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Britain seeks curbs on world's small arms trade
By Dominic Evans
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain sought international support Tuesday for
plans to curb the enormous global trade in small arms, offering development aid
to countries which set aside and destroyed weapons stockpiles.
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told a conference in London that Britain
was proposing an International Arms Surrender Fund to help replace the
"click of the safety catch" in conflict zones with the "click of the
computer mouse."
Cook said Britain also wanted tougher regulation of the legal arms
market and a clampdown on illicit sales.
We will all gain from the successful removal of weaponry from
strife-torn societies, and the substitution of productive and
meaningful economic activity," he said.
Arms trade campaigners say Britain must take steps at home before it
could assume a leading international role.
The United Nations, increasingly worried at the impact of small arms --
particularly in internal conflicts -- has called an international
conference in July on the illicit arms trade.
Britain has spearheaded demands for action to cut the estimated 500
million pistols, rifles and semi-automatic rifles in circulation
worldwide, many of them recycled from one conflict to another.
"In the past 10 years alone, conflicts fought only with small arms and
light weapons have killed over three million people, most of them
unarmed civilians," Cook said.
"The self-loading rifle is today's real weapon of mass destruction."
Cook said Britain would provide funds over the next three years to help
with weapons collection and destruction projects, but initiatives by
individual countries could not match the impact of concerted
international action.
BRITAIN "MUST PUT OWN HOUSE IN ORDER"
Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, which pledged four years ago to
inject an "ethical dimension" into foreign policy, has promised tight
controls on arms exports. But they are unlikely to come into force
before elections expected in May.
Speaking before Wednesday's fifth anniversary of a damning report into
British arms sales to Iraq in the 1980s, arms trade campaigners
chastised ministers for failing to take quicker action.
"Small arms brokered from Britain will continue to cause suffering
around the world," Justin Forsyth, director of policy at Oxfam said in
a statement.
"The government should be ashamed of its failure to introduce tough new
arms laws."
Human rights group Amnesty International said Britain "desperately
needs to get its own house in order so as to exert the kind of
leadership we
need to stop the suffering and human rights abuses caused by
inappropriate arms exports."
Blair's government says it has already opened up the murky world of
arms trading to public scrutiny and prevented sales of weapons for use
in internal repression and external aggression.
In December it unveiled a draft bill which would introduce controls on
trafficking and brokering in weapons, including light weapons and small
arms.
The bill stands no chance of being approved before May, when Blair is
expected to announce elections, and would have to be reintroduced in
a later parliamentary session.
--
Ah yes, the SLR, a weapon of "mass destruction", that the Government
thoughtfully gave away in large quantities to those responsible
people in Sierra Leone...
These people from Oxfam have no clue what they're twittering on about,
they actually suggested to the Foreign Office that Guernsey was
a major centre for international arms trafficking, because of all
the ammunition shipments there. If they actually bothered to check,
they would have discovered this is because private possession of
Section 1 ammunition is banned in Guernsey, hence no handloading,
hence large shipments of ammunition to gun clubs.
Steve.
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
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