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August 29, 2004

Control Arms

Campaign for Arms Trade Treaty

The lack of control of the arms trade is fuelling conflict, poverty, and human rights abuses world-wide. Every government is some how responsible for this.

For many years, the millions of peoples have witnessed the human cost of arms abuses and campaigned for tougher arms controls. But now the situation is critical. Throughout the world, companies are making a killing - literally. They profit from selling arms and security equipment (such as guns, tear gas, leg-irons, electroshock batons and tanks) to countries where they are used to commit torture and other human rights violations. The human cost of arms abuse every year, throughout the world, roughly half a million men, women, and children are killed by armed violence which means one person in every minute.

It doesn't have to be like this. Oxfam, Amnesty International, and a group of more than 500 NGOs in the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) are calling for a global Arms Trade Treaty to bring the trade in weapons under control and for local action to protect civilians from armed violence.

By 2020, the number of deaths and injuries from war and violence will overtake the numbers of deaths caused by killer diseases such as malaria and measles.

Without strict control of arms exports and measures to protect people from their misuse, countless others will continue to suffer the catastrophic consequences of the arms trade. Readily available weapons will intensify and prolong wars. More people will be terrorised and forced from their homes. Families will be prevented from growing food to feed themselves or earning enough money to send their kids to school. Human rights abuses will continue. People will be trapped in poverty. This isn't fiction. Oxfam and Amnesty International and IANSA members work with people who experience these atrocities every day.

The only way to end this cycle of poverty and suffering is to control the trade in arms.

There are around 639 million small arms and light weapons in the world today. Eight million more are produced every year. Without strict control, such weapons will continue to fuel violent conflict, state repression, crime, and domestic abuse. Unless governments act to stop the spread of arms, more lives will be lost, more human rights violations will take place, and more people will be denied the chance to escape poverty. Urgent measures are needed immediately. Governments need to take action at every level, from communities to the international arena, to stop this suffering.

The issue is simple. The unregulated supply of weapons makes it easy for criminals to murder, for soldiers to kill indiscriminately, and for police to arbitrarily take lives. Today's weapons are quicker and more powerful than ever before. And in the wrong hands, faster and more powerful weapons mean more abuse and more wasted lives. It's not just unlawful killings during wartime that is on the increase. Military and security equipment is being misused by soldiers, paramilitaries, and police to kill, wound, and commit terrible atrocities against civilians during peacetime too.

The global misuse of arms has reached crisis point. Many governments and companies are ignoring the flow of arms to those who openly flaunt international human rights and humanitarian laws. Guns especially have never been so easy obtained. Their increased availability threatens life and liberty in communities and cities around the world.

"…the excessive accumulation and illicit trade of small arms is threatening international peace and security, dashing hopes for social and economic development, and jeopardising prospects for democracy and human rights." UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, spoke these words in 2002.

The international community must adopt a global Arms Trade Treaty in time for the next UN arms conference in 2006. A global Arms Trade Treaty is desperately needed now. It would create legally binding arms controls and ensure that all governments control arms to the same basic international standards.

But the world's governments are taking little or no action to achieve this. Responsibility for the bloodshed and misery caused by the absence of effective arms controls stops directly at their doors.

The success of the international campaigns to ban landmines, cancel third world debt and establish an international criminal court proved that many governments do take notice of public opinion. The Control Arms campaign could be just as influential in pushing governments to adopt an Arms Trade Treaty but only if enough people and state Govt. realise this.

Sources: Amnesty International.