Small Arms, Global Challenge: The Scourge of Light Weapons

Dr Owen Greene is research director and senior lecturer in international relations and security studies in the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, UK. He is the consultant to the UN Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms, and has been closely involved in research and international policy relating to small arms proliferation.

Globally, there are in existence several hundred million pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles and other small arms designed for military purposes. A similar number of firearms have been produced for police or civilian use. Such weapons are standard equipment for armies and security forces charged with protecting the security of their countries and citizens. But throughout much of the world their wide availability and use are associated with great suffering and insecurity. Together with light weapons, such as machine guns, mortars and grenades, they have long been the primary source of deaths and injuries in wars, particularly in the civil wars and internal conflicts that became prominent in the 1990s. Large accumulations and flows of arms, both legal and illegal, have destabilised regions, escalated, intensified and prolonged conflicts, and contributed to banditry, crime and social violence.

 

In recent years, there has been increasing awareness of the terrible misery caused by small arms and light weapons worldwide. The problems are very complex and the international community has struggled to develop appropriate policy responses. Nevertheless, since the mid-1990s, efforts to prevent small arms proliferation have intensified. Initiatives have developed at national, regional and global levels at a remarkable pace (by the glacial standards of international policymaking), with organisations such as the European Union, the Organisation of American States and the United Nations playing leading roles.

 

This article aims to review the dynamics and impacts of small arms proliferation, and to discuss the challenges of tackling this problem and the closely linked issue of illicit arms trafficking.

Special Characteristics

Broadly, the term “small arms” refers to conventional weapons that can be carried by an individual combatant or a light vehicle. The 1997 Report of the UN Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms provided a more refined and precise definition, which has become internationally accepted. This distinguishes between small arms, which are weapons designed for personal use, and light weapons, which are designed for use by several persons serving as a crew. The category of small arms includes revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, submachine guns, assault rifles and light machine guns. Light weapons include heavy machine guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft guns, portable anti-tanks guns, recoilless rifles, portable launchers of anti-aircraft missile systems, and mortars of calibre less than 100 mm. Ammunition and explosives form an integral part of small arms and light weapons used in conflict.

 

All types of conventional weapons can contribute to suffering and insecurity if there are excessive or destabilising arms build-ups and transfers. However, small arms and light weapons have special characteristics and pose particularly complex problems. They are relatively cheap and widely available. For example, up to one hundred million assault rifles (such as the AK-47) were produced between 1945 and 1990. They are now dispersed in most regions and can be bought for less than $200 in many areas of conflict—often for much less. The technology for producing small arms such as pistols and assault rifles is also widely dispersed. They are now produced on an industrial scale in over seventy countries and as a craft industry in numerous others.

 

By definition, small arms and light weapons are easily portable. Compared to heavy weapons systems such as tanks or aircraft, they are also easy to conceal. They can be transported by individuals or light vehicles, hidden in small storage places and smuggled in shipments of legitimate cargoes. Moreover, many types of small arms and light weapons require minimal maintenance and logistic support. They can be operated relatively easily. They are also durable. A cache of submachine guns, for example, may be readily useable after years of storage.

 

Importantly, small arms and light weapons are more widely traded and held, both legally and illegally, by non-state groups than are heavy weapons. Only national armed forces or large rebel armies normally operate heavy weapons such as tanks and aircraft. In contrast, small arms and light weapons are also used by the police, bandits, criminals and ordinary citizens. This means that such weapons are available for every sort of violent conflict, not only inter-state or civil war, but also communal hostilities, criminal activity and social violence.

 

Any small arm is a potential murder weapon. However, the rapid rates of fire of most assault rifles, automatic pistols and submachine guns means that an individual user, even a child, can swiftly inflict multiple death and injuries. Increased access to such weapons can overwhelm established social mechanisms for containing violent conflict and greatly exacerbate the instability, death and destruction caused. For example, the replacement of old hunting rifles by automatic weapons has transformed traditional conflicts associated with cattle rustling in sub-Saharan Africa.

Proliferation

All the above characteristics of small and light arms mean that the factors driving the flow, accumulation and use of these weapons are peculiarly complex, involving a wide range of actors and social or transnational processes. Small arms proliferation is a global problem in the sense that virtually every country suffers from it in some way. But, although there are some common characteristics, the situation varies with the specific conditions of every locality, country and region.

 

At the least, it is important to re-examine notions of “proliferation” before extending them from weapons of mass destruction or heavy conventional weapons to small arms. For example, there is a global norm against the development, possession, transfer and use of biological or chemical weapons and anti-personnel landmines. Small arms, however, are routinely held, traded or used by the military, police and at least some civilians in almost every country. Moreover, there are broad understandings and laws that civilians should not possess tanks or combat aircraft, but no such shared understandings exist concerning pistols or even semi-automatic rifles.

 

Non-proliferation efforts are usually focused on preventing the spread of technologies from a few developed states to other states. But the technologies for producing and maintaining small arms and light weapons are already widely disseminated. Furthermore, as indicated above, hundreds of millions of such weapons are already distributed around the world. For example, there are already sufficient arms in sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and South-West Asia to fuel conflict and undermine development in those regions for decades to come.

 

In addition, small arms proliferation raises strikingly different concerns for international security and conflict prevention from those raised by the accumulation of heavy weapons. Arms build-ups traditionally cause most concern when they involve strong states with powerful governments, which might use the weapons to attack or coerce neighbouring countries. In contrast, the effects of small arms proliferation tend to be most pernicious where there are weak or failed states, wide poverty or inequality, or societal breakdown. It is in such contexts that small arms are most likely to be accumulated and misused—by state security forces to crush dissent or confiscate resources, and by opposition and other non-state groups to protect themselves or otherwise pursue their interests.

 

Thus, if the spread of small arms is a global proliferation problem, it is distinctive. In many regions, the difficulty is not so much to prevent the accumulation of large government stockpiles of small arms and light weapons, but rather to prevent or reverse their diffusion from military or police stores to warlords, criminals and ordinary citizens.

 

Nevertheless, several of the challenges are familiar to those concerned with other types of arms proliferation. Although many small arms are already dispersed in conflict-prone regions, it is a fact that demand remains strong in such regions for additional imports of arms and ammunition. Thus, alongside measures to reduce such demand, means of restricting supplies of arms from outside the area of conflict are necessary.

 

This implies a need for control and restraint in the transfer of weapons from arms-manufacturing countries. The great majority of weapons are still produced in a relatively small number of states, chiefly the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and their close allies. During the Cold War, these states shipped vast quantities of arms to their allies or proxies in the developing world. Such “strategic” reasons for small arms transfers have now largely vanished. However, governments are still tempted to use small arms exports as an instrument of foreign policy or interference, or as sweeteners in a package deal to sell major conventional arms. Companies manufacturing small arms remain themselves subject to normal commercial pressures to export wherever possible. With the end of the Cold War, their governments sometimes became more relaxed about the possible destinations and strategic impacts of such exports.

Second-Hand Weapons

However, the durability of small and light arms means that it is entirely inadequate to concentrate solely on restricting supplies of newly manufactured weapons. Many international transfers involve second-hand weapons. When military or police forces are re-equipped the arms rendered surplus to requirements are typically sold on, to other governments or to arms brokers who then seek foreign buyers. With the end of the Cold War, the armed forces of NATO and the former Warsaw Pact were downsized, releasing vast quantities of surplus arms and ammunition on to the international market at bargain prices. Much of this weaponry ended up in areas of conflict, where demand is highest. Weapons transferred to the military forces of “responsible” governments in relatively peaceful areas displaced older weapons which then became available for transfer.

 

Controls on supplies of second-hand or surplus weapons are therefore of central importance in efforts to limit small arms proliferation. Almost every country maintains substantial holdings of small arms. This has the important implication that virtually every country is a potential supplier of small arms and light weapons, not only the states where such arms are manufactured.

 

Moreover, the importance of second-hand weapons in small arms proliferation undermines the distinction between controls on small arms produced for military or police purposes and on firearms produced for civilians for sporting pursuits or self-defence. In practice, surplus “military” small arms are often sold on to civilians, at home and abroad. Similarly, civilian firearms often enter the illicit arms trade, ultimately to supply rebel forces.

 

Furthermore, one of the main sources of weapons held by rebel forces, warlords and criminals is the authorised stockpiles of the local government itself. In some cases, authorities distribute weapons among their civilian supporters as a tactic in a conflict. More generally, many government stockpiles are insecure, vulnerable to theft or attack. In Albania, for example, approximately five hundred thousand weapons were taken from government stockpiles during the 1996 unrest following the collapse of pyramid lending schemes. These weapons were subsequently used in the conflicts in and around Kosovo, as well as by criminals throughout much of southern Europe and beyond. Thefts from police or military stockpiles appear to be common in many developing and eastern European countries, and are by no means rare in NATO countries.

 

The United Nations itself has had sobering experiences in this context. Weapons collected as part of a disarmament process during the implementation of a peace agreement have sometimes found their way back into the hands of combatants. This occurred, for example, in Mozambique in the early 1990s. As a result, the United Nations has subsequently insisted on firm long-term controls on stockpiles of weapons gathered in such contexts, and prefers to destroy collected weapons. Thus, the United Nations refused to turn over control of collected weapons to the new government in Liberia under Charles Taylor, and in 1999 finally persuaded the Liberian government to agree to their monitored destruction.

Arms and War

Arms do not by themselves cause the conflicts in which they are used. At most, arms proliferation is one of several causal factors, and not always the most important. Violent conflicts generally have underlying causes arising from several accumulated political, commercial, socio-economic, ethnic, cultural and ideological factors. The key challenge is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which such factors interrelate in a particular region and time so that an integrated response capable of breaking vicious circles of violence and decline can be developed.

 

One major vicious circle in conflict-prone or insecure regions is that the availability and use of arms can add to the causes of conflict, escalating violence and instability, which further increases the demand for arms.

 

In this context, arms build-ups can increase tension, alter regional or national balances of power and destabilise regions or societies. The availability of arms tends to escalate, exacerbate or prolong conflicts and to intensify the lethality and suffering caused. It may encourage parties to a dispute to attempt a violent rather than a peaceful resolution of differences. Access to lethal weapons such as assault rifles can transform what would otherwise have been a minor and manageable incident into a massacre demanding retaliation. It can enable children to become killers and facilitate their exploitation as child-soldiers.

 

At times when a war could come to an end, wide availability of arms can undermine cease-fires, peace agreements and conflict resolution; make it easier for demobilised combatants to resort to banditry, crime and insurrection; and increase the risk that quiescent conflict will resume. Disarmament processes can be neutralised by arms transfers across borders or between regions. Efforts to curb the availability, transfer and use of small arms and light weapons should therefore be an integral part of programmes to prevent, limit or end violent conflicts.

 

Weak states or governments, those lacking legitimacy among large sections of their populations, have few mechanisms for good governance and non-violent management and resolution of disputes. Risks of internal violent conflict are thereby increased and are exacerbated by the availability of lethal small arms. Without effective police and judicial systems, corruption, crime and gun-violence can grow with impunity. The diffusion of arms will tend to empower certain groups and challenge traditional authority structures, facilitating social and economic breakdown and the brutalisation of social relations. In some societies this can reach a level where a “culture of violence” can be said to have been established.

 

Guns can become an important element in the political economy of weak, collapsed or oppressive states. Besides self-defence needs, possessing a weapon may be an economic survival strategy for the poor, while the rich and powerful become free to use private security forces (or elements of the state forces) to gain access to mineral or other riches. Moreover, demand for arms throughout society is normally related to widespread criminality and violence.

 

The effects are unlikely to be confined to one country. Refugees and displaced people move across borders, bringing their own pressures on host communities and providing an environment in which armed groups and criminals can hide and operate transnationally. One consequence is the opening up of supply routes for illegal arms flows, further exacerbating the situation. Moreover, outside governments may be tempted to manipulate the internal conflict for their own ends, inviting reciprocation and generally expanding the conflict.

Conflict Prevention

Unfortunately, this bleak picture applies to many countries and regions of the world. In such contexts, a comprehensive and integrated approach is required to tackle the problem. Efforts to prevent and resolve conflict and combat arms proliferation need to be combined with programmes to promote development, good governance and human security. Moreover, wherever possible a regional approach is desirable. Effective local and national action is essential. But many of the factors contributing to conflict and arms proliferation are transnational and international. Regional and global co-operation is needed to address them.

 

The design of conflict prevention strategies to be pursued as part of such an integrated approach classically depends on the particular phase of the conflict in question. A broad distinction is made between pre-conflict engagements to avert violence, mid-conflict efforts to limit the fighting and post-conflict programmes to aid reconstruction and prevent a relapse into violence. These distinctions are also important for tackling small arms proliferation in a country or region.

 

However, it is also important to recognise that many of the problems associated with small arms proliferation in weak or collapsed states are similar in each phase of the conflict. Experience shows that deaths and injuries caused by small arms and light weapons may reach high levels years before the onset of large-scale fighting between organised armed groups. Moreover, the formal end of civil war and the demobilisation of combatants may bring little relief from violence and insecurity for the civilian population. There is often a fine line in conflict-prone regions between the patterns of arms possession and use during civil war and those in banditry, crime and social violence during “peacetime”.

 

This is illustrated by recent research by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), published in the British Medical Journal in August 1999. A study of casualties in Cambodia in the mid-1990s showed that many of the weapons-inflicted injuries occurred outside the context of interfactional conflict, and that such injuries declined only modestly after hostilities ceased. Similarly, in 1996 in Afghanistan—a year of periodic intense combat—the ICRC found that throughout the year civilians were more likely to have non-combat weapons injuries than weapons injuries inflicted during combat.

 

Such findings may initially seem surprising. But in fact they generally confirm the impressions of observers of many countries in conflict. Deaths and injuries from small arms did not, for example, greatly decline after the peace agreements in El Salvador and Liberia or in post-apartheid South Africa. This highlights the potential value of collecting weapons after conflicts, and from society at large as well as ex-combatants.

Building Peace

Governments and societies have many sources of resilience and often have the capacity to resist or reverse the downward spirals of state weakness, arms proliferation, conflict, poverty, social violence and crime outlined above. Sometimes conflicts can be brought to an end before there are massive casualties and bitterness, and institutions useful for peaceful governance may remain relatively intact. All too often, however, peace agreements are only achieved when the parties have fought themselves to a standstill or after protracted and devastating conflict. In either case, all the factors that were important in causing or fuelling the conflict need to be addressed if peace building and reconstruction are to be effective.

 

So, efforts to curb small arms proliferation can contribute substantially to peace building, just as the spread of such weapons tends to promote conflict. For example, a key aspect of efforts to prevent the resumption of violent conflict is measures to limit the access to arms of potentially dissatisfied groups, and to concentrate control of armed forces in the hands of legitimate state authorities. To be effective, such measures must go hand in hand with actually establishing legitimate authorities capable of addressing grievances fairly through political and judicial mechanisms. Demand for guns must also be reduced by enhancing the security of groups and communities from violence. This in turn typically requires reforming police and armed forces (which may previously have been part of the problem) and introducing mechanisms to promote reconciliation and bring to justice people guilty of terrible crimes and human rights abuses.

 

Similarly, economic and social development and (re-)integration programmes are essential to prevent large numbers of ex-combatants or refugees from resorting to banditry and crime. Yet such programmes cannot proceed if high levels of lawlessness and violence are exacerbated by small arms proliferation. Gun control, removing excess weapons from society and tackling cultures of violence can thus be important for integration and development. Such efforts must involve the whole society, and in particular must include co-operation between concerned sections of civil society and the state. Finally, combating illicit arms trafficking is not only important in preventing destabilising arms flows, but in many countries will also be an organic part of efforts to fight criminal networks and corruption.

 

In most conflict-prone regions, therefore, it is not sensible to debate in general terms whether tackling small arms proliferation should have a higher or lower priority than conflict prevention, peace building, justice, resettlement of refugees or development. If they are to be effective, programmes to address any one of these concerns must be closely integrated with efforts to address all of the others. Debates will therefore focus most usefully on developing the best strategies for pursuing each objective and on how they can be integrated into a comprehensive and effective peace-building programme.

 

The situation varies in each conflict-prone region or country. Thus, the precise character of each measure in an effective action programme and the balance between the different elements must likewise depend on local conditions. Nevertheless, on the basis of experience and policy initiatives in a wide range of countries and regions it is possible to identify a number of key requirements for any policy to tackle small arms proliferation. These are briefly outlined below.

Combating Arms Trafficking

Almost by definition, illicit arms trafficking should be prevented. Efforts to do so are a normal part of countries’ efforts to enforce national laws and regulations on arms imports and exports. However many states have inadequate laws to control illegal trading. This is particularly true of developing countries with long, relatively unguarded borders, weak laws and poorly resourced enforcement agencies, displaced peoples and rebel groups. This predicament is often compounded by the fact that governments may tolerate or collude in illicit arms trafficking to neighbouring countries.

 

The main elements of an effective programme to combat illegal arms trafficking include the strengthening and updating of relevant laws and regulations. Clarification of what is legal and illegal is necessary, as is control of arms-brokering activities. Enforcement capacity must be strengthened, including intelligence gathering and exchange, customs regulations, border police and the criminal justice system. Means of tracing illicit arms flows, including the marking and registering of legally held arms, must also be improved.

 

There are now substantial international initiatives and recommendations concerning illicit arms trafficking. In 1997 the European Union established a programme to prevent illicit trafficking in conventional arms. In 1998 the programme was developed into a legally binding EU Joint Action on small arms, in which EU states committed themselves to support international efforts to tackle small arms proliferation and co-operate with particularly affected countries and regions. In 1999 such co-operation was established with western and southern Africa and Albania, and was begun with Cambodia.

 

Similarly, in 1997 the Organisation of American States established a legally binding convention to combat illicit firearms trafficking. It included co-operation and information exchange and measures to enhance control of arms transfers and ensure the marking and tracing of firearms from the point of manufacture. This provided the inspiration for a similar global protocol currently being negotiated under UN auspices. West African and southern African states have also started regional programmes to co-operate in tackling illicit arms trafficking.

Controls on Legal Arms

Programmes to strengthen controls on legal arms are a necessary complement of measures to curb illicit arms trafficking and to collect and destroy excess weapons. Weaknesses in controls on legal possession and trade facilitate illicit trafficking. In any case, laws and regulations will need to be changed as countries seek to emerge from conflict, reduce crime and social violence, destroy surplus arms and change social norms about arms possession.

 

There are two major aspects to the task of controlling legal arms. One relates primarily to military equipment. It addresses the possession and use of weapons by the military or other armed agencies of government. It also concerns authorised arms transfers to other states. The other aspect relates to the trade and possession of civilian firearms.

 

States have sovereign rights under the UN Charter to procure arms for their self-defence. Arguably, these rights are now balanced by a responsibility to act with restraint and take due account of requirements for regional and international security. Such responsibilities are becoming well established through a body of norms expressed in various UN Security Council and UN General Assembly resolutions. The principles of restraint in arms transfers were significantly developed during the 1990s through international criteria and “codes of conduct”, most prominently by the UN Disarmament Committee, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the European Union. Small arms are not the specific focus of these codes, but they are covered by them.

 

In practice, however, it remains a buyer’s market and arms suppliers seldom exercise sufficient restraint. Arms transfers are often authorised to regions in conflict or to recipients entailing a high risk of diversion to unauthorised destinations and end-uses. Many transit states also continue to exercise insufficient control over weapons shipments passing through their territories.

 

However, controls on flows are not simply a responsibility of supplier states. Recipient countries also need to exercise restraint. In October 1998, the governments of west Africa declared a precedent-setting moratorium on all imports, exports and manufacture of small arms and light weapons, for an initial period of three years. Groups of supplier states (including the members of the so-called Wassenaar Arrangement) have pledged support in maintaining this moratorium and aid donors have backed a regional programme in west Africa to enhance controls on legal and illicit arms.

 

Strengthening and clarifying controls on civilian firearms is also an important element in restricting the diffusion of light arms in society. It complements efforts to collect arms, fight crime and illicit trafficking, and reverse cultures of violence. In many countries, it is ambiguous whether civilian possession or trade of certain arms is legal or illegal, and laws have not kept pace with the changes in weapons technology and lethality. Some countries are currently reviewing and making more stringent their gun control legislation. Although it is well known that gun possession has strong cultural associations in several nations, including the United States, in most countries there is majority support for strengthening gun control.

Arms Round-Ups

Firearms are frequently confiscated by the police in almost every country as part of normal law-enforcement activity. However, there are limits to what can be achieved coercively through police searches. Several countries have opted for voluntary weapons collection programmes, including Albania, Cambodia, Mali, Mozambique, South Africa, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Haiti. But it is not only countries emerging from conflict that decide to reduce the number and types of weapons circulating in society. For example, Australia, the United Kingdom and some US cities have all recently engaged in voluntary weapons collection programmes.

 

Such programmes can broadly be divided into three types: amnesties, gun buy-backs and gun-exchange programmes. Amnesties allow unlicensed or lapsed-licence owners to register or hand in their firearms, or to surrender weapons that become illegal under new legislation. Gun buy-back schemes involve the collection authority buying weapons for cash or cash-vouchers. Exchange programmes provide non-cash goods or services in return for weapons that are handed in.

 

Experience with such programmes has been mixed. Typically, gun collection programmes work much better when they enjoy the active support and involvement of the relevant local communities and when they are integrated with wider measures to address the communities’ economic, social and security needs. Gun buy-back schemes have been criticised for reinforcing the value of guns as a tradable commodity. Sometimes the money received for handing in old weapons appears to have been used to buy newer ones on the black market. The British and Australian governments had some success in collecting guns in exchange for cash payments, but only in the context of a transition to new, stringent gun controls in which only legitimate weapons owners were paid. In most circumstances, it has proved very difficult to design gun buy-back schemes that do not stimulate a black market.

 

Exchange programmes have tried to avoid these problems by providing goods and services such as food or farm equipment instead of cash. In El Salvador, for example, thousands of weapons were collected between 1997 and 1999 through a non-governmental initiative in which guns could be swapped for food vouchers. In Mozambique, the churches have successfully arranged to provide seed or agricultural equipment in exchange for weapons. In a district of Albania, the United Nations and the European Union have gone further by supporting since 1998 a weapons collection programme in which arms are exchanged for community services, such as roads, hospitals and schools. This latter programme reflects current best practice by offering rewards to communities rather than to individual gun owners.

 

In practice, the results of voluntary collection programmes have tended to be modest. More coercive police measures collect at least as many weapons. For example, the Cambodian police rapidly collected over forty thousand weapons between March and July 1999, and joint operations by South African and Mozambican police forces have recovered many thousands of weapons in hidden caches in the Mozambique countryside. However, in all cases co-operation between police and local communities has been critical to success, and voluntary weapon programmes have often produced important side benefits in the form of community awareness and mobilisation. Removing weapons from society is always a long-term process.

Destroying Surplus Weapons

Authorities are often tempted to keep or sell weapons that have been gathered through disarmament, collection programmes or confiscation by police. The problem is that stored weapons often prove vulnerable to theft or misuse. Weapons that are sold re-enter the arms market and may once again contribute to the problems of small arms proliferation. Destruction of collected or confiscated weapons would be more desirable. The challenge is to develop policies and incentives to encourage such destruction and to arrange appropriate monitoring so that people can be assured that the weapons are actually destroyed.

 

Similar considerations apply to the disposal of surplus arms in military, police and other authorised stockpiles. Vast quantities of arms often become surplus to requirements when armies are restructured or re-equipped. Once again, the temptation is to store them “just in case” or to sell them on the open market, with the same risks as above.

 

Recognising this, an increasing number of states are adopting the policy of destroying confiscated or surplus arms. In 1999, for example, South Africa announced that it would destroy all its surplus stocks—over 270,000 weapons. Destruction of small arms is relatively straightforward. They can easily be crushed, cut, blown apart or otherwise permanently disabled. Nevertheless, resources are required and donor assistance can help to effect weapons destruction in relatively poor, conflict-prone countries. The United Nations, European Union and several individual donor countries have recently contributed funds for this purpose, for example in Central America, west Africa and southern Africa.

Soldiers into Civilians

It has long been recognised that the implementation of peace agreements requires programmes to promote the demobilisation and social reintegration of ex-combatants. Experience shows that demobilisation on its own can create more problems than it solves. If it is not linked to reintegration, ex-combatants may resort to crime and banditry for economic survival. However, integration programmes are themselves complex and bad mistakes have been made. Soldiers who have known nothing other than fighting cannot simply be expected to return to subsistence agriculture. Moreover, ex-combatants guilty of terrible acts of violence cannot return to the community except as part of a broader peace-building and reconciliation process. The wider community must also receive assistance: it can cause resentment and tension if those responsible for past violence receive privileged treatment while innocents are neglected.

 

Peace accords have often neglected to plan for disarmament. Disarmament is, in principle, an important priority as conflicts end. Weapons need to be collected as ex-combatants are demobilised so as to reduce the risks that dissatisfied groups might rearm or resume fighting, or that the weapons will be used in banditry, crime or illicit trafficking. In practice, however, peace agreements have often included only limited or vague disarmament obligations. For example, UN missions to implement peace agreements in Mozambique, Angola, Liberia, Cambodia, El Salvador and elsewhere have been marred by weak disarmament mandates, incomplete disarmament and inadequate controls on collected arms.

 

In part, these problems stem from insufficient priority being given to disarmament issues during negotiations on peace agreements and UN mandates, and from inadequate preparation, training and resources for UN peacekeeping forces. But there are also more fundamental causes. Peace agreements are difficult to negotiate if there has been no clear military victor. Armed groups are typically keen to retain bargaining chips for the post-conflict period. They may fear that disarmament will make them unduly vulnerable to attacks or reprisals by their adversaries. They may be unwilling to do more than hand in some of their oldest weapons until they are confident that a satisfactory long-term peace has been secured.

 

Nevertheless, the United Nations has learned that these problems should be explicitly addressed at an early stage. There are important opportunities for arms collection and disarmament immediately after peace agreements. Programmes to surrender or destroy weapons can themselves be important confidence-building measures and powerful symbols of a desire for peace.

Security

The links between conflict prevention, peace building, socio-economic reconstruction and development, security enhancement (for the citizen, communities and state) and curbs on small arms proliferation are widely recognised in principle. In practice, however, efforts to address these problems are often fragmented or piecemeal. Thus, good policies or well-designed measures in one area are frequently rendered ineffective by inadequate, even contradictory, actions in others. At a minimum, programmes for reconstruction and development or for demobilising ex-combatants must be linked with measures to enhance security if they are to have a reasonable chance of success.

 

For example, in the early 1990s, implementation of the peace accord between the government and Tuareg rebels in Mali was blocked. Development projects and programmes to demobilise and reintegrate ex-combatants in the north of the country could not be effected because of widespread violence and insecurity. It was only with the establishment in the mid-1990s of measures to improve security in northern Mali that the peace accord could proceed. These measures included symbolically important collections and destructions of weapons, efforts to combat illicit arms trafficking and security sector reforms to build confidence in the police and armed forces.

 

Such experiences have important implications for donors and others aiming to assist countries emerging from conflict. In general, the governments and communities of war-torn countries lack the capacity to implement comprehensive peace-building programmes on their own.  Since the end of the Cold War, the international community has devoted large resources to post-conflict peace building by supporting development and demobilisation programmes. However, these have often been neglectful of the urgent need to provide a secure environment.

 

Many donors now recognise the value of adopting a “security first” approach to providing assistance in conflict-prone regions—that is, an integrated effort encompassing both security and development needs. The balance between development and security assistance in such an approach will depend on specific local circumstances and should be arrived at through close consultation between outside donors and the recipient governments and communities.

 

In practice, however, many donor agencies prefer to steer clear of security issues, which are politically sensitive and unfamiliar. Donors are also understandably wary about providing aid to strengthen the police or security forces in many conflict-prone countries. There is a risk that these may carry out oppressive or illegitimate activities.

Information Exchange

A key element of any policy to limit small arms proliferation is the enhancement of information exchange, transparency and accountability. This can play an important role at both the domestic and international level. Domestically, information exchange between government authorities and agencies, and between government, parliament and the public, can improve co-ordination of national efforts to tackle small arms proliferation and reduce the scope for corrupt or sloppy practices. Internationally, information exchange is necessary for effective co-operation against illegal activities and to strengthen confidence and mutual restraint.

 

Arrangements for information exchange and consultation between relevant national authorities are therefore essential to all serious initiatives to combat small arms proliferation. However, such arrangements remain at an early stage of development. Moreover, transparency relating to small arms holdings and transfers remains very low in most countries. Such information remains secret, or is not even systematically collated by national authorities. Information exchanges between members of the Wassenaar Arrangement supplier group, or between participants in the UN Register of Conventional Arms, do not yet include data on small arms and light weapons.

Towards International Action

Awareness of the problem of small arms proliferation has increased greatly since the mid-1990s. Many initiatives and measures have recently been adopted to address aspects of the issue at the national, regional and international levels. In the summer of 1999, a UN Group of Governmental Experts, representing 23 key states across all regions, negotiated a consensus report containing recommendations to the international community on a wide range of measures to prevent and reduce small arms proliferation. This report, which appears certain of achieving wide endorsement at the UN General Assembly, provides the basis for a comprehensive international action programme on small arms.

 

Moves to establish such a programme are gathering momentum. A coalition of concerned states, non-governmental organisations and international bodies reminiscent of the one that successfully campaigned to ban anti-personnel landmines has been forming since 1998. Small arms proliferation poses greater challenges than landmines, not least because there is no prospect of banning small arms, so the more complex tasks of regulation and control have to be addressed. The key event for establishing an action programme is an international conference on the “illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects”, which is due to take place in 2001.

 

An international action programme on small arms proliferation would be a major step forward, reinforcing recent national and regional initiatives. However, actually reducing small arms proliferation arguably poses greater challenges for global governance than any other aspect of arms control since it requires changing security practices at virtually every level of society—individual, local, national, regional and international.