to introduce a binding arms trade treaty.

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