The “war on terror” has weakened national arms controls and fuelled the proliferation of conventional weapons, a coalition of leading human rights charities warned yesterday. Launching a global campaign to regulate the arms trade, Amnesty International, Oxfam, and the International Network on Small Arms said that on average 500 000 people were killed each year by armed violence — roughly one victim a minute.
Existing arms control laws, including those in Britain, are riddled with loopholes, the agencies claim, and what is needed is a common approach similar to the initiative that produced the 1997 Ottawa treaty banning landmines.
The charities’ proposed international arms trade treaty would outlaw weapons sales involving exportation for use entailing “violations of international human rights or humanitarian law”. The plan will be presented to a United Nations conference on small arms in 2006.
“A new urgency has been created by the so-called war on terror,” said Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty. “This is fuelling the proliferation of weapons rather than combating it. Many countries, including the US, have relaxed controls on sales of arms to allies known to have appalling human rights records.
“In the past two years, the US has increased arms sales to [such states] and Britain has followed suit. British arms sales to Indonesia [the second highest recipient of UK overseas aid] rose from £2-million in 2000 to £40-million in 2002.”
Shipments of arms had been delivered on the basis that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, despite knowing that allies could become future dangers, said the charities. In June 2003, there were thought to be 24-million guns in Iraq — enough to arm every man, woman and child. The charities term small arms the true “weapons of mass destruction”, which claim hundreds of thousands of lives, destabilising countries and prolonging conflicts.
Britain, the second largest exporter of arms, is urged, in a 100-page report entitled Shattered Lives, to sign up to the arms trade treaty. It is criticised for military aid and arms sales to Pakistan and Uzbekistan, which soared after the September 11 attacks on the US.
Shipments of weapons to Saudi Arabia, where thousands of people are detained arbitrarily, and Jamaica, where the police have killed more than 600 people in the past four years, are also highlighted.
Britain’s recently introduced arms control legislation is blamed for failing to outlaw the activity of British arms brokers who work outside the UK, despite an earlier manifesto commitment.
The report notes that in 2002 the G8 group of industrialised countries allocated $20-billion to a programme designed to prevent terrorists acquiring nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. But “the G8 failed to address the proliferation of conventional weapons, including small arms, to states and armed groups that they know will abuse such weapons to terrorise [civilians]”.
Kofi Annan, UN secretary general, has said the death toll from small arms “dwarfs that of all other weapons systems, and in most years greatly exceeds the toll of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs. In terms of the carnage they cause, small arms could well be described as weapons of mass destruction — yet there is still no global non-proliferation regime to limit their spread”.
The small arms trade has widespread repercussions, especially in poor countries, Amnesty and Oxfam say. Weapons in the wrong hands prevent access to hospitals, markets, schools, and productive land. Poverty fuels conflict and vice versa, and the problem is compounded by corrupt, and often scarce, official security forces. Weapons have permeated daily life to such an extent that in northern Uganda AK-47s are replacing spears; in Somalia some children are now named AK.
Most of the estimated 639-million small arms in the world are in private hands. And the problems facing countries after an armed conflict often overwhelm them. “Half of newly pacified countries revert to war within a decade,” adds the report.
The campaign follows concern also about Britain, where use of firearms in violent crime grew by 35% last year.
Yesterday, the campaign also launched a petition to gather a million signatures supporting the draft arms treaty. Showing the cost in human lives, 300 model gravestones were erected in Trafalgar Square, London, each with the slogan “One person every minute killed by arms”.
Mike O’Brien, the Foreign Office minister, yesterday welcomed the report, but added: “Britain has been in the forefront of efforts to improve arms controls and we have one of the toughest export control systems in the world.”
Counting cost
500 000 people, one a minute, killed by conventional arms every year
639-million small arms circulating in world today, produced by more than 1,135 companies in 98 countries
In June there were 24-million guns in Iraq, enough to arm every man, woman, and child. They could be bought for $10
Over 59% of small arms are privately owned, 38% are in hands of government forces, less than 3% held by police
Nearly 8-million small arms made a year
Up to 100-million Kalashnikov rifles have been produced
300 000 children are fighting in conflicts around world As many as 70 000 boys serve in Burma’s national army.