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Welcome to SUNS 2008! |
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Committee: Security Council Topic: The Global Trafficking of Small Arms Director: Daniel Rodriguez (Spanish), Saidde Garcia (English)
About the committee:
The United Nations Security Council is an organ inside the United Nations that takes charge of maintaining and ensuring peace between countries. Some of the functions that were stated in the United Nations charter for the Security Council are:
To investigate any dispute or situation that might lead to problems between member countries.
To recommend methods to resolve those conflicts or disputes.
The Security Council’s first session was on January 17 1946, at Church House, London.
There are 15 members in the Security Council. Five of these members, which are China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, are the permanent members of the Security Council, and they have veto vote, which means that if one of them do not agree to a proposition, the proposition will not pass, no matter what. And the ten other members of the Security Council are the non-permanent members, and these countries by today are: Belgium, Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Indonesia, Italy, Panama, Peru, Qatar, Slovakia and South Africa, and they do not have veto vote. In extreme and urgent situations, the Security Council does allow the use of military force.
Some of the most recent cases that have been through the Security Council are: The situation that concerns the Democratic Republic of Congo, the situation that concerns Western Sahara, the situation in Liberia, etc. The Security Council treats topics that need to be solved in order to prevent a conflict between nations and to keep peace among all countries.
Bold words definition comes at the bottom. What are small arms? The term Small arms is a way to call infantry weapons, such as the firearms that a solider carries. It usually means: revolvers, pistols, submachine guns, shotguns, carbines, assault rifles, rifles, sniper rifles, squad automatic weapons, light machine guns, general purpose machine guns, medium machine guns, and hand grenades. In the US military a small arm means hand guns or firearms less than 20 mm in caliber and so it also includes heavy machine guns. Any firearm using a bullet bigger than 1/2 inch (.50 caliber or 12.7 mm) in diameter is considered a heavy weapon, and then anything .50 caliber or less is considered a small arm.
The Problem Small arms and light weapons “promote” civil wars and other conflicts, causing harm to millions of people particularly in Africa. These small weapons are only part of a larger trade that includes heavier and more dangerous weapons, but small arms and light weapons are used much more often because they are cheap, easy to transport and can be used by poorly trained soldiers and even children. UN reports show how these weapons are illegally exported, transported with the help of government officials in many countries and taken into war areas. In some places automatic weapons are so cheap they can be bought in exchange for a chicken or a few pounds of rice. The world is full these arms; there are over 500 million of them. That means 1 of 12 persons can have a gun. Most of them are controlled by legal authorities, but when they are obtained by terrorist groups, criminals, or rebels this small arms can cause great destruction. They also increase conflicts, break the law, and create a culture of fear and hate. These arms are a threat to peace, to human development, to democracy and human rights. In the hands of terrorists and other criminals these weapons can kill even hundreds of innocent civilians. A small missile bought on the black market for just a few thousand dollars can bring down a big plane. Even a couple of $100 assault rifles can create horrible situations, as done on November 1997 terrorist attack in Luxor, Egypt, during which 6 terrorists armed only with assault rifles, pistols and knives killed 58 tourists. The Control Arms Campaign, founded by Amnesty International, Oxfam, and the International Action Network on Small Arms calculates that there are over 600 million items of small arms all over the world and that over 1135 companies in more than 98 different countries manufacture small arms as well as their components and ammunition. According to Oxfam, around 500,000 people die in small arms conflicts every year, around one death per minute. Small arms in Latin America Small arms and gun violence are the biggest threat to safety in Latin America and the Caribbean. After decades of illegal proliferation around 45 million to 80 million small arms and light weapons have been circulating through these countries. Guns kill between 73,000 and 90,000 people each year in Latin America, and guns are the main cause of death among people between the ages of 15 and 44 according to the World Health Organization.
The United States has had a very controversial involvement in the small arms problem in Latin America. The U.S. has been Latin America’s main gun exporter for a long time, providing weapons worth millions of dollars, but at the same it provides great support for the control of arms. For example since 2001 the United States helped four Latin American countries destroy thousands of firearms.
In El Salvador the United States helped destroy 30,000 small arms in 2003, in Honduras 13,680 small arms and 5,772 bombs were destroyed in 2006–07, in Nicaragua, 1,011 shoulder-fire rockets were destroyed in 2004–06, and in Suriname, 3 million .50-cal rounds, 20,000 WWII-vintage rounds, and 20,000 small arms (including grenades) were destroyed in 2006–07.
Small arms in Africa
Almost every war in Africa has been “promoted” by small arms and light weapons Here is a list of some major African conflicts during the 90’s and 2000’s and damages caused by them.
- Algerian Civil War (1991-2002): between 150,000 and 200,000 lives were killed.
- Angolan Civil War (1975-2002): 500,000 people were killed in the 27-year war.
- Burundi civil war (1993-2005): 300,000 killed.
- Second Chadian civil war (2005-present): this war is still going.
- Republic of Congo civil war (1997-1999): over 10,000 civilians killed.
- First Congo war (1996-1997): over 200,000 civilians killed.
- Second Congo war (1998-2003): By 2008 the war and its aftermath had killed 5.4 million people, mostly from disease and malnutrition, making the Second Congo War the deadliest conflict in the world since World War II. Millions more were displaced from their homes. Despite an end to the war in July 2003 and an agreement to create a government of national unity, 1,000 people died daily in 2004 from easily malnutrition and diseases.
-Ituri conflict (1999-2007): More than 60,000 people killed in the conflict and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes.
-Guinea-Bissau Civil War (1998-1999): Thousands killed; 350,000 displaced.
-Second Liberian civil war (2002-2003): 250,000 people had been killed and nearly 1 million displaced.
-Sierra Leone civil war (1991-2002): 75,000 Sierra Leoneans dead and 2 million people (well over one-third of the population) were displaced because of the 9 year conflict.
IANSA The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) is an international non-governmental organization recognized by the United Nations. The IANSA headquarters are located in London and has over 800 member organizations in 120 countries working to stop the production and use of small arms and light weapons. The director is Rebecca Peters. IANSA also works in public health, women and guns, child soldiers, and trade controls. IANSA was involved in organizing the 2001 United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms which produced a program of action. After the UN Program of Action every country had committed itself to: ▪ Make illicit gun production/possession a criminal offence ▪ Establish a national coordination agency on small arms ▪ Identify and destroy stocks of weapons ▪ Keep track of officially-held guns ▪ Issue end-user certificates for exports/transit ▪ Notify the original supplier nation of re-export ▪ Disarmament, Demobilization & Re-integration (DDR) of ex-combatants, including collection and destruction of their weapons ▪ Support regional agreements and encourage moratoria ▪ Mark guns at point of manufacture for identification and tracking ▪ Maintain records of gun manufacture ▪ Engage in more Exchange of information ▪ Ensure better enforcement of arms embargoes ▪ Include civil society organizations in efforts to prevent small arms production . There was also a UN Review Conference in July 2006 but ended without an agreement. IANSA, part of the Control Arms Campaign, promotes an international treaty regulating arms trade. A resolution to begin work on this Arms Trade Treaty was approved by the UN General Assembly in 2006. The US National Rifle Association has accused IANSA of using the treaty as the first step in a prohibition of private gun possession in the United States, and also of making it easier for the world's dictatorships to oppress their own citizens. The Gun Owners of America organization has also criticized this movement of the IANSA. Almost all national and regional gun control organizations belong to the IANSA and it’s calculated that it represents over 500 gun control organizations all over the world. The IANSA even opposes to the use of firearms for self defense. It prohibits the private possession of many kinds of small arms. It says that citizens need a special license before they can own legally a firearm, and that legally possessed ones must be kept unloaded and away from ammunition.
Main small arms exporters The Small Arms Survey, an organization supporting the control of small arms said in their 2003 report that at least 1,134 companies in 98 countries worldwide work in the production of small arms and ammunition. The largest exporters of small arms are the European Union and the United States. Huge exports of small arms by the US, the former Soviet Union, China, Germany, Belgium, and Brazil during the Cold War have survived many conflicts and many are now in the hands of arms dealers who move them between conflict areas.
Victor Bout Viktor Anatolyevich Bout is a Soviet former GRU major and arms dealer. Victor Bout was suspected of supplying arms to the Taliban and Al Qaeda and of supplying huge arms exports into many civil wars in Africa with his own private air fleet. According to Lee S. Wolosky, he is "the most powerful player in the trafficking of illegal arms." Bout came to officials' attention in the 1990s, when he was accused of supplying arms to rebels in West Africa after a peace agreement had been broken. At that time he was using many airlines which were later closed by authorities. He also supplied arms to the president Charles Taylor in Liberia. In May 2006 when 200,000 assault rifles went missing when exported from Bosnia to Iraq, one of Bout's planes was the carrier. Bout was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand on March 6, 2008, five days after the Colombian government found the computer of FARC's (Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia) leader Raul Reyes in a camp in Ecuador.
How to confront it. To confront this problem the world needs stronger and more effective laws. Every country has laws and restrictions against biologic and nuclear weapons, but they ignore the problem and damage that small arms cause. These arms are just as dangerous as heavy weapons. One pistol can kidnap a whole plane or a bus. We also need the help from the manufacturers of these arms, they could make them easier to track putting a clear mark on them and selling them only through authorized ways. We must also destroy the huge supplies of weapons that today exist. In ending conflicts the ex-fighters must be disarmed and should receive help to find a job. Like we learned in Albania, El Salvador, Mozambique, Panama and other countries it can be really effective to offer nonmonetary incentives like tools, educational help for their sons, construction materials, and health services for everyone who voluntary gives up his weapons. Unfortunately many governments that have already paid thousands of millions of dollars are not willing to pay some hundreds of thousands in these needs that are necessary if we want peace to last. GRU: The GRU is Russia's largest intelligence agency. Manufacture: the use of tools and labor to make things for use or sale. Moratoria: a suspension of activity. Incentives: an incentive is any factor (financial or non-financial) that provides a motive for a particular course of action, or counts as a reason for preferring one choice to the alternatives. Proliferation: to cause to grow or increase rapidly
Questions to think about: 1.-- Is my country a producer of these arms? 2.-- If my country is not a producer, who is my supplier of these arms? 3.-- Is the private possession of these arms legal in my country? 4.-- What has my country done to fight this problem? 5.-- How has this problem affected my country? 6.-- Is my country committed to the UN Program of Action? 7.-- What solutions does my country propose? 8.-- Is my country aware of the damage these weapons can create? 9 – What can be done to fight the black market trade of small arms? http://es.catholic.net/abogadoscatolicos/435/853/articulo.php?id=28176 http://www.hemisferio.org/armas/seminario_02_06.shtml http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arma http://www.un.org/spanish/conferences/smallarms/sgcarta.htm http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/sas/publications/w_papers_pdf/DP/DP_HumanRights.htm http://www.fas.org/asmp/campaigns/smallarms/IssueBrief3ArmsTrafficking.html http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/smallarms/salwindx.htm |
