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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3350511&thesection=news&thesubsection=general
Illegal guns threaten Pacific peace
03.04.2003
By THERESA GARNER
The Pacific is awash with illegal guns and lax security threatens the stability of the region as a whole, warns a report to the Government.
The 14-month study "Small Arms in the Pacific", published by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, looks at gun issues in 20 Pacific countries.
It highlights state armoury security risks pivotal to three major conflicts in the Pacific.
"In Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, groups bent on rebellion, intimidation and profit have treated state-owned armouries as gun supermarkets, uplifting weapons when needed," authors Philip Alpers and Conor Twyford wrote.
New Zealand's Minister for Disarmament,Marian Hobbs, described the report as a "wake-up call", and said she would be working to close loopholes identified.
"I am worried about access to guns," she said. "One tends to think of violence between different groups or even between neighbouring states as being Iraq-war type violence and you forget about the danger and the trouble that small arms can do in small communities. This has been a wake-up call for me.
"Unless we get the peace and growth with our neighbours, we are bringing something into our own backyard."
The report comes within a few months of Australian and New Zealand foreign ministers voicing concerns that Pacific troublespots are potential destabilisation targets for terrorist groups.
It says existing stockpiles are the main source of small arms for crime, rebellion and ethnic violence.
"Whether these spring from inadequately guarded state armouries or unmonitored private stocks, it is clear that current mechanisms often fail to prevent the transfer of small arms from legal owners to criminals."
Much more work needs to be done to improve the security and management practice of police and military armouries in many Pacific Island states, the report says.
The 3.1 million guns in civilian hands in the region outnumber those of the armed forces and police by a ratio of nearly 14 to 1.
"This study can only estimate that many hundreds of thousands of illegal firearms exist in the Pacific region."
Compared with other regions, Pacific stockpiles are tiny, but the weapons allow criminals to threaten the social and economic development of entire countries, the report says.
"Conflict anywhere in the region dampens financial confidence and tourist flows alike. The potential for further conflicts to bring on a region-wide recession cannot be dismissed."
However, the report says the region does not have its South Asian neighbours' level of illegal trafficking.
But a trade in illegal weapons into Papua New Guinea and Australia is evident, and loopholes and permissive attitudes encourage gun runners to mark countries as "soft entry points", the authors say.
The report calls for greater harmonisation of laws in gun owner licensing, gun registration and marking, ammunition availability, penalty regimes and border controls.
It warns that law changes could be "empty gestures" without region-wide training, monitoring, compliance and enforcement.
Many Pacific states, including Papua New Guinea, do not record health and justice information in relation to firearms, and without this key knowledge, the proliferation of guns seems destined to "get worse before it gets better", the report says.
Aspects of the Nadi Framework, adopted by the Pacific Islands Forum in 2000, have yet to be addressed "in full". The report says successful implementation would lead to improved security for state armouries, increased regional co-operation, and better understanding of the devastating consequences of the gun trade.
It ends: "The Nadi Framework promises to bring an element of uniformity to gun-control laws. Key governments and civil society groups seem united in concern, if not yet in action. Cultures of gun violence, even in war-torn Bougainville and the Solomon Islands, are still young. Much of the damage could yet be unravelled."
Armed and dangerous
* Inconsistent laws in Pacific leave the region vulnerable to gun-running.
* At least 25 nations legally export arms to the Pacific, with almost one-third of sales coming from the US.
* In the Pacific, firearms 'leaked' from lawful owners to criminals are the most common instruments of gun crime and violence.
* Pacific people are heavily armed, with 3.1 million firearms lawfully held in civilian stockpiles - one for every 10 people. This compares to one for every 16 on a world scale.
* A conservative figure puts the New Zealand ratio of legal guns per head of population (2 for every 9 people), at twice that of Australia.
Source: "Small Arms in the Pacific" report 2003.
©Copyright 2003, New Zealand Herald
