Georgia still awash with weapons
A woman holding a portrait of a relative who died in the Georgian-Abkhazian war cries during an anniversary ceremony in Tbilisi September 27, 2006.
REUTERS/David Mdzinarishvili
REUTERS/David Mdzinarishvili
It's less than a month since Saferworld, an NGO that works to prevent armed violence, revealed there are 289,000 small arms and light weapons washing around the breakaway Dnestr region of Moldova.
Now the same NGO, working with the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development, says there are 409,000 weapons in civilian hands in government-controlled Georgia. That means almost one in ten people has a gun. Around 159,000 are registered but the rest appear to be illicit.
These arms are the legacy of the various internal conflicts that have wracked Georgia since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
One of the many obstacles to removing arms from circulation is the fact that the conflicts in Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have not been resolved. Tensions are rising at the moment between Georgia and neighbouring Russia, making the findings even more relevant.
The report praises the Georgian government, though, saying it has made significant progress since 2003 in improving control of small arms and human security. It has unified the once-diffuse Georgian military and established an international arms transfer control system, for example. But there's still a lot to be done, says Simon Rynn, European head for Saferworld.
"The Georgian Government has made progress on small arms control, but further actions need to be taken to improve human security and bring Georgia into line with European standards. As a first step, Georgia should meet its international commitment to develop and implement a comprehensive small arms control plan," he says.
Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Reuters.
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