United Nations
15 July 2008
The new study warns that global arms proliferation is fueling violence,crime and insurgency. VOA's United Nations correspondent MargaretBesheer voices the story by Maha Saad.
Keith Krause, program director of the Small Arms Survey, the independent research group that conducted the survey, saysapproximately 650,000 civilian firearms move from lawful to illegalpossession every year. This is known as diversion of small arms, suchas pistols, revolvers, and rifles.
"It is worth underlining thatthe widespread diversion of weapons fuels crime, fuels insurgency, andfuels armed violence around the world," said Kraause. "It mostly stemsfrom weak systems of stockpile management and control or fromnegligence on the part of authorities at all levels of the chain ofcommand."
Krause says this can be prevented with low-costimprovements, such as installing perimeter fences, locking weaponsstocks, and monitoring inventories.
Switzerland's representativeto the Conference on Disarmament, Jurg Streuli, says the improperdisposal of excess military arms is also a big problem. There are atleast 76 million small arms in surplus of modern military requirements.
"Statesstill tend to send their excess military weapons to other statesinstead of destroying them. Incentives for destruction must be enhancedif excess stocks are to be kept from the illicit market," said Streuli.
Krauseand other experts warn that light weapons, including anti-tank guns,grenade launchers, improvised explosive devices, known as IEDs, androcket launchers, are widely used by non-state armed groups to carryout insurgent acts.
"Non-state armed groups in Southeast Asia,Middle East, Eastern Europe, and South America have been reported toproduce light weapons," he said. "They are often produced frommaterials that are salvaged from stocks of ammunition and explosives,so weapons stocks may be pillaged and then used, in particular theexplosives and other parts, to produce improvised explosive devices."
Heurges governments to secure and monitor their stockpiles of small armsand light weapons and to pay attention to the risk of diversion.