[ssaa-news] NEWS - IANSA small arms report

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erron
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[ssaa-news] NEWS - IANSA small arms report

#1 Post by erron » Fri Oct 10, 2003 5:57 pm

Another good read sent to me from Dennis La Varenne. Dennis, is it possible to get someone (other than your overworked self :( ) from the SSAA to register and posts these in this forum?

cheers,

Erron


Note: IANSA (the largest anti-firearms NGO), Oxfam and Amnesty
International are releasing their latest small arms report today. The
release of the report coincides with the UN General Assembly First
Committee deliberation which will takes place this month in New York.
Small arms will be a major topic. Unfortunately the below article's
author, Paul Knox, seems to have adopted
the conclusions of the report without any questioning of the facts.
There are at least three major errors/omissions. First he says there
are "639 million weapons" in the world. What he ignores is that 60% of
these are legally owned by civilians and are not part of some plague of
small arms. Likewise he says that the number of small arms is growing
by 8 million a year. Again what he ignores is that a great majority of
these are civilian sporting arms and not weapons of war. Finally Mr.
Knox adopts the 500,000 a year causality figure. This has been
demonstrated to be blatantly incorrect, the actual number is more like
130,000. I have placed some
of the other interesting aspects of the article in bold.
___________________________________________________________________________


Arms trade revived by war on terror; Human-rights curbs skirted to arm
allies in U.S.-led effort, new report warns
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
International News; A20
October 9, 2003

Byline: PAUL KNOX
The U.S.-led battle against terrorism is pumping new life into the
deadly global arms trade after a steady post-Cold War decline,
disarmament campaigners say in a new report. Kicking off a drive to win
support for a global small-arms treaty, they say sales of conventional
weapons are rising as human-rights curbs on transferring arms to poor
countries are put on hold.
"The 'war on terror' should have focused political will to prevent
arms falling into the wrong hands," says the report, Shattered Lives:
The Case for Tough International Arms Control. "Instead . . . some
suppliers have relaxed their controls in order to arm new-found allies
against 'terrorism,' irrespective
of their disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law."

The report puts the number of small arms in existence at 639 million
weapons -- one for every 10 people in the world -- and says it is
growing at the rate of eight million a year. The weapons kill 500,000
people a year -- nearly one every minute,
the report adds.
"The arms trade is out of control," said Debbie Hillier, co-author
of the report and a policy adviser to Oxfam in Great Britain, one of
three groups mounting the new campaign. She said the toll dwarfs that
of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, which are covered by
long-standing global treaties.
"The world takes them seriously," Ms. Hillier said. "But there's
nothing at all on conventional weapons, and these are weapons that
actually kill people."
The report says other factors besides counterterrorism are also
responsible for the resurgence of the weapons trade. Automatic rifles,
pistols and other light weapons are common tools of personal security
even among people who are not at war, it says.
"Arms are just part of daily life for more people around the
world," Ms. Hillier said.
Besides Oxfam, the campaign is sponsored by Amnesty International
and the International Action Network on Small Arms, whose Canadian
member is Project Ploughshares of Waterloo, Ont.
The U.S. Congressional Research Service said last month that the
value of arms delivered to poor countries last year was lower than in
2001. But the value of agreements to ship weapons rose by more than 9
per cent, to $17.7-billion.
The United States agreed to ship $8.6-billion worth of arms to
these countries last year, the CRS said in its annual report on arms
transfers to poor countries. That was up from $6.4-billion in 2001.
Today's report urges countries to support a proposed arms-trade
treaty backed by a group of Nobel Peace Prize winners led by former
Costa Rican president Oscar Arias.
The treaty would prohibit the transfer of weapons if there is a
significant risk they will be used to commit aggression or violations of
international law.
The campaigners also call on countries to step up efforts to curb
illegal use of firearms and upgrade training for police and private
security guards who are authorized to carry guns.
They say a United Nations code of conduct and guidelines for the
use of force by police should be more widely observed.
A UN conference on small arms in 2001 drew up a program of measures
to curb the arms trade. It is scheduled for review in 2006.
The U.S. government, under heavy pressure from the gun lobby, has
sought to limit the scope of the UN review to the illicit arms trade and
resisted attempts to curb legal gun ownership.

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