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Global News Wire - Asia Africa Intelligence Wire
Copyright 2003 Accra Mail
African Church Information Service - AAGM
February 10, 2003
LENGTH: 1016 words
HEADLINE: WHERE SMALL ARMS CAN BE TRADED FOR A CHICKEN
BYLINE: Osman Njuguna
BODY:
That Africa is awash with small arms, despite being a negligible producer, and not always at war, is cause for concern. Observers say civil conflicts currently being experienced in parts of the continent are mostly responsible for the mess. But the United Nations recalls that the proliferation of light weapons on the continent started during the Cold War era, reports Osman Njuguna.
Human rights organisations refer to the prevalence of small arms and light weapons as a situation where arms are being used in the absence of conventional wars. They explain that the weapons could prevail in armed robberies, cattle rustling and civil conflicts.
Such is the situation in Africa. The ready availability of small arms and light weapons in parts of the continent, has been a subject of concern.
Top on the list are the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa regions. Here, the prevalence of civil conflicts has heightened the presence of small arms and light weapons.
The most affected countries include Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
But while this is the situation on the ground, it is also a fact that Africa hardly manufactures such arms. From where then, do they originate?
According to the United Nations (UN), millions of light arms " lightweight, highly portable, and devastatingly effective in the hands of even young or poorly trained users " were shipped to Africa during the Cold War to equip anti-colonial fighters, newly independent states and super-power proxy forces.
'The collapse of the Soviet bloc saw a new flood of small arms entering Africa, as manufacturers put additional millions of surplus Cold War era weapons on the international arms market at cut-rate prices,' states a UN publication titled Small Arms: Counting the Cost of Gun Violence.
Todate, in some parts of Africa, a Soviet-designed AK-47 assault rifle, coveted for its simplicity and firepower, can be purchased for as little as $ 6, or traded for a chicken, or sack of grain.
A 1999 Red Cross report estimated that in the Somali capital (Mogadishu) alone, the 1.3 million residents possessed over a million guns, out of an estimated 550 million small arms in circulation world-wide. The ratio of gun-to-man in this city could therefore, be close to one-to-one.
A human rights report on Kenya, released last May titled Playing With Fire: Weapons Proliferation, Political Violence, and Human Rights in Kenya, cites this East African state as an example of countries that have turned victims of the situation due to their geographical position.
'Kenya is vulnerable to weapons trafficking because of its geographic location in a conflict-ridden region,' the report says.
It explains: 'The weapons circulating in Kenya originate from places as far away as China and the United States, but most of them passed through war zones in neighbouring countries before making their way to Kenya's illegal gun markets'.
For years, Kenya's territory has been a conduit for weapons shipments destined to nearby areas of violent conflict, but more recently, the spread of weapons has spilled back into Kenya itself, according to Human Rights Watch.
A recently released report on a global survey on internally displaced people by the Geneva-based Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), confirms that the continent imports most arms.
The report titled, Internally Displaced People: A Global Survey, also notes that there is manufacture of weapons in parts of the continent, even though limited.
In North Africa, for example, countries like Egypt, Sudan, Algeria and Morocco have varying levels of irregular production capacities.
Countries with production capacities of weapons in sub-Saharan Africa are Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
South Africa is singled out as being Africa's largest and most sophisticated producer of arms.
What worries more though, is the effortless access to the small arms and light weapons. Quite often, they end up in the wrong hands.
According to NRC, the easy presence of light weapons on the continent is responsible for fuelling civil wars and conflicts.
This, according to Ms Virginia Gamba, a former director of the Arms Management Programme of the South African Institute for Security Studies (ISS), poses a major threat to Africa's development.
The UN publication (Small Arms: Counting the Cost of Gun Violence) states: 'Reducing the availability and use of small arms in places where fighting has ended has become increasingly important to Africa's development prospects, as the number of conflicts has increased over the past decade.'
It notes that the widespread abuse of weapons diverts scarce government resources from health and education to public security, discourages investment and economic growth, and deprives developing countries of the skills and talents of the victims of small arms.
However, attempts are being made to remedy the situation. An example cited by the NRC report is a Declaration of a Moratorium on Importation, Exportation and Manufacture of Light Weapons In West Africa in 1998, which the entire 16 member states of the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) signed.
More recently, the southern Africa regional Action Programme on Light Weapons and Illicit Arms Trafficking has sought to strengthen regulation and control of small arms and light weapons.
Former immediate Anglican archbishop, Rt Rev Dr David Gitari of kenya, while commenting on the subject, said recently: 'External people, institutions or governments, should feel obliged to battle out the issue, because they have contributed in creating it'.
Rev Gitari was delivering a public lecture on the topic, Towards Conflict Resolution, in Kenya mid last month.
He observed that 'churches should feel obliged to participate in battling out the issue, because it has negative impact on the life of the people through avenues such as escalation of civil conflicts'.
Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media. (allafrica.com)
Copyright 2003 Accra Mail
African Church Information Service - AAGM
February 10, 2003
LENGTH: 1016 words
HEADLINE: WHERE SMALL ARMS CAN BE TRADED FOR A CHICKEN
BYLINE: Osman Njuguna
BODY:
That Africa is awash with small arms, despite being a negligible producer, and not always at war, is cause for concern. Observers say civil conflicts currently being experienced in parts of the continent are mostly responsible for the mess. But the United Nations recalls that the proliferation of light weapons on the continent started during the Cold War era, reports Osman Njuguna.
Human rights organisations refer to the prevalence of small arms and light weapons as a situation where arms are being used in the absence of conventional wars. They explain that the weapons could prevail in armed robberies, cattle rustling and civil conflicts.
Such is the situation in Africa. The ready availability of small arms and light weapons in parts of the continent, has been a subject of concern.
Top on the list are the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa regions. Here, the prevalence of civil conflicts has heightened the presence of small arms and light weapons.
The most affected countries include Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
But while this is the situation on the ground, it is also a fact that Africa hardly manufactures such arms. From where then, do they originate?
According to the United Nations (UN), millions of light arms " lightweight, highly portable, and devastatingly effective in the hands of even young or poorly trained users " were shipped to Africa during the Cold War to equip anti-colonial fighters, newly independent states and super-power proxy forces.
'The collapse of the Soviet bloc saw a new flood of small arms entering Africa, as manufacturers put additional millions of surplus Cold War era weapons on the international arms market at cut-rate prices,' states a UN publication titled Small Arms: Counting the Cost of Gun Violence.
Todate, in some parts of Africa, a Soviet-designed AK-47 assault rifle, coveted for its simplicity and firepower, can be purchased for as little as $ 6, or traded for a chicken, or sack of grain.
A 1999 Red Cross report estimated that in the Somali capital (Mogadishu) alone, the 1.3 million residents possessed over a million guns, out of an estimated 550 million small arms in circulation world-wide. The ratio of gun-to-man in this city could therefore, be close to one-to-one.
A human rights report on Kenya, released last May titled Playing With Fire: Weapons Proliferation, Political Violence, and Human Rights in Kenya, cites this East African state as an example of countries that have turned victims of the situation due to their geographical position.
'Kenya is vulnerable to weapons trafficking because of its geographic location in a conflict-ridden region,' the report says.
It explains: 'The weapons circulating in Kenya originate from places as far away as China and the United States, but most of them passed through war zones in neighbouring countries before making their way to Kenya's illegal gun markets'.
For years, Kenya's territory has been a conduit for weapons shipments destined to nearby areas of violent conflict, but more recently, the spread of weapons has spilled back into Kenya itself, according to Human Rights Watch.
A recently released report on a global survey on internally displaced people by the Geneva-based Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), confirms that the continent imports most arms.
The report titled, Internally Displaced People: A Global Survey, also notes that there is manufacture of weapons in parts of the continent, even though limited.
In North Africa, for example, countries like Egypt, Sudan, Algeria and Morocco have varying levels of irregular production capacities.
Countries with production capacities of weapons in sub-Saharan Africa are Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
South Africa is singled out as being Africa's largest and most sophisticated producer of arms.
What worries more though, is the effortless access to the small arms and light weapons. Quite often, they end up in the wrong hands.
According to NRC, the easy presence of light weapons on the continent is responsible for fuelling civil wars and conflicts.
This, according to Ms Virginia Gamba, a former director of the Arms Management Programme of the South African Institute for Security Studies (ISS), poses a major threat to Africa's development.
The UN publication (Small Arms: Counting the Cost of Gun Violence) states: 'Reducing the availability and use of small arms in places where fighting has ended has become increasingly important to Africa's development prospects, as the number of conflicts has increased over the past decade.'
It notes that the widespread abuse of weapons diverts scarce government resources from health and education to public security, discourages investment and economic growth, and deprives developing countries of the skills and talents of the victims of small arms.
However, attempts are being made to remedy the situation. An example cited by the NRC report is a Declaration of a Moratorium on Importation, Exportation and Manufacture of Light Weapons In West Africa in 1998, which the entire 16 member states of the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) signed.
More recently, the southern Africa regional Action Programme on Light Weapons and Illicit Arms Trafficking has sought to strengthen regulation and control of small arms and light weapons.
Former immediate Anglican archbishop, Rt Rev Dr David Gitari of kenya, while commenting on the subject, said recently: 'External people, institutions or governments, should feel obliged to battle out the issue, because they have contributed in creating it'.
Rev Gitari was delivering a public lecture on the topic, Towards Conflict Resolution, in Kenya mid last month.
He observed that 'churches should feel obliged to participate in battling out the issue, because it has negative impact on the life of the people through avenues such as escalation of civil conflicts'.
Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media. (allafrica.com)
...which was a little overpriced last time I went to the supermarket. 
