OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Saturday 6.00pm
THE government is to destroy some 260000 surplus state-owned firearms this year with the help of funding from Norway, defence secretary January Masilela said on Saturday.
This follows a decision last year by the country’s National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) not to sell firearms that were acquired by the former apartheid regime and had become redundant, Masilela told journalist.
Also on the list — which includes Uzzi submachine guns, R1 semi-automatic rifles, sniper rifles and Bren light machine guns — are unlicenced firearms that have been confiscated by the police.
Masilela said visiting Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik Saturday in Pretoria witnessed the signing of an agreement under which Norway will donate R450000 rand (about $65000) to the destruction process.
The firearms will be turned into scrap metal and the total cost of the operation, which will begin in a few weeks, is expected to be R1.7-million ($285000).
Bondevik welcomed the operation, saying the proliferation of small arms posed a threat to peace and stability.
Of the six million people who had died in armed conflict in the past decade, most had been the “victims of the use of small arms,” he said.
Masilela said the decision to destroy the weapons was in line with United Nations recommendations that all member states should get rid of surplus arms.
The country was particularly concerned about the proliferation of small arms in southern Africa, he said.
South Africa in 1995 in launched an operation to stop the flow of guns into the country and last year destroyed an arsenal of more than 12000 guns in neighbouring Mozambique.
Government is also expected to pass a new law this year that will curb gun-ownership in a bid to reduce the country’s high rate of violent crime. –AFP
11