From: SSAA, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Station: RADIO NATIONAL Date: 19/01/2001
Program: RADIO NATIONAL BREAKFAST Time: 07:50 AM
Compere: SANDY MCCUTCHEON Summary ID: C00003071498
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: There are half a billion of them in circulation
causing an estimated 500 thousands deaths a year and despite their
deadly nature, there are still no effective international rules
regulating the sale and contribution of small arms.
That could be about to change as the United Nations prepares to hold a
conference, on ways to tackle small arms trafficking next July. France
and Switzerland have already submitted a proposal which would force all
arms manufacturers to put a serial number and date on their small arms
so that their movements can be traced.
Indeed while most weapons, are serialised at the time they are made,
tracing their movements can prove to be rather tricky, as there's not
affective record keeping system currently in place.
Owen Green is the small arms expert from the University of Bradford, and
the United Nations consultant on small arms trafficking, he's currently
at the United Nations in New York from where he joins us now and Owen,
Good morning and welcome to Australia's Radio National.
OWEN GREEN: Thank you very much, I'm pleased to be here.
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: So just describe to us which weapons fall into the
category of small arms?
OWEN GREEN: We're talking about anything that an individual soldiers
or civilians can carry individually or in a small team like on the back
of a truck. So we're talking about automatic weapons, pistol, repeater
rifles, those sorts of things.
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: We've estimated I think $5 million of small arms
currently in circulation worldwide, how many have reached their
destination, illegally?
OWEN GREEN: Most find their way legally to their destination because
a lot of the traders amongst allies like between Britain and Australia
or whatever, but a very high proportion of those that cause problems in
Africa, Latin America and else where, are diverted and therefore to some
extent illegal.
The biggest problem seems to be a lot of arms find their, are authorised
in export, perfectly legally but they get diverted along the way.
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: How does that diversion take place, how does small
arms end up in the wrong hands?
OWEN GREEN: Well it's through a network of, there's many reasons,
one of the biggest is that countries export their weapons to a
particular end user and they have long supply routes and somewhere along
the line, they get diverted and no body really follows up and checks.
Quite often they are also stolen or lost from big stock piles, a
lot of army and police stock piles have got tens of thousands of the
things but they don't check regularly whether they've lost any.
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: So there is a end users certificate but this can often
be basically just a waste of time.
OWEN GREEN: Well yes, the trouble is a lot, the trouble really is a
lot of countries don't regard themselves big exporters or importers
because they don't build big weapons, but nearly every country is a
potential exporter of small arms not least, even if they don't produce
them they've got lots in their army stocks and they sell off the
surplus.
A lot of them just don't frankly have end user certificates and
even if they do they don't then check that the weapons arrived. Then of
course there's the other problem that a lot of weapons sold
irresponsibly by states, not fully illegal but they're just covertly
sent to somebody, whether they full well know that they're just going to
be sent to some war zone, maybe in a sanctioned area.
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: Illegal arms trafficking it's a, I understand big
business?
OWEN GREEN: Yes I mean luckily in this context, I mean its big
business for the brokers that are there, they can make millions, but on
the scale of you know, world crime. This isn't big money, the big
problem is so little coordinated effort being made to try tackle this
problem, that you know, the problem is rife.
It only takes an extra ten thou, you know a thousand, or even in
some context a hundred of these AK47's to completely destabilise some
tense situation in some country, or to help mount a coup or whatever. So
what I'm saying is, it's not big business but of course there's a lot of
greed and big money to be made.
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: Do we know who the main culprits are behind the
illicit trade are?
OWEN GREEN: The trouble is I think the main culprit is frankly there
hasn't been a concerted effort by the international community to really
crack down on it. During the Cold War everybody was supplying to their
friends, and not paying particular attention, and since the end of the
Cold War, not enough has been done to cope.
The biggest problem really is the selling off of second hand
weapons. Often these are virtually worthless and no body really wants
them, unless you send them off to brokers, and of course the big demand
is in conflict zones and which turn a bit of a blind eye.
You know there's a lot of selling off from the former Soviet
Union for example, China is not famous for being very restrictive, they
can often sell perfectly legally to a country, lets say Libya or
whatever, but without asking too many questions as to what Libya then
does with the weapons. A lot of those incidentally get channelled on to
the wars in West Africa.
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: So talk to us about the Franco-Swiss proposal, how
will this curb illegal arms sales.
OWEN GREEN: Well on its own it won't curb them, the idea is they
will make a big difference, the problem is that if a weapon, if a sort
of weapons turn up in an area illegally or dubiously, right now its very
had to find out where they came from and how they got there.
And of course it's only really by knowing that you can really
close down the network and spot those diversion points, hold corrupt
people or irresponsible states accountable. And the idea is that if you
set up a system so that if a weapon turns up somewhere other than its
consigned, you know its illegal or its turned up sanctions breaking, you
can actually track it back and find out how it got there.
Until you reach some point where the record or whatever, fails
and then you know you've got the problem. Sometime it will be diversion
other times it will just be, you know something else. And but in order
to do that, you've got to have three key elements, every weapon has to
be marked uniquely so that you can, it's actually, so you can identify
the weapon and follow it through.
You've got to have the records, you've got to have an agreement
that people, states have got to give each other information to help each
other track, that's what the Swiss proposal aims to do.
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: But surely there would be rogue states that would just
turn their, a blind eye to all of this?
OWEN GREEN: Yes that's right, there's obviously as I said on it's
own if won't, won't solve everything. But I think it will solve a great
deal, because a lot of states supply, the biggest problem is that states
not really double checking, where their weapons end up and if you've
got, in other words their not thoroughly rogue states, we've just got
just got large suppliers that are being a bit irresponsible and
unaccountable.
A lot of it, you know it's a tough job, even the most regulated
state of Australia or whatever sold some weapons, you've actually got to
devote resources to find out where they went and, so I think serious
analysts and there's a wide consensus on this which think that you would
get a very high proportion of the trafficking that's causing problems
now. You won't solve everything but you could do a lot.
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: But it would do nothing about the illegal weapons all
ready in circulation the Kalashnikovs and AK47's.
OWEN GREEN: Well it could do basically, this agreement has got two
tasks, one is to try and make sure that weapons produced in the future
are traceable, so you make the situation better in the long term. But in
the short term most weapons have got some marks and most weapons, and
there are weapons around, the biggest block around now that there isn't
an agreement to help each other trace.
It's one thing, say if the police force, find a murder weapon at
the scene of a crime, they can go to Interpol and get some cooperation,
at the moment they say, we've found these weapons seemed to be mixed up
with conflict somewhere, it gets political and nobody cooperates with
anybody else.
And what we need, in other words what we can do is tackle all
those weapons that exist now using you know, pretty inadequate marking
but it's still there and you could make an impact. It only takes one
thoroughly investigated tracing operation to show that country is
exporting it's weapons to the wrong place to really make a big stink and
help encourage that country to do better in the future.
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: So finally do you think this proposal will see the
light of day at the UN Conference on the issue next July and that
something will actually take place, a concrete proposal?
OWEN GREEN: Yes I am optimistic about that, I mean one of the
reasons is it's a discreet proposal and it make a lot of sense and a lot
of countries have already indicated that they think it's a good idea and
not only a lot of the Western developed Democratic countries or whatever
but a lot of African countries, a lot of Latin American countries have
essentially said they are interested and indeed China has said it would
support it obviously the details are to be negotiated.
So I think there's a fair wind behind it and partly because
there has been so much proprietary work, I myself was the consultant to
a negotiating group that prepared for this conference over the last two
years.
This is one of the areas we started to get a real consensus on.
Of course it will take some time to establish the details so it might be
that this conference agrees the principles then sets up a detailed
negotiation that will be over in a year or two.
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: Owen Green thank you very much and good luck with it.
OWEN GREEN: Thank you very much, a pleasure to be here.
SANDY MCCUTCHEON: Owen Green an arms expert from the University of
Bradford and a UN consultant on small arms trafficking.
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
____________________________________________________________
T O P I C A -- Learn More. Surf Less.
Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Topics You Choose.
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag01
