GROUP OF GOVERNMENTAL EXPERTS ON SMALL ARMS CONCLUDES AT HEADQUARTERS
Press Release
DC/2609
GROUP OF GOVERNMENTAL EXPERTS ON SMALL ARMS CONCLUDES AT HEADQUARTERS
19980604 NEW YORK, 4 June (Department for Disarmament Affairs) -- For the second time in less than three years, the Secretary-General, at the request of the General Assembly, has asked governmental experts from around the world to assist him in finding ways and means of effectively addressing the challenge posed by small arms, which serve as the primary tools of violence in almost all armed conflicts recently dealt with by the United Nations. Experts nominated by 23 governments, including the five permanent members of the Security Council, met in New York to address that issue from 26 to 29 May.Mitsuro Donowaki, Special Assistant to the Foreign Minister of Japan, was elected to chair the group, which consisted of experts from Algeria, Belgium, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Mozambique, Russian Federation, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States. The group has decided to focus its attention on weapons manufactured to military specifications, and will not address issues pertaining to domestic gun control.
The group follows on the work carried out by a panel of governmental experts, which assisted the Secretary-General in producing the first United Nations report on the excessive and destabilizing accumulation and proliferation of small arms actually used in conflicts dealt with by the United Nations. Among the findings of that panel was a unanimous conclusion that, in many cases, neither the manufacturer, the supplier, nor the buyer of the weapons used in current armed conflicts really has a say in the ultimate use of those weapons, which keep changing hands within and among societies exposed to intra-State violence. The panel had recommended that Member States consider the possibility of convening an international conference on all aspects of illicit arms trade, which by some estimates may account for roughly half of the total volume of international transfers in small arms and light weapons. Switzerland has offered to host such a conference in the year 2000, if the General Assembly, at its forthcoming session, takes a decision to hold it.
In his remarks to the group, the Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, Jayantha Dhanapala, highlighted the exponential growth of initiatives for, and agreements on, concrete action by regional and subregional organizations. Among those he referred to were the Organization of American States (OAS), which recently signed the Inter-American Convention against the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, ammunition, explosives
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and other related materials; and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is working on a declaration of a moratorium on import, export and manufacture of small arms and light weapons. The group received briefings from associations and organizations active in pursuing similar goals from different perspectives. The work under way by the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna is of relevance to the group, because it is increasingly realized that linkages among traders of drugs, contraband goods and illicit traffic in arms are a major source of cheap and readily available weapons.
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