Moscow. (RIA Novosti military commentator Viktor Litovkin.) The UN Information Center in Moscow held a briefing Wednesday for Russian and foreign journalists to discuss the problem of illegal trafficking in light and small arms.
Figures illustrate how serious the problem is: More than a thousand companies from 98 countries produce them, with 13 countries - Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Britain, and the United States - dominating the market. In total, 639 million light and small weapons have been produced in recent years, and 60% of them belong to civilians. Every year these weapons kill more than 300,000 people, of which just 90,000 perish in wars, inter-state, inter-ethnic, and local conflicts, and acts of terror.
The Geneva-based Institute of International Studies quoted these figures in small arms survey published at UN headquarters in New York. A month ago it played host to an international conference that discussed ways of limiting illicit trade in light and small arms. More than a hundred countries, including Russia, attended the conference.
Russia's delegate, Pyotr Litavrin, the deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Security and Disarmament Department, said: "Our country is very interested in taking tough and effective measures to curb the illicit spread of light and small arms, and their unlicensed production in different countries. This also applies to the Russian Kalashnikov brand. Some Eastern European countries, now NATO and EU members, have been involved with this assault rifle up to this day."
The problem is not only about huge financial losses. Litavrin refused to quote an exact figure: There are no official data because it is virtually impossible to measure illicit trafficking in small and light weapons. Independent experts estimate that Russia loses from unlicensed trade in these arms as much as it gets from official exports, or around $100 million.
But Russia also sustains an enormous humanitarian loss and detriment to its image. When terrorists kill innocent people with the famous Kalashnikov in the mountains of Afghanistan, or the streets of Baghdad, nobody wants to find out who produced this assault rifle: Russians or Pakistanis, say. Russia is always among the suspects, even though neither Russian defense plants, nor Rosoboronexport (Russia's state arms-export monopoly) sell weapons to individuals or non-governmental organizations. They always have the "end user certificate" given exclusively to official state structures.
The United Nations is convinced that the trade in light and small weapons, especially illicit trafficking, should be resolved quickly. But the world's biggest arms-makers are not interested in finding an unequivocal answer to suit everyone about how to block these weapons from penetrating semi-official and illegal world arms markets.
The cost of global production of light and small arms and ammunition was estimated in 2000 (more recent information is not available) at $7 billion. The United States and the European Union account for 70% of this total, and do not want to lose profits. Moreover, the U.S. Constitution allows everyone to buy small arms for self-defense, and nobody is going to change this.
So what should be done? So far the world community has agreed at the UN to toughen international and national control over trade in small and light arms, enhance protection of arms depots, and officially mark every unit and every cartridge in order to know who produced them and where, and who is responsible for their illicit supplies. States also decided to give financial and humanitarian aid to people with criminal records so that they could start a new life, and to conduct campaigns in order to purchase unregistered small and light arms and cartridges from the population.
In recent years during such campaigns almost 6,000 units of small and light arms and 140 tons of cartridges were bought in Albania, 2,800 units of small and light arms and 300,000 tons of cartridges in the Republic of Congo, 15,169 units of small and light arms, 60,000 grenades, and 5 million cartridges in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 4,000 units of small and light arms, 400,000 mines, cartridges, and explosive objects in Macedonia. This is very little when compared with the number of small arms still at large and killing people. But it is a first step.
The UN has not adopted a universal and binding resolution that should be implemented immediately. It has merely conducted a survey of the problem, and made some recommendations. Fulfillment will be reviewed exactly a year later, in August 2006.
