A problem bigger than WMDs: WIDs

Raenette Taljaard, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, New Heaven

As the world watched the principal U.S. investigator, David Kay, come up empty-handed in his search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, coalition force soldiers and civilians continued to perish. They are being killed by small arms and light weapons. Rocket-propelled grenades continue to rock the frontline of the post-conflict reconstruction effort as weapons inspectors keep up the hunt for WMD in Iraq. Meanwhile soldiers uncover small arms and light weapons caches with a near hum-drum regularity in Iraq.

The real weapons of mass destruction are not the ones being sought by David Kay in Iraq. To millions of people across the world they are the small arms and light weapons that wreak havoc and cause significant loss of life every day.

As United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said: "The death toll from small arms dwarfs that of all other weapons systems -- and in most years greatly exceeds the toll of the atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In terms of the carnage they cause, small arms, indeed, could be described as 'weapons of mass destruction.' Yet there is still no global non- proliferation regime to limit their spread."

Over 5,000 people died in 1988 in the town of Halabja when the Hussein regime launched a chemical attack on innocent Kurdish Iraqis. This compares with over 300,000 small arms-related deaths per year with incalculable costs for peace and development foregone in some of the most poverty-stricken countries.

It is estimated that wars fought with small arms and light weapons in Africa over the past decade have claimed more than 20 million victims. An estimated 2 million children have been killed, 5 million people have been handicapped, 12 million people have been left without shelter, and 17 million have been driven from their homes and/or countries.

With the global security and disarmament community renewing its focus on the proliferation of WMD in war on terror, and with new threats to global peace and security emanating from North Korea and Iran, the global diffusion of small arms and light weapons may slip onto the backburner of disarmament debates and action.

A recent report by Oxfam and Amnesty International expresses concern that the global campaign against terrorism has made handguns and other small arms more easily available in some countries as suppliers have loosened export controls for states allied to the U.S. in the "war on terror". In the same minute in which one person dies from armed violence, 15 new arms are manufactured for sale. There is no doubt that an expansion of the arms caches already in existence today will have dire consequences for developed and developing countries alike.

While WMD is taking center-stage, "weapons of individual destruction") WIDs pose an equally grave and great challenge, not only to developing countries gripped in conflict or making their way towards demobilization and peace, but to global security.

In Africa, small arms also find their way far too easily into the hands of child soldiers, many of whom, orphaned by the ravages of the HIV/AIDS crisis, turn to rebel groups and militias for their livelihood and survival.

A rash of weekly shootings and a recent blast that killed an innocent schoolteacher in eastern Kosovo raised international concern over uncontrolled weapons in this post-conflict zone. With UN estimates putting the number of small arms in Kosovo (ranging from Kalashnikovs to AK47s and rocket propelled grenade launchers) at approximately half a million, the UN Development Program recently launched a three-month public awareness campaign to be followed by tough criminal penalties for illegal gun ownership.

According to UN estimates, Afghanistan is home to between 500,000 and 1.5 million weapons. Some 300,000 child soldiers around the world are carrying pistols and machine guns. At least 639 million firearms are in circulation, with 1,134 companies in 98 countries actively producing these weapons.

No doubt the spread of WIDs in Africa have exacerbated near- intractable inter-state conflicts and civil wars, contributed to human rights violations where the population gets caught in the crossfire, and undermined political and economic development by entrenching conflict economies fueled by commodities and guns.

In sub-Saharan Africa alone some 30 million small arms and light weapons are in circulation. Many of these weapons circulate from conflict zone to conflict zone with ruthless arms brokers extracting huge profits.

The peddling of small arms and light weapons is deeply embedded in conflict economies -- whether civil war-based conflict or conflict intertwined with organized crime syndicates -- where natural resources, such as timber, minerals or conflict diamonds or other products such as narcotics are traded for these WIDs. Small arms therefore not only pose a disarmament challenge but also a formidable challenge for development and humanitarian intervention and assistance.

Against this stark backdrop of human devastation, the international community cannot afford to pick favorites for disarmament debates when it has such clear proof that WMD proliferation has caused less loss of human life than WID diffusion.

Worse, it cannot afford to squander what little political will can and must be mustered to tackle the small arms challenge. Already the signals on political will are disconcerting. The UN Security Council's Expert Panel reports on Sierra Leone, Liberia and Angola reveal how contemptuously arms brokers have defied UN arms embargoes and show a near complete inaction on the part of the international community to enforce them. And the recent UN Conference on small arms failed to enact the new small arms non- proliferation regime called for by Secretary General Annan.

The international community should adopt an all-encompassing new Arms Trade Treaty with clear provisions regulating transfers, marking and tracing of weapons, the role of brokers and containing prohibitions on transfers to non-state actors.

Instead, it has failed to rise to the challenge and adopted a mere political agreement -- the Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. While the program of action calls on states to undertake a host of steps at a national, regional and multilateral level, these steps are not binding. States can proceed in a discretionary fashion at any pace, if at all.

The failure to commit seriously to addressing the proliferation of WID is unconscionable. The world must realize the link between small arms and new security threats, and act swiftly to tighten regulatory mechanisms to counteract their proliferation. There can be no more lost opportunities.

In the post Cold War security threat world, both WMD and WID must be seen -- against the backdrop of failed states -- as indispensable parts of a disarmament continuum. Key countries, such as the United States, must be willing to engage the crucial questions of the need to establish and maintain controls over private ownership of these deadly weapons and their proliferation to non-state groups. This will require Washington to work hand-in-hand with the international community on disarmament matters.

The writer is a member of the South African Parliament. She is currently a Yale World Fellow. This article appeared in YaleGlobal Online, (www.yaleglobal.yale.edu) a publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, and is reprinted by permission.