PRESS CONFERENCE BY CHAIRPERSON OF FIRST BIENNIAL MEETING ON SMALL ARMS

PRESS CONFERENCE BY CHAIRPERSON OF FIRST BIENNIAL MEETING ON SMALL ARMS

The purpose of the first Biennial Meeting on small arms had been to gather momentum, political will and professional expertise to better implement the Programme of Action and chart the course toward a better, safer and less tragic world for future generations, correspondents were told this afternoon at a Headquarters press conference by Kuniko Inoguchi, that Meeting’s Chairperson.

Just prior to the last meeting of the week-long session to consider implementation of the action plan, Ms. Inoguchi said the Meeting had given States an opportunity to recount experiences and lessons learned in pursuit of eradicating the illicit small arms trade.  Very specific topics had been taken up, including weapons collection and destruction; marking and tracing; export and import controls; brokering; stockpiling, with the attendant concern of weapons being diverted into the wrong hands; capacity-building for implementation; research; institution-building; legislation; and finally, human security issues, such as child soldiers and the gender-related impact of small arms proliferation.

It was well known that children were major victims of the illicit trade in those weapons, she continued.  “Only small arms can turn such a small person into a soldier overnight”, she said.  That was because small arms were easy to carry and required no complicated training for their use.

Similarly, she said, the statistics on the impact of small arms on women were revealing -- about 500,000 deaths per year were related to those weapons.  Ninety per cent of those victims were civilians, and 80 per cent of those were women and children.  Since that data amounted to 1,000 casualties per day, small arms and light weapons were actually weapons of mass destruction.

It was for that reason that the Meeting had been held, she stressed.  That had not been a negotiation to elaborate an instrument, but an opportunity to foster implementation of a course that had already been agreed.  Many countries had shared the outcomes of initiatives taken at the national level, and some regional harmonization had been reported.  Some countries had put legislation into place precisely so they would have something to report at the present Meeting.  She, herself, had asked that the focus be on lessons learned and on further steps for the future.  Countries, however, had given a sense that they were still at a level of developing “ownership” of the Programme.

In response to a question on the veracity of national reports, she said the matter of small arms and light weapons was a complex issue requiring complex policy tools.  There was no single solution to the illicit trafficking of such arms because it was so multifaceted.  In that way, that category of arms was different from weapons of mass destruction.  And, what the United Nations process could do for such a broad issue was to create the momentum and political will for implementing the Programme of Action.  It could promote and mainstream the issue so that each country then put money and effort into related initiatives.  Also significant had been the participation of non-governmental organizations in the Meeting, in which thematic issues, such as brokering and marking, had been publicly debated.  Side events had also taken place around those and other themes.  All of that had generated momentum.

In response to another question, she said delegations had already made clear which contentious issues they wanted included in the 2006 Review Conference agenda.  The Biennial Meetings were for the purpose of evaluating implementation, while every five years, there would be an opportunity to renegotiate points.  The Programme of Action now being implemented had been adopted in July 2001, just weeks before the 11 September terrorist attacks on the United States.  The focus was already much stronger, and it would continue to gain momentum towards 2006, as circumstances evolved.

She added that nearly all terrorist acts were committed with small arms or light weapons.  The illicit flows of those weapons were linked to such issues as terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering.  The new issues to be addressed in 2006 would focus on the threat created by terrorism.  That included consideration of small arms and light weapons from the perspective of transfers to non-State actors, stockpiling security and keeping those weapons out of the wrong hands.  Marking and tracing issues would also be discussed, and there was agreement for creating an international instrument on marking.

That, however, was a complex question, she cautioned.  Marking had to be permanent and nonremovable.  Issues of tracing had to be considered, as did the question of how to hold countries responsible for marking and tracing.  Brokering activities was another factor.  Meanwhile, progress was being made at the national and regional levels.  But, moving ahead on a global scale was a big challenge.

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