HEADQUARTERS BRIEFING BY PRESIDENT OF SMALL ARMS CONFERENCE

HEADQUARTERS BRIEFING BY PRESIDENT OF SMALL ARMS CONFERENCE

"Small arms and light weapons are an indiscriminate scourge and phenomenon that aggressively affects all countries and the weakest sectors -- women, children and the very basic social tissue of our societies", Ambassador Camilo Reyes (Colombia), President of the Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.

Regional work notwithstanding, Mr. Reyes said that the beginning of the Conference today marked the beginning at the global level to address the menace of small arms and light weapons.  "We have started to create concepts and language so that we can put together a global agreement and plan of action with common purposes, views and understandings of the main blocks that are part of the problem", he said.

A correspondent, drawing attention to the divide that existed between countries which wanted to deal with the term “illicit” in a very narrow sense and those that wanted to bring in the broader issue of root causes and humanitarian concerns, wanted to know what was being done to bridge that divide.  Was there common ground or was there going to be a deadlock?

Mr. Reyes, responding, said that at the beginning of the process leading up to today there had been such a divide.  There were countries that wanted to see the Conference address an enormous number of issues and those that wanted a very narrow and extremely focused way of looking at the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.  But now there was a good identifiable movement of a large majority of delegations towards more or less the same goal –- observing the title and mandate of the Conference while realizing that the issues did touch other areas of the political life of nations.

"So I think we are moving right now in the right direction", he continued.  "Without losing focus on what we want to do, we are finding revised language so that we can address those other issues that are part of the whole complex scenario in which illicit small arms and light weapons affect our countries and societies".

Another correspondent drew attention to the fact that in Mr. Reyes' own country, Colombia, 71 people were killed every day and that arms were traded for drugs and financed by drug-related revenue.  He wanted to know what the Conference would do to address that particular issue.  Mr. Reyes said that unfortunately what had just been said was true. "The difficult situation in Colombia today is related to the existence of large amounts of arms in our civil society.  We do believe, however, that if we manage to put together a good plan of action we should be able to curb the illicit trade in small arms", he said.

Ambassador Reyes went on to say that it had been proven that the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons reinforced almost all of the worst types of crime.  The illicit trade gave a new and bigger dimension to terrorism, drug trafficking, organized crime, displacement, human trafficking, and money laundering. 

All of those types of crime, continued Mr. Reyes, were augmented -- complete with their destructive capacities and devastating effects -- because of the quantities of small arms and because of the ease with which such arms could be acquired and operated.  "There is therefore no doubt that if we manage (and we all know that it is an ambitious objective) to curb the illicit trade in small arms, we should be able at the same time to bring down the effect of all these types of crimes in our societies.”

Noting that the proposed programme of action would not be a legally binding document, a correspondent asked how it would be effective in the manner in which the President of the Conference had just outlined.  Mr. Reyes agreed that the programme of action was not a legally binding document; but it was a politically binding instrument.  "What we hope to do is first to create the mechanisms so that we can enhance cooperation -- specific and valuable aspects of cooperation such as exchange of information", he said.

Through many other mechanisms, continued Mr. Reyes, "we shall be able to create review mechanisms so that in the coming years we will be able to see the results of our negotiations.  We should then be able to ask States to explain to us how many of the agreed recommendations and new measures were really enforced, which were really successful and where more needs to done".  At that point there should be enough data, information and experience to amply illustrate which specific areas would need legally binding instruments.

Responding to a question on the most difficult issues encountered over the last three years of negotiations on the document for the action plan, Mr. Reyes said he would rather not mention the most difficult but he was willing to speak about some of the difficult issues.  He believed, for example, that one difficulty would be in striking the right level for the profile of humanitarian and human rights issues in the plan, so that no focus would be deflected from the main problems. 

Mr. Reyes said another difficult issue was defining terms such as surplus, excessive surplus and damaging surplus of arms.  For some countries, depending on their specific and actual situations, the definition of surplus had a certain meaning while others perceived it differently.

Another issue that needed time was the definition of the best ways of follow-up, since there were different opinions about that process.  Some delegations wanted review conferences while others felt that was not enough and were calling for a mechanism that would provide information on a daily basis about the evolution of the issues and the associated compromises.

"I would say that another interesting aspect will be to see how we understand how the issues of this Conference relate to conflict prevention", continued Mr. Reyes.  Specifically, how did an enormous amount of arms in one part of the world affect the prevention of conflict in another part of the world?

Mr. Reyes said while the issues he had mentioned were some of the difficult, serious and important ones that had to be dealt with, they were by no means all the difficult ones and neither were they the most important ones.  He was sure there would soon be another cluster of obstacles to be addressed as well.

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