PRESS CONFERENCE ON ILLICIT SMALL ARMS MEETING

 

During Watergate, Deep Throat used to tell Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein to follow the money, but in today’s conflicts, one should follow the gun, the real weapons of mass destruction, the Chairman of next week’s Biennial Meeting of States on the illicit small arms trade, Pasi Patokallio (Finland), told correspondents today at a Headquarters’ press conference.

The first such meeting had been held in New York in July 2003.  National reports had indicated that significant progress had been made in implementing the 2001 Programme of Action, but that much more needed to be done to stop the spread of illicit small arms and light weapons.  The second such meeting will serve as a forum for States, international and regional organizations, and civil society to exchange information on implementation.  The action programme is a politically-binding international instrument to address the illicit small arms trade.  It was adopted unanimously in July 2001 at the first United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.

Joining Mr. Patokallio was the Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, Nobuyasu Abe, who indicated that well over 100 Member States were expected to participate in the conference, which would also be well attended by non-governmental-organizations (NGOs).  The purpose of the conference was to review implementation of the action programme and seek to identify areas where further work was needed.  In a word, it was aimed at raising the temperature about the need to work on small arms and light weapons. 

He noted that several implementation activities had taken place by State, by region, and also globally.  The United Nations Secretariat had also assisted in, among other efforts, organizing regional symposiums and workshops to raise countries’ awareness of the action programme and assist them in building their capacity to implement it, such as in the areas of weapons collection and disposal.

The Chairman, Mr. Patokallio, said the week-long meeting was really about weapons of mass destruction, in the sense that small arms and light weapons killed people daily in every part of the world, causing mass destruction.  It was also a meeting about “hidden killers” because the carnage wrought by the use and misuse of small arms in conflict did not always get the media attention it deserved, a point that the Secretary-General had made quite forcefully in his reports. 

He said that small arms touched all aspects of the United Nations’ agenda, including the three pillars identified by the Secretary-General in his recent reform report -– security, human rights and development.  Concerning security, the annual Small Arms Survey had estimated that direct conflict deaths averaged about 100,000 people per year, and small arms were responsible for up to 90 per cent of those deaths.  In post-conflict situations, the United Nations, and especially its peacekeepers, faced a lot of small arms violence.  With regard to human rights, 90 per cent of the victims in conflict were civilians.  On development, a recent study entitled “No Relief” had found that small arms violence played a major role in preventing the delivery of humanitarian and development assistance.

Since 2001, the United Nations had a programme in place to deal with the proliferation and misuse of small arms, especially its illicit trade. The programme addressed both supply and demand, and various measures to be taken nationally, regionally and globally.  The upcoming meeting had the job of considering how well, or how badly, those measures had been implemented by Member States so far.  Implementation was not just the responsibility of governments, however, as the United Nations system, along with many international and regional organizations, played an important role.  The action programme also recognized the role of non-governmental organization s (NGOs) and other civil society organizations, whose work in that regard often dovetailed with that of governments.  They would also report to the meeting. 

He said his objective for the meeting was to have a transparent and forward-looking debate.  That could provide a lot of actual information on implementation of the Programme of Action, so as to spur further national, regional and international effort because, in the end, it was the results on the ground that counted.  Progress had been made since 2001, but much remained to be done.

Turning to two pieces of good news, he cited the entry into force a few days ago of a United Nations protocol on illicit firearms trafficking.  That was a legally binding document, which sought to fight crime related to those weapons in the context of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.  And, two weeks ago, a politically binding United Nations instrument was negotiated, which sought to identify and trace small arms, both in crime and conflict situations.

Asked for more detail on the new instrument on tracing and marking, Mr. Patokallio explained that it was a politically binding instrument, which sought to help countries identify and trace small arms and light weapons in a timely and reliable manner, both in crime and conflict situations.  It was the first such instrument that recognized the need to deal with those weapons in conflict situations in a way that provided a deterrent effect and improved transparency.

As for its status, he said it had been negotiated by an open-ended working group in place for the past couple of years, and negotiations had concluded in New York two weeks ago.  The text would have to go to the General Assembly for final approval as a politically binding document, and that should occur in the fall.

Did he expect any concrete results or decisions to emerge from the meeting? another correspondent asked.

The Chairman explained that the meeting was part of a process that had been initiated with the adoption of the action programme in 2001.  States had agreed to certain commitments, and at the upcoming meeting, their implementation would be considered.  The meeting itself, however, did not take decisions in the sense that it would not change the action programme.  So, it was primarily a forum for exchange of information.  National reports would be submitted; so far, the Secretariat had received more than 70 from various countries.  There would be another follow-up meeting to the 2001 conference next year, at which the action programme would be reviewed, and perhaps, amended or strengthened. 

Replying to a request that he identify some “hot spots” where the illicit small arms trafficking was particularly bad, or where countries had stood out as not having complied with their commitments, he said that everyone was concerned about Africa in that context, where so many conflicts were still ongoing.  As for specific countries, there were common programmes, but it was not a “blame game”.  Everyone was “in this together, and we need to work out these measures and strengthen them to curb the trafficking, the proliferation, the misuse of those weapons in conflict situations and crime”, he stressed. 

Could he identify countries, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had done in the cases of the Democratic People’s Republic and Iran? the correspondent asked in a follow-up question.

He explained that there was a difference when dealing with Iran, for example, as that was in the context of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which contained legal obligations for States parties.  In terms of small arms, there was only a first legal obligation now in the form of the United Nations protocol in fighting transnational crime.  There were no specific legal obligations to which countries could be held in the same manner as, say, in the nuclear field.  With respect to small arms, there were political commitments only, such as the 2001 Programme of Action.  So, the situations were not comparable, he said. 

The Under-Secretary-General added that people were now realizing that the “culprits” were international arms brokers, and not necessarily countries.  Brokers bought the arms legitimately and then diverted them into underground markets.  Those had saturated African countries, as well as conflicts elsewhere.  Following the conclusion of the negotiations on tracing, attention was now moving to brokering, to controlling the brokers.  That would also be discussed next week.

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