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Small arms threaten Sri Lanka’s stability
30 Sep 2003
By Katherine Heine
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Two Tamil women cry on a rebel grave at a cemetary in eastern Sri Lanka.
File photo by ANURUDDHA LOKUHAPUARACHCHI
LONDON (AlertNet) - This month a coalition of NGOs will launch a campaign in Sri Lanka to eliminate small arms proliferation in South Asia as representatives of the Sri Lankan government and the armed separatist movement Liberation Tigers of Tamil (LTTE) continue to discuss abandoning their weapons in hopes of peace.
Oxfam-GB, Amnesty International, and the International Network on Small Arms (IANSA), which represents 500 NGOs, will meet on October 9 in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo to lobby for legislative change and provide humanitarian services to the region’s conflict zones.
“(The programme) will be primarily focused on campaigning for legislation, but there will also be a community-based element that will target and promote actions within the community basically encouraging people to turn in guns,” Amnesty International spokeswoman Teresa Richardson told AlertNet.
Richardson said the coalition wanted countries and manufacturers to accept responsibility for the trade in small arms and its consequences.
“Generally, we believe that the trade of arms needs to be tightly controlled and that arms should not be going to regions where it is clear that those arms will end up being involved in human rights abuses,” she said.
“We have been campaigning for specific legislation controlling the way in which the arms get transferred from one country to another.
“There needs to be a clear trail of where the arms are going and where they are going to end up,” Richardson said.
According to IANSA there are an estimated 75 million firearms in South Asia, 63 million of which the organisation believes have fallen into civilian hands.
Many of the easily transportable, hard-to-track weapons were introduced to the region in the 1970s during the Afghanistan and Cambodian wars, when U.S. and western European firms sold small arms to warring factions.
DEVASTATING EFFECTS
The coalition's campaign in South Asia coincides with an upsurge in optimism surrounding peace talks to end Sri Lanka’s 19-year civil war.
International donors have pledged $4.5 billion to support the negotiations between Sri Lankan government officials and the LTTE.
But humanitarian groups are concerned small arms and light weapons could have a negative impact on the peace process and human development.
Mark Brown, a U.N. Development Programme administrator, told AlertNet: “Small arms have an insidious effect on development.”
“By undermining the safety and security of communities, threatening livelihoods, and destroying social networks, they at best hold back and at worst contribute to the reversal of hard-won development gains,” he said.
Sri Lanka has already experienced the devastating effects small arms proliferation can have on a region and its people.
According to Robert Muggah, a researcher for the Small Arms Survey and visiting fellow of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, the solution is to combat the consequences of militarisation long after a peace agreement is reached.
“It is virtually impossible to dispute that the steady and continuous availability (of small arms) elongated the conflict (in Sri Lanka) and exacted a heavy human toll,” Muggah told AlertNet.
“But even as the shadow of war recedes, armed crime is on the rise, especially in the south of the country.
“A looming concern that must be front and centre in the negotiations is what to do with the estimated 51,000 deserters from the Sri Lankan army and the many thousands from the LTTE who have either acquired weapons after deserting or left their posts with their firearms,” he said.
The concern includes children who participated in the LTTE movement, some as young as nine years of age, according to Survivors’ Rights International, a U.S.-based organisation that raises awareness about crimes against humanity.
“Children were long inducted into the LTTE military before they received headline treatment in West Africa,” a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Paul Wallace, told AlertNet.
UNCONTROLLABLE TRADE
The general nature of small arms proliferation defies efforts to control the trade through policy initiatives, according to Keith Krause, programme director of the Small Arms Survey.
Conventional supply-side control mechanisms are not as effective as they are in other circumstances because of the vast number of producers in the market, about 300 firms in 70 states, Krause said.
In addition, the legitimate use of small arms for individual use or defence presents challenges to creating legislation directed at control, he said.
Small arms are particularly easy to obtain in Sri Lanka because of the intricate system of smuggling the LTTE has shaped over the past 20 years, according to Wallace.
“For Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers have a small, effective maritime supply system with small boats and freighters,” Wallace told AlertNet.
“In addition, during the conflict that began in earnest in 1983, they also were successful in over-running Sri Lankan government police stations and military supply areas,” he said.
At the regional level, the complicated relationships between India, Pakistan and other neighbouring countries might further complicate long-term solutions.
According to IANSA, NGOs in South Asia have identified uneasy relations in the region as one of the major challenges to preventing proliferation.
Sri Lanka has done what it can to take steps internally to regulate the presence of illegal weapons by amending its Firearms Act in 1996, according to Muggah of the Small Arms Survey.
“Nevertheless, the gap between extant legislation and its successful implementation remains large,” Muggah said.
“In 2001, there were an estimated 45,000 legally registered firearms. The Ministry of the Interior estimated the unregistered civilian stockpile at 20,000.
“But the Small Arms Survey believes that the number is significantly higher, and that there are at least 1.9 million illegal weapons owned by civilians,” he said.
DESIRE FOR WEAPONS
In 2001, Sri Lanka signed the multilateral U.N. Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects to combat the estimated $1 billion worldwide illegal small arms trade.
In July IANSA evaluated 156 countries aided by the U.N. programme and found that only 19 states had launched a review of national small arms legislation and a third had yet to establish a national contact point on small arms.
The most significant progress, IANSA found, was made when governments collaborated with NGOs.
The 2003 Small Arms Survey found that traditional methods of disarming such as the destruction and collection of weapons were most effective as part of a holistic approach.
“Although successful disarmament is commonly viewed today as a key element in transitions from war to peace, it cannot be dealt with in isolation from the broader peace-building process,” the 2003 Small Arms Survey said.
“Disarmament must be integrated into other common elements of this process, including demobilisation and reintegration, transitional justice, security sector reform, and weapons management.”
“Not only are these other efforts important for achieving peace, they are also directly relevant to the success of weapons reduction and control measures,” the report said.
Though the value and volume of the international small arms trade has decreased since the 1990s, the proportion of civilian firearms has grown in recent years, surpassing the number of military weapons in circulation, the survey reported.
There are also drastic economic affects associated with the presence of small arms that can have far-reaching negative implications on the standard of living in an area, the 2003 Small Arms Survey said.
“In responding to the threat of firearms, individuals and households may adapt their lifestyles and spend money on protecting themselves instead of investing it productively,” the report said.
Reducing arms availability in the long term will only be accomplished through measures aimed at reducing people’s desire and perceived need for weapons, along with controlling supply, it continued.
“Despite competing interpretations of what drives armed crime in developing countries, policy-makers and politicians are beginning to agree that under-employment and unemployment, weak legal and judicial systems, and growing inequality may compel people, particularly young men, to take up arms,” the report said.
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