 |
allAfrica.com
Cheap Guns Flood Borders
New Vision (Kampala)
March 19, 2007
Posted to the web March 20, 2007
By Emmy Allio and Steven Candia
Kampala
The trafficking in small arms along the Uganda, Sudan and Kenya borders is thriving to the extent that the cost of an AK-47 assault rifle has dropped from 10 cows in 1986 to two cows today.
On the Uganda-Sudan border, an AK-47 rifle goes for sh100,000, a pistol for sh50,000 and a bullet for a mere sh200. Inside Sudan, an AK-47 rifle goes for a few chickens.
No East African country has as yet submitted a proposal to the UN Secretary General to check the supply of fire-arms by developed nations to the least developed countries. These poor countries bear the brunt of the illicit trade in small arms.
These revelations were made during a regional meeting held in Kampala last week aimed at harmonising legislature on small arms.
“It is unfortunate that no member state has submitted its proposals on the Arms Trade Treaty to the UN Secretary General as earlier agreed, yet the April 31 deadline is fast approaching,” said Leonard Onyonyi, the coordinator for Small Arms and Light Weapons at the East-African Community Secretariat.
“We are the ones who pushed for it but it seems we are now dragging our feet. It is high time we showed we are serious about addressing the supply component of small arms.”
In his submission, the director of the Nairobi-based organisation, Safer World, Paul Eavis, noted that small arms have been the main weapons used in the rebellion in Northern Uganda and in cattle rustling in Karamoja. They were also key in the civil wars in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Somalia, the genocide in Rwanda and the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Eavis identifies three sources of small arms in East Africa.
- The first is arms obtained from recirculation of existing stocks of small arms that were legally transferred but have leaked into the illicit market.
- The second is small arms manufactured on the African continent, with South Africa identified as the leading manufacturer but with Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania also having the capacity to produce small arms.
- Another is new firearms manufactured outside Africa, especially in the eastern European bloc. These include both legal imports to meet legitimate defence needs and firearms supplied directly to rebels, insurgents, terrorists and criminals.
The states in the region acknowledged the problem of the proliferation of small arms by signing the Nairobi declaration in March 2000. The declaration put in place a comprehensive strategy to curb the trade by ensuring that all states have adequate laws, regulations and administrative procedures to exercise effective control over the possession and transfer of small arms. One of the most significant steps taken by the member states was to agree on a legally binding document, the so-called Nairobi Protocol.
The protocol seeks to prevent and eradicate the illicit manufacturing of, trafficking in, possession and use of small arms in the sub-region.
It also encourages the sharing of information, accountability, law enforcement and efficient control and management of small arms held by states. But the need for harmonised legislation among member states has also come to the forefront, given the region’s porous borders.
An example in point is Karamoja. According to a British researcher, Dr. Ben Knighton, most arms in Karamoja come from eastern European countries. They enter Uganda through the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
These arms have increased cross-border raids between the Karimojong and the Pokot, the Karimojong and the Jie, Dodoso, Turkana, Samburu, Marakwet, Sapiny or Sabawot, and the Bakusu.
Thokozani Thusi, a researcher with the Arms Management Programme at the Institute of Strategic Studies, made a report: Assessing Small Arms Control Initiatives.
In it, he said Somalia, for many years without governmental authority, is today the major transit point for weapons to East Africa.
One of the reasons for Uganda to take part in the African Union mission in Somalia is to curb the flow of small arms in the region.
When tabling a motion for the approval of the UPDF deployment in Somalia, defence minister Dr. Crispus Kiyonga stated: “Somalia has been a failed sister African state for nearly 16 years. It is internationally and regionally agreed that Somalia poses a grave risk not only to the security of its own people but also to the entire Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region.”
Uganda is also working out a new comprehensive firearms policy to replace the current Firearm Act. “The new policy is soon to be tabled in Parliament by the relevant minister,” Richard Nabudere, the coordinator of the Uganda National Focal Point on Small Arms and Light Weapons, stated.
Copyright © 2007 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
Sharing a smoke with new found friends by the Li River, Guilin, China
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 23, 2009 at 7:04 pm
dianakoeck
The “Lords of War” are the same “World Bankers” who own most of the Earth and who encourage wars to fatten their pocketbooks. These cold-blooded men are the same men who financed WWI, WWII and all ensuing wars. The ongoing wars in poverty-stricken countries is a direct result of the world bankers quest to “thin the herd”.
World peace will only be obtained with the dissolution of the monetary system which profits the middlemen who contribute nothing: the world bankers also known as the “federal reserve bankers”. Close your lines of credit, stop payments on mortgages and credit cards, and barter! Trade your labor for the goods you need==eliminate the middle-man (the bankers whose greed is so great that they no longer have any love for mankind left–these cold-blooded creatures view other humans as cattle and are the ones who supply munitions, start wars, and will continue to control the World unless we wake up and say, “Enough—I will not kill my fellow humans and I will not be a slave to another human–there are enough resources on this planet for all to live and eat and be sheltered!”
I love life, I love sex, I love to eat, drink, and I love to love. I will not become a cash cow for another human and I will not allow another human to become my false God.
April 14, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Pat
I don’t see how any of this (small arms proliferation) is the result of world bankers and war profiteers. Particularly not in relation to past world wars. I can admit that there are those that are turning a profit on transporting and selling guns, but if not guns they’d be selling butter, or knives, or dresses. That just comes down to a matter of risk to payoff ratio.
I think that when you look at small arms in Africa, what is the big cause is the AK-47. It was invented by a man who did it for the utility and the glory, and never received a cent from any sale of any weapon in any country. Add to that the fact that in the most war torn of nations, I can bet that the assault rifle costs less than many kinds of medication and health related commodities; as little as a few chickens in Sudan.
The sheer number of weapons dumped onto the continent since the Soviets started supporting African independence movements during the Cold War is humongous. Between that and the more recent advancement of global transport technologies has made the weapon plentiful enough that in order to keep the weapons in the hands of the few, governments need to find a way to limit the global enterprises which have targeted them as weapon markets. Asia and South Africa were mentioned as major suppliers. When the sources of weapons are external, the governments can only have successful internal control if they have a successful policy for controlling the external sources of small arms.