New Zealand: "Pacific neighbours under the gun"

[cuchulainn]

from the New Zealand Herald

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3350891&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

Pacific neighbours under the gun 05.04.2003
By THERESA GARNER
One idea for disposing of the guns of Bougainville is to put them in a museum so young people can see the reality of war. Peace has now crept across the island, which endured a decade of bloody civil war, but other countries in New Zealand's backyard show an appetite for arms which could bring the the same trial by violence.

A gloomy list of problems that plague Pacific nations was read at a New Zealand Institute of International Affairs seminar last year. They included the governance problems of inter-tribal warfare, corruption and nepotism, failures of public systems, international criminal activity, illegal fishing, pollution, youth idleness, poverty and, to top it off, natural disasters like hurricanes and tidal waves.

Against this backdrop, no one was surprised by the proliferation of guns.

But unlike the popular image of gun-running, crates of Kalashnikovs aren't smuggled on to moonlit beaches in the Pacific Islands. They "leak" straight from state armouries and police stations and into the hands of criminals.

Former Fair Go presenter and gun control lobbyist Philip Alpers flew to New Zealand this week from Boston, where he is a senior fellow at the Harvard Injury Control Research Centre.

He knows that the report he co-authored, Small Arms in the Pacific, has given the world's only minister for disarmament, Marian Hobbs, a wake-up call. She plans to use the report to measure what New Zealand is doing and close "any loopholes".

A Quaker who once worked with the Christian World Service aid agency, Hobbs has yet to make a mark in the Cabinet post she has held since last August, but announced the Alpers report with fanfare and is adamant New Zealand has a crucial role to play.

Alpers believes New Zealand and other countries must act quickly. "We have the luxury of foresight in the Pacific. It is one of the few regions that hasn't been saturated with high levels of small arms. Regional governments need to act. Legislative change is no good on its own."

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade review in 2001 confirmed that New Zealand should play a role in addressing threats to security in a region becoming increasingly known for coups, social unrest and economic decline.

The main thing on people's minds are the state armouries and police stations, where weapons can be unlocked for a range of purposes, from shooting a feral pig to protecting heads of state and handing out weapons to mates.

Helping our Pacific neighbours to improve their security and inventory management is high on the agendas for Australia and New Zealand. Both countries have had people island-hop around the Pacific giving training in munitions disposal and accounting procedures.

This is not without its challenges. Independent countries become concerned about others poking their noses into audits of gun stocks and are not keen to destroy old weapons they might use one day.

"The worst thing would be for Australia and New Zealand to start lecturing sovereign countries," said David Capie, whose book Under the Gun came out in February.

He said there was little evidence of governments turning a blind eye to criminals involved in trafficking or using guns. The big problem was a lack of resources and capacity to crack down on violent crime and illegal arms.

"It is well known that in Papua New Guinea many politicians are involved in trafficking weapons to their supporters in the highlands. In these remote areas, bullets are often more important than ballot boxes in determining who wins elections."

Capie, a research fellow at the Centre for International Relations in Vancouver, said the way weapons were stored in some countries was "appalling. You're talking about buildings not locked, no alarms, holes in the fence. The Australian and New Zealand Governments have spent money on trying to improve the situation."

But security was only as good as the person who had the key. "That is where you have to develop a more professional military and police force."

New Zealand and Australia, wary of indirectly fuelling armed conflict, have a declining role in exports. "You would want to encourage all governments exporting into the region to take a similarly strict approach," Capie said. "But it is difficult to say don't sell what is a legal product. We have to tackle the demand, not the supply."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is frank about the limitations of outside governments to deal with the problem.

Vince McBride, deputy director of the Pacific Division said there was no "waltzing in to disarm. The Solomon Islands asked Australia and New Zealand to send in the Army, but neither has been willing to do that because of the risk to their people."

In some cases the criminals outnumber and outgun the police. "The police in Papua New Guinea are not capable of taking guns from people," McBride said.

"In the Solomon Islands, many of the stolen guns are in the hands of police officers and their criminal contacts, who use them to extort money and commit crimes."

Bougainville, on the other hand, is in the end stages of the peace process and will farewell its international peace-monitoring group at the end of June.

"In Bougainville they wrecked their country down to subsistence level. People were worn out with war and wanted peace," McBride said. "It took them 10 years. In the Solomon Islands we hope it's not going to take 10 years to get the situation right."

Ten New Zealand "bobbies on the beat" are mentoring police in Honiara. "What we're doing is trying to get basic law and order back on the street," McBride said.

Many rogue police officers have illegal guns. "There is nothing that the New Zealand police project can really do about that. Whichever way you look at it, the Solomon Islands are in dire straits. We don't quite know where things will go."

The police project will cost around $750,000 a year, while the peace-monitoring group in Bougainville, with 20 New Zealand defence personnel and 11 Pacific Island peace monitors, will cost around $1.4 million this financial year.

In the past year, a further $1 million has been pumped into a disarmament trust fund in Bougainville and an awareness-raising programme. A further $50,000 went towards containers to hold the weapons that were collected. So far, nearly 2000 have been collected, but no one doubts that more remain.

Another organisation, the Pacific Co-operation Foundation, is still waiting for Government funding, but may also have a role to play in creating stability. Its chairman, Michael Powles, a former diplomat, said the foundation would build links to the region and increase understanding.

"We are getting reports of coups and armed clashes when they happen, but no real understanding of why they are happening. In terms of New Zealand being able to help, we need to lift our game. That means the Government of course, but frankly the media too, the private sector and everybody."

Powles said the gun problem had to be tackled as it was "immediate and present", but the underlying causes of disadvantage, tension and vulnerability which led to trouble needed to be addressed.

Hobbs said for successful disarmament, the whole community must be engaged. "That is why NZAID is working in the Pacific at many levels to achieve stability."

She said the Alpers report added weight to the push towards model firearms legislation for the Pacific, and identified areas where that legislation fell short of meeting the UN Programme of Action.

The programme came out of the UN Small Arms Conference two years ago. A fractious forum, it produced the first international framework to combat the illicit trade in small arms, but has been derided by some as a programme of inaction.

The Pacific developed its own initiative in the years leading up to the conference. The three-year-old Nadi Framework sought to encourage cross-border co-operation and harmonise domestic laws, but the Alpers report said many aspects had yet to be addressed.

It also warned that any solution has to take into account the culture of the Pacific, where in the Solomons, fights that began in World War II were only just being resolved.

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