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This is a basic introduction to the issue of
small arms/light weapons trafficking and national and international
efforts to control it.
For more information, contact Matt
Schroeder, Manager of the FAS Arms Sales Monitoring Project, at
202-454-4693 or by email at [EMAIL PROTECTED].
Introduction
Illicit arms trafficking fuels civil wars, contributes to sky-rocketing
crime rates and feeds the arsenals of the world's worst terrorists.
Particularly troubling is the illicit trade in small arms and light
weapons (SA/LW). SA/LW account for an estimated 60-90% of the 100,000+
conflict deaths each year (Small Arms Survey 2005) and tens of thousands
of additional deaths outside of war zones. They are also the weapons of
choice for many terrorists. Of the roughly 175 terrorist attacks
identified in last year's State Department report on Patterns of
Global Terrorism, approximately half were committed with small
arms or light weapons.
Stemming the flow of these weapons is incredibly difficult. Unlike
weapons of mass destuction, small arms and many light weapons have
legitimate military, law enforcement, and/or sporting and recreational
uses. These uses preclude the types of outright bans on manufacture,
stockpiling and sales imposed - with some success - on landmines and
chemical and biological weapons. Instead, governments try to prevent the
diversion and misuse of SA/LW without unduly infringing upon legitimate
use and trade. This is no small feat. Plentiful, easy to conceal, and
lethal, SA/LW are a smuggler's dream and a law enforcement nightmare.
Hundreds of thousands of small arms in leaky government arsenals
are vulnerable to theft, loss and diversion. Once acquired by traffickers,
these weapons are smuggled across national borders in every conceivable
way. They are hidden under sacks of vegetables in the back of pick up
trucks, packed into household appliances that are then loaded onto cargo
ships, even air-dropped out of old Soviet military transport planes.
In the hands of terrorists and other criminals, these weapons have
the capacity to kill dozens, even hundreds, of innocent civilians. A
shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile - available on the black market for
as little as a few thousand dollars - can bring down a commercial
airliner. Even a couple of $100 assault rifles can inflict horrendous
casualties, as evidenced by the November 1997 terrorist attack in Luxor,
Egypt, during which 6 terrorists armed only with assault rifles, pistols
and knives systematically slaughtered 58 tourists.
For these reasons, small arms trafficking is not a problem you
solve; it is a problem you manage. By enacting strong export and border
controls, safegaurding (or destroying) stockpiles, dismantling trafficking
networks, and addressing the root causes of the civil conflicts and
soaring urban crime rates, governments can reduce the supply of, and
demand for, these weapons.
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Terms and
Definitions
- Ammunition: cartridges
(rounds) for small arms; shells and missiles for light weapons;
mobile containers with missiles or shells for single-action
anti-aircraft and anti-tank systems; anti-personnel
and anti-tank hand grenades; and landmines.
- Illegal black market transfers (from Small Arms
Survey 2001): "In clear violation of national and/or international laws
and without official government consent or control, these transfers may
involve corrupt government officials acting on their own for personal
gain."
- Illicit grey market transfers (from Small Arms
Survey 2001): "Governments, their agents, or individuals exploiting
loopholes or intentionally circumventing national and/or international
laws or policies"
- Legal Transfers (from Small Arms Survey 2001):
"These occur with either the active or passive involvement of
governments or their authorized agents, and in accordance with both
national and international law."
- Light weapons: heavy machine-guns; hand-held
under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers; portable anti-aircraft guns;
portable anti-tank guns, recoilless rifles; portable launchers of
anti-tank missile and rocket systems; portable
launchers of anti-aircraft missile systems; mortars
of calibers of less than 100 mm.
- Small arms: revolvers
and self-loading pistols; rifles and
carbines; sub-machine
guns; assault
rifles; light
machine-guns
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Statistics
- Value of Conventional Arms Transfers in 2004
(Deliveries, Worldwide): $34.75 billion
- Top Five Arms Exporters (Worldwide, 2004)
- #1 - United States ($18.55 billion)
- #2 - Russia ($4.6 billion)
- #3 - France ($4.4 billion)
- #4 - United Kingdom ($1.9 billion)
- Authorized Small Arms Sales (Worldwide, Annual):
$4 billion (estimate)
- Illicit Small Arms Sales (Worldwide, Annual):
10-20% of the total trade in small arms (estimate)
- Number of Known Small Arms-Producing Countries
(Worldwide, 2003): 92 (estimate)
- Number of Known Small Arms-Producing Companies
(Worldwide, 2003): 1,249 (estimate)
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Recent
Cases
The following cases reveal some of the sources,
routes, and methods that gun runners use to acquire and deliver small arms
and light weapons.
- The Otterloo incident - In 2001, an Israeli arms
dealer operating out of Panama duped the Nicaraguan government into
selling him 3000 AK-47s and 2.5 million rounds of ammunition. The broker
said that he was procuring the weapons on behalf of the Panamanian
National Police, a claim ostensibly substantiated by a Panamanian
end-user certificate. It was a lie. The end-user certificate was a
forgery and the Panamanians had no knowledge of the deal. On November
2nd, the weapons were loaded into a Panamanian-registered ship named the
Otterloo, which departed from the Nicaraguan port of El Bluff the next
day. Two days later, it arrived in Colombia where the actual recipients
- members of Colombia's vicious paramilitary groups - were waiting to
claim their prize.
Sources: Small Arms,
Terrorism and the OAS Firearms Convention (pages 24-25 &
28-29)
The
OAS General Secretariat's Report on the incident.
- Victor "The Devil" Infante: On July 30th, 2003 U.S. law
enforcement officials observed an associate of Victor "The Devil"
Infante sending a Federal Express package from Los Angeles to the
Philippines. Infante was under investigation at the time for operating a
multinational firearms and methamphetamine distribution ring.
Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE) officials interdicted the Fed
Ex package and the accompanying airway bill, which falsely identified
the contents as a $30 camera tripod. Inside the package, agents found
parts for M-16 and AR-15 assualt rifles.
Source: "Victor
"The Devil" Infante Charged with Weapons Exportation and Methamphetamine
Distribution--Arrested in the Philippines" (ICE news release)
- Victor Bout, Pecos and Liberia: Unhappy with a consignment of
assault rifles they had ordered from a Slovak manufacturer, the Ugandan
government requested that the Egyptian who had brokered the original
deal return the rifles to the manufacturer. The broker agreed and
dispatched an Ilyushin-18 transport plane to pick up the rifles.
Unbeknonwst to the Uganda government, the broker had found a new buyer,
a Guinean arms brokering company (Pecos) founded by a Slovak broker
after criminal investigations in Europe forced him to shift his
operations elsewhere. Seven tons of the rifles were loaded onto the
plane and flown to Monrovia - a clear violation of a UN arms embargo on
Liberian President Charles Taylor's thuggish regime. Three days later,
the plane returned to Uganda to pick up the rest of the firearms. By
this time, the Ugandan government had caught wind of the diversion and
had impounded the guns. Subsequent investigations uncovered a vast arms
trafficking network comprised of front companies operated by the
infamous Victor
Bout and his associates.
Source: Report of
the Panel of Experts pursuant to Security Council resolution 1343
(2001), paragraph 19, concerning Liberia, United Nations Security
Council, S/2001/1015, 26 October 2001
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The International
Response
Major International Agreements
- U.S. Resource: U.S. Report
to the Second Biennial Meeting of States (BMS), July 2005.
Regional Agreements
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The U.S.
Response
The United States leads the world in efforts
to secure and destroy surplus and obsolete small arms and light weapons
and eliminate terrorist access to man-portable air defense systems. Below
are brief descriptions of these and other U.S. SA/LW initiatives:14
- SA/LW Destruction and Stockpile Security - Since 2001, the
State Department's Small Arms/Light Weapons Destruction Program has
facilitated the destruction of over 800,000 surplus small and light
weapons and 80 million rounds of ammunition in 23 countries. The Defense
Threat Reduction Agency has worked with officials in 19 countries to
improve the security and management of additional SA/LW stockpiles.
- Man-portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) - Since the late
1990's, the U.S. has led a global campaign to eradicate terrorist
acquisition and use of MANPADS. Their efforts have resulted in several
international agreements on the manufacture, transfer, and storage
of MANPADS, the destruction of over 13,400 excess missiles in 13
countries, and national controls on MANPADS exports and end-use
monitoring that are among the most rigorous in the world.
- U.S.
Report to the Second Biennial Meeting of States (BMS), July
2005.
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FAS Resources:
Publications
- ""Lord of
War:" An Arms Trade Analyst's Perspective" FAS Public Interest
Report, Fall 2005.
- "Connect
the Dots: US Gun Laws and the International Arms Trade," on-line
interview with PBS, July 2005.
- Small
Arms, Terrorism and the OAS Firearms Convention, FAS Occasional
Paper No. 1, March 2004.
- "MANPADS
Proliferation," FAS Issue Brief No. 1, January 2004.
- "OAS
Firearms Convention," FAS Issue Brief No. 2, January 2004.
FAS Resources: Data and
Documents
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Other Resources:
Government
Other Resources:
Non-governmental Organizations
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