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September
2005
The Arms Trade in the context of Afghanistan
There are more than
600,000,000 small arms and light weapons in the world today, and a
further eight million more are produced every year. Small arms fuel
violent conflict, state repression, crime and domestic abuse. Unless
governments act to control the spread of arms, more lives will be lost,
more human rights violations will take place, and more people will be
denied the chance to escape poverty.
Since 1992, more than
300,000 children may have perished during the conflict. Of 300 children
surveyed, 72 per cent experienced the death of a relative and nearly all
witnessed acts of violence, while two-thirds had seen dead bodies or
parts of bodies.
Ammunition and weapons are
still commonplace, and consequently death and violence are endemic. On 2
May 2005, 29 people were killed and 70 injured when an ammunition store
exploded in the village of Bajgah in the North of the country. A local
former militia commander had secretly stored the ammunition near his
home. The Afghanistan’s New Beginning Programme (ANBP) calls on all
militia leaders to surrender their ammunition caches. ANBP is
responsible for disarming, demobilising or reintegrating more than
31,000 weapons between October 2003 and May 2005.
The government has
indicated a wish to see the establishment of an International Arms Trade
Treaty (IATT) which it is hoped would curtail the proliferation of small
arms. In a speech given to the organisation Saferworld on 15 March 2005,
the Foreign Secretary outlined the British Government’s willingness to
work towards establishing the IATT. At the G8 summit at Gleneagles in
July the following statement was made on the subject of small arms:
We will also help…prevent
conflict and ensure that previous conflicts do not re-emerge, by
improving the effectiveness of transfer controls over small arms and
light weapons, including at inter alia the review conference of the UN
Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons in 2006, and taking
effective action to…collect and destroy illicit small arms. Development
of international standards in arms transfers, including a common
understanding of governments’ responsibilities, would be an important
step towards tackling the undesirable proliferation of conventional
arms. We agree on the need for further work to build a consensus for
action to tackle the undesirable proliferation of conventional arms.
Please write to the Foreign
Secretary, offering support for the IATT proposal he has outlined, and
urging him to continue working to promote the establishment of the IATT
preparation for the 2006 review conference of the UN Programme of Action
on small arms and light weapons .
The Secretary of State for
Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
The Rt Hon Jack Straw MP
Foreign and Commonwealth
Office
King Charles Street
Whitehall
London
W1A 2AH
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