PRESS CONFERENCE ON SMALL ARMS SURVEY

PRESS CONFERENCE ON SMALL ARMS SURVEY

The first edition of the Small Arms Survey entitled Profiling the Problem –- the first authoritative global survey of small arms issues -– was launched at a Headquarters press briefing this morning.

Launching the publication were Raimund Kunz, head of the delegation of the Observer for Switzerland to the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects; Keith Krause, Programme Director, Small Arms Survey; and Peter Batchelor, Project Director, Small Arms Survey.

The Survey, a project of the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, and published by the Oxford University Press, provides for the first time in one source, a comprehensive analysis of the production, trade, availability and impact of small arms and light weapons.

Mr. Kunz told correspondents that the Swiss Foreign Ministry had launched the project about three years ago.  Its main objective was to make reliable data, information and analysis of the small arms problem available to Governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and research institutions while contributing to more transparency on the issues.  "We are very happy to present this first edition in a very timely manner so that it coincides with the United Nations Conference on Small Arms and Light Weapons", he added.

Professor Krause, providing a brief overview on the scope of the problem, weapons stockpiles, questions of production transfer and arms brokering, said that the first finding to be underlined was that more than half a million people were killed each year by small arms and light weapons.  About 300,000 of them lost their lives in conflict while more 200,000 died from other ways, including criminal activity such as homicide and also suicide.

Professor Krause went on to say that there was a very complex chain of causes that led to such deaths, injuries and casualties.  While the weapons themselves were only one part of the problem, they did deserve the label that Secretary-General Kofi Annan had given them –- weapons of mass destruction.  "To that I might add in slow motion", he said.  "Therefore, in our work, we want to draw attention to the human dimension of the problem; not just to questions surrounding the number of weapons and the volume of transfers and so on.  We think the idea of human insecurity is rather crucial to the whole problem", he said.

Addressing the question of weapons stockpiling, Professor Krause said researchers had concluded that there were at least 550 million small arms and light weapons in circulation worldwide.  More importantly, a rough breakdown could now be provided of how those were distributed.  About 220 million or 41 per cent were held by active and reserve forces around the world; about 300 million or

55 per cent were legally held by civilians; less than three per cent or 18 million or so were in the hands of police and other State security forces; and only a few million, less than one per cent were held by active armed insurgent groups fighting in the wars that were making the headlines.

Professor Krause said the estimate of 550 million did not include weapons being held illegally by civilians.  "We are unable to generate an estimate at this time, and although we are working on the problem it is obviously somewhat difficult to resolve".  What could be highlighted now, nevertheless, was that a relatively small number of weapons in the hands of armed groups were causing large amounts of death and destruction in civil conflicts.  "These are the weapons that are making the headlines in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Philippines, Colombia and elsewhere", he said.

One implication of that, continued Professor Krause, was that the international community had to address the question of how to keep weapons held legally by either civilians or State agencies from leaking into the illicit circuit.  That required effective measures to deal with stockpiles, security management, reduction and destruction.  Mechanisms of traceability also needed to be developed, so that any weak spots in the circulation of weapons could be identified and so that the international community could act to plug some of the holes.

"Before we started our work", continued Professor Krause, "there was very little information on production and trade of small arms and light weapons.  We have made a dent in this problem and we know that are at least 90 States that have some capabilities to produce small arms, light weapons and ammunition".  The overwhelming majority of production, nevertheless, was accounted for by a relatively small number of States –- most of whom were also involved in the export business.  A list of the largest producers and exported was in the Survey.

Professor Krause went on to say that the total volume of the trade in small arms and light weapons was probably around the US $4 billion per annum, while the illicit trade –- black and gray market –- was probably around the US $1 billion per year plus or minus.  "What I want to highlight again, however, is that the economic interests at stake in the small arms and light weapons industry are relatively small".  The industry as a whole faced shrinking demand and low levels of employment.  It was not an industry that generated huge profits or huge benefits for arms producing States.

What had also been identified in the Survey, continued Professor Krause, was the key role played by arms brokers and transportation agents who were intermediaries in the flow of small arms and light weapons especially when they moved from the legal to the illegal circuit.

Small arms transactions were arranged in a very complicated fashion, making them very difficult to trace, continued Professor Krause.  A concrete example offered in the Survey was the case of Bulgarian and Ukrainian weapons, which were handled by a western broker.  The broker never took possession of the arms, which were transported via North Africa, sold officially and legally to Uganda and Burkina Faso and then ended up in Sierra Leone in the hands of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).  Many other such examples were highlighted in the Survey indicating how complex the flow of weapons was and the crucial role of brokers in the whole process.    

Professor Krause said, "when we looked at international action to deal with brokers, of 28 countries surveyed our preliminary findings revealed that only seven had laws directly addressing arms brokering, while another eight dealt with it indirectly".  Twenty-four of the 28 only focused on national jurisdiction and therefore did not criminalize the offshore activities of their citizens.  In the era of faxes, e-mails and offshore banking and transport, that was obviously inadequate to deal with the problem. 

Mr. Batchelor said what the survey was trying to do was to also look at some of the indirect effects or impact of small arms and light weapons.  He said four key areas where the impacts were most stark were development, crime and criminal justice, public health and humanitarian issues.  A fifth area was the role of development and humanitarian agencies.

Addressing the issue of public health, Mr. Batchelor said that in addition to the cost associated with death and firearm injury, gun-related violence had a very dramatic impact on a country's public health system.  It consumed valuable resources in terms of labour, time and expenditure and obviously meant that there were fewer resources available to deal with other public health issues.

In the United States, for example, continued Mr. Batchelor, gun violence in terms of treatment and lost productivity cost the United States health system the US $100 billion per annum in the late 1990s.  In Latin America the cost associated with gun violence consumed up to 25 per cent of annual gross domestic product (GDP) in certain countries.

In addition to the public health issues, said Mr. Batchelor, there was also the impact in terms of crime where the easy availability of small arms and light weapons was linked to rising levels of violent criminality.  That had a negative impact on investment and long-term economic development.  It had also prompted the development of a global private security industry, which was currently valued at around US $100 billion per annum and was set to grow to over US $400 billion by 2010.  "Think about what those resources could be spent on rather than on private security services", he added.

The availability and use of small arms also had a very negative impact on a country's development prospects Mr. Batchelor went on to say.  High levels of armed insecurity discouraged foreign and domestic investment, which meant that fewer resources were available for development.  Also, the cost of goods and services rose due the rising costs of transportation in places where there was armed conflict.  Figures suggested that in the 1990s, armed violence cost Latin America the equivalent of 12 per cent of that region's GDP through a combination of lost human capital and declining domestic and foreign investment.

Mr. Batchelor said the wide availability of weapons had also had a dramatic humanitarian impact particularly on women and children.  Armed violence obviously led to high levels of internal and cross border displacement.  In addition many people were aware of the whole issue of militarized refugee camps where refugees were terrorized and tortured.  There was also the issue of child soldiers, and it was known that over 300,000 children under the age of 18 were currently taking part as combatants in various conflicts around the world.

Mr. Batchelor said the Survey also highlighted the impact that small arms and light weapons had on the activity or work of development and humanitarian agencies.  For example, in 1998, more United Nations civilian staff died in the field than soldiers involved in the Organization's peacekeeping operations.  The mean homicide rate for the United Nations as whole was 35 per 100,000.  That placed it on a par with some of the most dangerous countries in the world and even higher than countries like Sri Lanka which was currently experiencing a civil war. 

Part of the problem, continued Mr. Batchelor, was that for many development and humanitarian agencies, the high cost associated with providing assistance in such contexts seemed to be responsible for a kind of "cultural withdrawal" where agencies were actually withdrawing from conflict regions because of the high levels of insecurity associated with operating in such places.  At another level, the resources that had to be spent on security were resources that could have been spent on development or humanitarian assistance.

Mr. Batchelor said the Survey also documented the multilateral cooperation that had been underway both at the regional/subregional and global level for the last few years.

When asked why there was an increase in the production of small arms and light weapons, especially when there was so much international attention on the issue right now, Professor Krause said such an increase was somewhat accidental. There were a number of new countries, which used to be part of the former Soviet Union who had privatized and dismantled what were formerly State-held industries.  That had led to an increase in the number of companies engaged in the production of small arms.

It was also true, continued Professor Krause, that the industry itself had been broken up.  Small arms subsidiaries had been spun off on their own to fend for themselves partly because they were not particularly profitable.  It was therefore paradoxical that the number of companies in production had increased while demand had been shrinking.  It was however, mostly a phenomenon of the last decade.

A correspondent drew attention to the fact that yesterday, United States Under Secretary of Arms Control and International Security, John Bolton, had said that his country would not support any prohibition relating to the transfer of firearms to non-State actors.  He wanted to know if that issue had been covered in the Survey.

Professor Krause said it was very difficult to analyze transfers to non-State actors because most them were illicit.  There had been discussion for a couple of years about whether or not the international community could deal with that.  "It is not our job, however, to try and figure out what the policy steps are that should be taken.  But we know the problem is not direct transfers from one State to a non State actor", he said.  There were very circuitous routes by which arms ended up in the arms of insurgent groups and there were also many points of intervention along the way that might appropriate and did not have anything to do with banning.

"We would, however, strongly advocate greater transparency on the legal trade", said Professor Krause.  That was not a control –- it was simply shedding greater light on the problem.  "The reason for this is that it allows you to see much more clearly when something slips into the illegal trade -– if there is a bright light in the room it is much harder to work in the shadows", he said.

Adding to that, Mr. Batchelor said one of things they had attempted to and would continue doing was to try and give a most accurate picture of the illicit trade.  That, of course, was very difficult since most of the time illegal practices were non-transparent.

"What we will probably be able to do in coming years, as there is hopefully enhanced transparency on the legal side is to be able to show the kinds of trends

and patterns in the illicit trade", said Mr. Batchelor.  This was already being seen through the work of the Security Council.  The reports on sanctions violations in Angola and Sierra Leone had certainly provided the international community with insights into how the illicit trade operated.  "I am not convinced that the problem is necessarily growing, but I think we are certainly getting a more accurate picture of what is happening.

"What we also need to bear in mind is that the number of weapons in the hands of non-State actors is relatively small", said Mr. Batchelor.

A correspondent wanted to know how forthcoming the major producers of weapons had been in providing accurate figures.  Mr. Batchelor said countries seemed much more willing to provide figures on their trade in small arms than on their production.  That was probably partly related to the fact that in some countries, including the United States, many of the companies were private entities.  And so it was often quite difficult for the State to collect national information on the small arms industry.

Another correspondent asked whether there were any figures on the number of small arms produced during the cold war and whether there was breakdown. 

Mr. Batchelor said it was very difficult to get those figures.  Part of the problem was that two of the major producers, the Russian Federation and China, did not provide those figures.  "So although we have very accurate figures for the United States and other western producers, we do not have any figures for Russian Federation and China, who are two of the largest producers", he said.  Whatever figures existed were therefore largely underestimates.

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